For
the issue was among the cases that the nation’s high court heard this spring,
and is expected to issue a ruling on some time later this week (maybe even as
early as Tuesday).
BUT
WHEN I learned of the court’s ruling Monday with regards to affirmative action,
I couldn’t help but wonder if those people felt a little bit foolish for
waiting.
Probably
not! Many of those individuals have no factor for feeling shame. Many of them
just want to delay the issue – perhaps out of some misguided belief that it
will go away if they don’t think about it.
Now
what do affirmative action and gay marriage have to do with each other?
It
just seems that the high court was desperately trying to avoid doing something
that would be seen as definitive in the case involving admissions policies at
the University of Texas.
THE
CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGUES who want to do away with policies that try to balance
out the factors in our society that can hold back certain individuals from
achieving their full potential would have loved it if the Supreme Court had
upheld a lower court’s ruling that found flaws in the university’s policies.
Instead,
the Supreme Court told that lower court to reconsider the way it reviewed the
case. The Supreme Court seemed to imply there might be flaws in the lower court’s
rejection.
It’s
as though the Supreme Court doesn’t want to be the entity that strikes down
attempts to restrict affirmative action policies. But they also don’t want to
do anything that could be interpreted as giving “aid and comfort” to those
policies as well.
Are
we going to get another ruling later this week that manages to take the same
attitude toward gay marriage?
IF
I HAD to put money down on a bet, I’d be willing to say the answer is “Yes.”
Perhaps
this case will wind up being thrown back to the individual states to resolve
for themselves. Perhaps Illinoisans are going to have to figure out for
ourselves what to do with this issue.
Which
would mean that all that was accomplished with the failure to pass the bill in
the Illinois House of Representatives this spring was that several more months of
time were wasted.
And
our state managed to lump itself for a few months in with the states of the Old
Dixie that probably will take a certain amount of pride in being the final
states of the Union to take up the issue.
ILLINOIS
CERTAINLY ISN’T going to be at the forefront of this issue.
Now
for those people who are going to start citing political strategy at me to
defend the failure of the Illinois House to even vote on the bill, don’t
bother. I get it.
Having
some sort of vote just for the sake of putting people on the record as being
opposed might have resulted in an overwhelming defeat that would have given the
same “aid and comfort” to those ideologues and their personal hang-ups about
our society.
At
least this way, there’s still a bill pending in the Illinois House that already
has Illinois Senate approval. The whole legislative process doesn’t have to
start over.
I
SHOULD STATE one thing here. I don’t know for a fact that the Supreme Court of
the United States will take this same attitude toward gay marriage. Nobody
knows what the high court will ever do until they literally do it.
Way
too much of what passes for reporting about appeals courts borders on
predictions that are about as legitimate as those funky people who read tarot
cards at sleazy carnivals.
All
I know for sure is that it is likely that those people who were expecting a
definitive direction from the Supreme Court on this issue are likely to be
among the disappointed by week’s end.
-30-
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