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‘Ominous Opinion’: Same-Sex Marriage Targeted Again in Latest SCOTUS Ruling, Expert Warns
In a 6-3 decision along partisan lines the right-wing justices on the U.S. Supreme Court once again targeted the landmark 2015 Obergefell same-sex marriage decision, leading liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor to sound “alarm bells” on marriage equality in her dissent a legal expert says, warning that they may try to “roll it back.”
The case involves Sandra Muñoz, a U.S. citizen who argued that the federal government’s denial of a visa for her husband, who lives in El Salvador, deprives her of her constitutionally protected right to liberty.
The right-wing majority in a decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett ruled: “A citizen does not have a fundamental liberty interest in her noncitizen spouse being admitted to the country.”
Friday’s ruling “undermines same-sex marriage,” Bloomberg Law reports Justice Sotomayor’s dissent warns.
Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern has covered the courts since 2013, and is the author of a 2019 book on the Roberts Supreme Court.
“Justice Sotomayor, in dissent, accuses the conservative supermajority of cutting back the rights guaranteed in Obergefell—the same-sex marriage decision—and of repeating ‘the same fatal error’ it made in Dobbs,” Stern writes. “A very ominous opinion.”
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The “fatal error” in Dobbs was ignoring precedent.
“Justice Sotomayor says the burden of today’s decision will ‘fall most heavily’ on same-sex couples, many of whom cannot safely reside in the non-citizen’s home country,” Stern adds. “Her dissent is littered with alarm bells about Obergefell.”
He points to this from Sotomayor’s dissent, a citation from the Obergefell decision:
“A traveler to the United States two centuries ago reported that ‘‘[t]here is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is so much respected as in America.’ ‘ ”
“Today,” Sotomayor continued, “the majority fails to live up to that centuries-old promise. Muñoz may be able to live with her husband in El Salvador, but it will mean raising her U. S.-citizen child outside the United States. Others will be less fortunate. The burden will fall most heavily on same-sex couples and others who lack the ability, for legal or financial reasons, to make a home in the noncitizen spouse’s country of origin.”
Again quoting Obergefell, she adds, “For those couples, this Court’s vision of marriage as the ‘assurance that while both still live there will be someone to care for the other’ rings hollow.”
Stern warns: “I think Justice Sotomayor is clearly correct that the Supreme Court’s gratuitous attack on the constitutional rights of married couples in Muñoz—especially same-sex couples—suggests that the conservative justices hate Obergefell and may roll it back.”
Sotomayor began her dissent also with a quote from Obergefell: “The right to marry is fundamental as a matter of history and tradition.”
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She warns that the right-wing majority could have appropriately issued a narrow ruling but instead chose to hand down a broad decision:
“The majority could have resolved this case on narrow grounds under longstanding precedent,” she writes. “Instead, the majority today chooses a broad holding on marriage over a narrow one on procedure.”
Justice Sotomayor again points to same-sex marriage:
“Muñoz may be able to live in El Salvador alongside her husband or at least visit him there, but not everyone is sovereign lucky. The majority’s holding will also extend to those couples who, like the Lovings and the Obergefells, depend on American law for their marriages’ validity. Same-sex couples may be forced to relocate to countries that do not recognize same-sex marriage, or even those that criminalize homosexuality.”
She also noted, “The constitutional right to marriage has deep roots,” and “The constitutional right to marriage is not so flimsy,” while warning “the majority departs from longstanding precedent and gravely undervalues the right to marriage in the immigration context.”
Two years ago almost to the day, when the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade and stripping away the constitutional right to abortion, Stern warned the Court, especially Justice Thomas, would come for contraception, same-sex intimacy, and same-sex marriage:
Clarence Thomas, concurring, explicitly calls on the Supreme Court to overrule Griswold (right to contraception), Lawrence (right to same-sex intimacy), and Obergefell (right to same-sex marriage). https://t.co/bVOozFPA5d pic.twitter.com/yZLA6DhYh5
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) June 24, 2022
Two years before Dobbs, Stern also warned Justice Thomas was targeting same-sex marriage, writing that “Thomas (joined by Alito) wrote a jaw-dropping rant taking direct aim at Obergefell and suggesting that SCOTUS must overturn the right to marriage equality in order to protect free exercise.”
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Image via Shutterstock
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Fox News hosts are suggesting that President Donald Trump is just an average guy.
In a segment on the cable network’s “Outnumbered” on Wednesday, co-host Harris Faulkner told her colleagues, “it’s ironic, though, but he’s not really all that different.”
