Court Decision Quotes

• The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.

  Anthony Kennedy

  Rights, Gay Marriage, Promise

  Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, 192 L. Ed. 2d 609, footnote #22, June 26, 2015.

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• No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.

  Anthony Kennedy

  Sacrifice, Two, People

  "Read the 7 Most Memorable Passages in the Gay Marriage Decision" by Ryan Teague Beckwith, time.com. June 26, 2015.

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• The Supreme Court of the United States is an institution damned by God Almighty.

  Jimmy Swaggart

  Religious, Court Judges, Law Courts

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• Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.

  Antonin Scalia

  Hippie, Mean, Thinking

  Antonin Scalia (2016). “Scalia's Court: A Legacy of Landmark Opinions and Dissents”, p.187, Regnery Publishing

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• I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.

  Samuel Alito

  Home, School, Government

  "Faith, Family, and Religious Freedom: A Conversation with Justice Samuel Alito". Interview with Eric Banecker, www.semcasual.org. May 17, 2017.

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• To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.

  Antonin Scalia

  Sex, Decision, Gay Marriage

  "Who is Antonin Scalia and why is he out of touch with changing social views?" by Dan Roberts, www.theguardian.com. December 12, 2015.

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• In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well, today's decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter.

  Clarence Thomas

  Change, Religious, Decision

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• If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: 'The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,' I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.

  Antonin Scalia

  Rights, Fortune Cookie, Gay Marriage

  "This Scalia Zinger Is the Funniest Footnote to Come Out of the Supreme Court This Term" by Shane Ferro, www.businessinsider.com. June 26, 2015.

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• The Constitution contains no 'dignity' Clause, and even if it did, the government would be incapable of bestowing dignity. ... Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits.

  Clarence Thomas

  Government, Humanity, Gay Marriage

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• What's important to me now is to uphold my good name and achieve a fair court decision - the past cannot be recovered anyway.

  Mikhail Khodorkovsky

  Past, Names, Decision

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• I’ve chosen not to challenge the rule of law, because in our system there really is no intermediate step between a Supreme Court decision and violent revolution. When the Supreme Court makes a decision, no matter how strongly one disagrees with it, one faces a choice –are we, in John Adams’ phrase, a nation of laws, or is it a contest made on raw power?

  Al Gore

  Law, Choices, Decision

  "Gore Sees No Reason to Run" by Patrick Healy, thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com. May 25, 2007.

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• The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision.

  David Boies

  Past, Rights, Decision

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• It baseball is an American institution and more lasting than some marriages, war, Supreme Court decisions and even major depressions

  Art Rust, Jr.

  Depression, Baseball, War

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• Thirty-two years after the legalization of abortion by the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, the majority of Americans consider themselves pro-life.

  Rick Santorum

  Years, Two, Pro Life

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• For thirty years, beginning with the invention of a privacy right in the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, the Left has been waging a systematic assault on the constitutional foundation of the nation.

  David Horowitz

  Years, Decision, Foundation

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• Bullying wasn't okay in elementary school and it isn't okay now, especially when it comes in the form of a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

  John Doolittle

  Bullying, School, Decision

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• The felonious five in their Supreme Court decision never said Gore did anything improperly in Florida.

  Vincent Bugliosi

  Florida, Decision, Court

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• A Supreme Court decision does not establish a "supreme law of the land" that is binding on all persons and parts of government, henceforth and forevermore.

  Edwin Meese

  Government, Law, Land

  United States. Dept. of Justice, Edwin Meese (1989). “Major Policy Statements of the Attorney General: Edwin Meese III, 1985-1988”

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• Well, they really didn't have to worry, because the way power politics works, the World Court can't do anything. Look, there's one country in the world at the moment which has refused to accept World Court decision-that's the United States. Is anybody going to do anything about it?

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Worry, Decision

  "Chomsky on Haiti". Interview with Keane Bhatt, www.counterpunch.org. March 9, 2010.

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• I had been thinking independently about our ability to forget things that happened, specifically, events that clearly were wrong, that crossed the line. It seemed to me during the 2000 election recount that the media's narrative was being orchestrated. Shockingly, after the Supreme Court decision, the media simply said, "Time to move on," end of reporting: "Here's the new story." And everyone forgot.

  Robert Kane Pappas

  Moving, Thinking, Media

  "Can the Corporate Media Turn Lies Into Truth?". Interview with Mark Karlin, www.scoop.co.nz. August 12, 2011.

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• That's a question best put to Bernie Sanders himself, but I think that he will probably put forward ideas that are related to the corrupting role of Citizens United and Buckley versus Valeo court decisions and the need to restore a by-and-for-the-people republic envisioned in our Constitution instead of the of-, by- and for-the-most-powerful system that we have right now.

  Jeff Merkley

  Powerful, Thinking, Ideas

  "Lone Senator To Endorse Bernie Sanders Reacts To Clinton Victory". "All Things Considered" with Robert Siegel, Ari Shapiro, www.npr.org. June 8, 2016.

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• Take a look at the Supreme Court decision that just authorized an effort by U.S. claimants against Iran for terrorist acts. What are the terrorist acts? The terrorist acts are bombings of U.S. military installations in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, which Iran is claimed to have something to do with. Well suppose they did. That's not terrorism. I mean if we have a military base in Lebanon that while we're shelling Lebanese naval ships, the Navy is shelling Lebanese installations and somebody attacks [that's not terrorism].

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Mean, Iran

  "Anti-Intellectualism, Terrorism, and Elections in Contemporary Education: a Discussion with Noam Chomsky". Interview with Dan Falcone, www.counterpunch.org. June 3, 2016.

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• That very document [Constitution] does little to serve people when Supreme Court decisions are written so that even high-priced lawyers can't figure them out.

  Mike DeWine

  People, Decision, Doe

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• We want this - and I - we hope that right when they come back, that the Congress passes the Lilly Ledbetter Act which would correct the Supreme Court decision that was just recent that essentially guts wage discrimination law. It's been in place for years. It was gutted by this Roberts Court. We want it to be reversed by legislation. We hope that Congress passes it and that is on the desk for [Barack] Obama to sign as one of his first acts once he's sworn in. So it - I could go on, we have quite a well-developed list.

  Eleanor Smeal

  Years, Law, Decision

  Interview with Joanne Bamberger, www.blogher.com. December 22, 2008.

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• I think that the influence of people with power and money to distort democracy and have their interests served before the rest of the population is the biggest problem. That is caused by two things: campaign finance and the way that's structured, and by the Citizen's United supreme court decision. So those two things are keeping democracy from working right.

  Shepard Fairey

  Thinking, Two, People

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