What To Do Now Regarding US Marriage and Sex Laws

Others have written much about what the Supreme Court of the United States did with the Dobbs case. The extreme basic explanation regarding law (not addressing any other realities or results) is that the US has three branches of Federal government: Executive (President), Legislative (Congress), and Judicial (Supreme Court and lower Federal courts) and a Constitution that is supposed to be the highest law. There are also the governments of the 50 states, each having their own three branches and set of laws for their state, all supposedly subject to the Constitution. (In addition to State governments, there are also governments for indigenous peoples, and territories like Puerto Rico, and other non-State areas like Washington, D.C., etc.) The Supreme Court ruled, in contradiction to earlier rulings and thus overturning those earlier rulings, that the Constitution doesn't require it to prevent states from having their own laws regarding abortion. The result as far as laws go is that California can have laws saying abortion won't be restricted and Texas can have laws banning abortions. Each state will have their own laws. Unless the Congress passes a law for the entire country. That's a very simplified version of what happened.

One of the members of the nine-person Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, issued his own opinion agreeing with the majority decision. From that opinion...

Griswold was the ruling that states can't ban birth control.

Lawrence was the ruling that states can't ban gay sex.

Obergefell was the ruling that removed all state bans on same-sex monogamous nonconsanguineous marriages.

Time to panic about relationship rights? No. But it is time for action. Please permit me to explain. Read the whole thing above, not just the highlighted part.

1. None of the other members of the Court concurred with Thomas. That means none of them said those other rulings need to be reconsidered. They'd need at least five of them to agree to take a case that would involved reconsidering those rulings.

2. In order for those issues to be brought back to the Supreme Court, a case would have to wind its way through the lower courts and the Supreme Court would have to agree to take the case. See point 1. A state would have to ban birth control, gay sex, or same-sex marriage with legislation and then actually enforce the ban, but that ban would most likely be struck down by the State court, and if not, by a Federal court. States do not have unlimited funds to even attempt to defend such unconstitutional bigotry, especially when a significant majority of the people living in them wouldn't support that bigotry.

3. Even if the Court did take up those issues again, and even if others on the Court agree that the reasoning behind the rulings was wrong (both extremely unlikely to happen), they can say the rulings themselves are still correct based on other reasoning. (To be ridiculously simplistic, it could be like saying that a private store owner doesn't have to accept $5 in payment consisting of one cent coins - the earlier rulings - but would have to accept the payment with five one-dollar bills or a five-dollar bill. The store owner still has to accept the payment. Coins are not legal tender in the US, dollar bills are. If I think of a better analogy I might replace this one.)

Regardless, we need to ensure we make progress sooner rather than later, and resist going any further back. If you're not already active, please get active. There are many ways to help. Here are some...

• Contact your Federal legislators (your two Senators, your Representative) and State legislators (could be Assembly and/or Senate) and demand a Federal and State Marriage Equality Amendment. Also contact your Governor demanding support for that. (If not an Amendment, they must at least remove all laws criminalizing consensual sex and discriminating against adults who want to marry.)
• Demand your District Attorney stop prosecutions for consensual (to be redundant) sex.
• Demand your Sheriff's Department or Police Department stop arresting people for sex.
• Demand your County Supervisor and CEO or equivalents declare their support for a Marriage Equality Amendment and repeal of all laws criminalizing sex, and instruct the Sheriff to stop arresting people for sex.
• Demand your City Councilmember, Mayor or equivalents declare their support for a Marriage Equality Amendment and instruct the Sheriff or Police stop arresting people for sex.
• Consider running for these positions yourself or joining the staff of these offices in order to bring about progress yourself.
• If you are a judge, do what you can to prevent bigotry against lovers.
• If you serve on a jury involving a case related to these issues, do the right thing.
  
• Support legal funds that will fight for rights.
• If you can and you're not already in one, move to a State that (better) protects your rights in its State laws.
• Speak up and stand up for the rights of all. Do not let them divide us.

If the Court is going to leave things up to States or Congress, we must take action at the State level and in Congress. Even though it is highly unlikely Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell will be overturned, it's still the right thing to do to make sure our State and Federal laws line up with full marriage equality, and to fight for a Constitutional Amendment.