Wow. Everything Ginger just said.

That dissent is, at the very least, going to make it difficult for the SCOTUS to turn around and overturn this ruling.

I don't think so. Dissents set no precedent, so Scalia and the rest of 'em are free to ignore it.

The problem with the yahoos who are always nattering on about the founders is that they don't know who the hell the founders were or what the Constitution says.

I have a packet Constitution that my Law and Policy prof (a judge) gave us last semester. My all time favorite thing is to hand it to people when they talk about their Constitutional right to vote for the President. I may be outwardly cranky about that particular item.

Dissents set no precedent

This question has nothing to do with Prop. 8 -- what's the point of the dissents, then? If they don't mean anything, why bother to commit them to record? Just an ego thing?

ION, Happy National Clown Week

YES, Ginger.

I am REALLY cranky today, but I want to throttle my boss for telling someone to type in "H-T-T-P-colon-Backslash-Backlash"

Ha ha ha! I was cranky like that last week. Things that are objectively eye-rolly were making me apoplectic. (That specific thing still makes me insane, though.)

It's an ego thing, an outrage thing (see Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Lily Ledbetter), a not so subtle hint for attorneys who might want to argue in the future... But they are nothin' but dicta.

But they are nothin' but dicta.

Huh. That's interesting.

Heck, huge chunks of opinions are dicta not precedent.

It makes the little law student brains go 'splody sometimes.

Huh. Turns out I really intensely do not like arugula. Do I have to turn in my liberal elitist card? I still look down on people, honest!