Faulkner then sought to portray Trump — a billionaire real estate developer who owns multiple golf courses and the Mar-a-Lago resort — as relatable, describing him as “just a guy’s guy” and “not really all that different” from ordinary Americans.
“He loves McDonald’s,” she said.
“He likes to hang.”
“He loves his family.”
“And kind of, like, not that McDonald’s is poor to being, like, an all American, but I think it is — love those fries,” Faulkner remarked.
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“But, I mean, he’s all those things that you don’t have to have a billion dollars or have to have zero dollars to get,” she exclaimed. “He’s just a guy’s guy.”
Faulkner went on to say that Trump “respects women.”
“He’s hired a lot of tremendously talented women — we’ve met them.”
“My dad,” she added, “used to say, the test of a man is how he treats the women in his life.”
“Can he be that alpha, and be loving, and generous, and all those things?”
Co-host Riley Gaines added, “They called him a misogynist but really he’s the worst misogynist, ever.”
Faulkner: He’s a billionaire—he’s different. It’s ironic though he’s not all that different. He loves McDonald’s, he loves his family. He is just a guy’s guy. pic.twitter.com/TorAoZXzmB
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 14, 2026
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A prominent House Republican is calling for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify before Congress over her failure to comply with the requirements of federal law surrounding the release of the Epstein Files.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act required the federal government to release all unclassified documents in the Epstein files by December 19. Reports state that less than one percent of all the documents have been made public.
U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the lead co-sponsor of legislation forcing a vote on the release of the files, on Wednesday said that the Attorney General “should be called to testify in the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee where she must answer for her failure to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.”
READ MORE: Federal Officer Who Shot Renee Good ‘In Hiding’: Report
Congressman Massie also called it “unusual” that Bondi has “never appeared in front of the House Judiciary Committee.”
Massie, along with California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, last week asked a federal judge to consider appointing a special master to oversee the production and publication of the Epstein Files.
“Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act,” Massie and Khanna wrote to Judge Paul E. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York, according to Politico.
“I think it’s the quickest way to produce, to expedite the document production, because these lawyers at the DOJ understand what judges can do in courtrooms,” Massie added. “And they are already communicating with that judge, even though they’re not communicating with us.”
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) told CNN that “Donald Trump continues to lead a White House coverup of the Epstein files.”
“Why has it been weeks now, weeks, that the date has passed, where all the files should have been released to the Congress and to the public? We have received one percent of the files. That is criminal, it’s illegal. What is Pam Bondi and Donald Trump hiding?”
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Image via Reuters
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross, who reportedly fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, at point-blank range in Minneapolis last week, is now said to be in hiding.
“I know for a fact now he has to be in hiding … for the safety of him and his family,” Trump border czar Tom Homan said during an episode of the “Will Cain Country” podcast, according to The Hill.
Homan alleged that there are “wanted” posters with Ross’ picture and license plate number, and said that Ross is receiving death threats.
“It’s beyond the pale,” Homan added.
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He also suggested that Ross may decide to take legal action against those who have labeled him a murderer.
Vice President JD Vance said that Ross and all ICE officers have absolute federal immunity. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said Ross has “federal immunity.”
“The precedent here is very simple,” Vance said, according to CNN. “You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action – that’s a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job.”
Legal experts disagree.
“The idea that a federal agent has absolute immunity for crimes they commit on the job is absolutely ridiculous,” said Michael J.Z. Mannheimer, a constitutional law expert, told CNN.
The Trump Department of Justice has said it will not open a civil rights investigation into Ross’ shooting of Good.
President Donald Trump claimed that Good was acting in a “disrespectful” manner while he defended the ICE officer.
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Image via Reuters
Trump Blasted Federal Prosecutors as ‘Weak’ for Not Targeting His Adversaries: Report
Federal Officer Who Shot Renee Good ‘In Hiding’: Report
House Republican Calls for Bondi to Testify Over Epstein Files ‘Failure to Comply’
Fox Hosts Try to Convince Viewers Trump ‘Not Really All That Different’ From Them
Fox Hosts Try to Convince Viewers Trump ‘Not Really All That Different’ From Them
House Republican Calls for Bondi to Testify Over Epstein Files ‘Failure to Comply’
Federal Officer Who Shot Renee Good ‘In Hiding’: Report
Trump Blasted Federal Prosecutors as ‘Weak’ for Not Targeting His Adversaries: Report
Trump Declares Grocery Prices ‘Rapidly Down’ as Cost of Food Surges to 3-Year High
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