Ruth Bader Ginsburg last night said she sees “no urgency” for the Supreme Court to take up a same-sex marriage case right now.
Speaking at the University of Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis Tuesday night, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dropped a bombshell. The 81-year old Clinton appointee said she sees “no urgency” for the Supreme court to take up a same-sex marriage case, as long as the appellate courts continue to strike down marriage bans.
But Ginsburg did warn that could change when the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rules on cases from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.
The head of the high court’s progressive wing, Ginsburg did say “there will be some urgency” if the 6th Circuit rules differently than all the other appeals court have. That would create a constitutional conflict the Supreme Court would need to address, mandating action.
But until there is a ruling upholding state bans on marriage, legally she says there is “no need for us to rush.”
The news was shocking in light of the jurist’s comments this summer. Justice Ginsburg in July famously said the Supreme Court will not “duck” the issue of same-sex marriage, and went as far as stating she expects the Court to take a case and decide it no later than June of 2016, or possibly earlier.
As reported earlier, all eyes will be on the Court September 29. The Court will have the opportunity and it was widely reported the nine Justices will debate taking up a case in a closed door session. It was expected the court would possibly announce it would hear a case then.
The AP reports that “Ginsburg spent 90 minutes before an audience of hundreds discussing her two decades on the Supreme Court as well as her days as an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer.”
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Hat tip: AP
Image by Stanford Law via Flickr
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