Category: Politics
Supreme Court punts on revisiting landmark gay marriage decision
The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal that was thought to be the only case that had standing to challenge the landmark 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized so-called same-sex marriage.
On Monday, Supreme Court justices denied a petition for a writ of certiorari for the case Kim Davis v. David Ermold, et al., according to court documents.
‘If ever a case deserved review, the first individual who was thrown in jail post-Obergefell for seeking accommodation for her religious beliefs should be it.’
There were no notable dissents in the order, and no justices recused themselves.
Photo by Ty Wright/Getty Images
The appeal was brought by Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who was briefly jailed after refusing to issue marriage licenses for a homosexual couple who are party to the suit.
Davis was also ordered to pay $100,000 in damages plus another $260,000 in legal fees, according to her attorneys.
Her refusal to issue the marriage license was on religious grounds, raising serious First Amendment questions.
Davis’ appeal opens: “If ever a case deserved review, the first individual who was thrown in jail post-Obergefell for seeking accommodation for her religious beliefs should be it.”
Of the three questions presented in the petition, the last reads: “Whether Obergefell v. Hodges … and the legal fiction of substantive due process, should be overturned.”
Although Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas have previously indicated a willingness to reconsider Obergefell, Davis’ case was always considered to be an uphill battle since four justices would need to assent to hearing it.
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Olympics committee expected to reverse course on men in women’s sports
The International Olympic Committee is set to make some significant changes to its rules about men participating in women’s sports categories.
According to the Times, the IOC will likely announce a ban on so-called “transgender women” competing in female sports.
‘We have to do that to ensure fairness. And we have to do it with scientific approach.’
This policy change comes after a “science-based” study led by Dr. Jane Thornton showed that men have significant physical advantages over biological women.
“It was a very scientific, factual, and unemotional presentation which quite clearly laid out the evidence,” one source told the Times.
RELATED: Medical exam reveals Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif has testicles, a penis, and XY chromosomes
Photo by Li Jing/Xinhua via Getty Images
Last year, the committee faced heated controversy after Algerian trans-identifying boxer Imane Khelif beat a woman to tears in the ring. A report later revealed a medical document showing that Khelif, who took home the gold medal after dominating the 66 kg women’s competition, has XY chromosomes.
The IOC’s shift in opinion on the issue of trans-identifying athletes follows a change in leadership in June of this year. The new president of the IOC, Kirsty Coventry, indicated that there was “overwhelming support” for changing the rules to “protect the female category.”
“We have to do that to ensure fairness. And we have to do it with scientific approach and with the inclusion of the international federations who have done a lot of work in that area. So we have to bring in the experts — that will take a little bit of time — and the international federations so that we have full buy-in and cohesion on this specific topic,” Coventry said at a press conference shortly after becoming president.
Coventry said the rules will not have a retroactive effect, indicating an unwillingness to revisit the Khelif controversy: “We are not going to be doing anything retrospectively. We are going to be looking forward. And again, from the members that were here, it was: What are we learning from the past, and how are we going to leverage that and move that forward to the future, and how are we going to strengthen the movement as we move into the future?”
The policy change will likely be announced in early February before the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy, according to Fox News.
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Sierra Club embraced social justice, DEI after being ‘flush’ with cash — and then destroyed itself: NYT
A New York Times report documents how the environmentalist Sierra Club group imploded after trying to maneuver into diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in the last few years.
The report included many firsthand accounts of how racial activists were brought into the fold and then colonized the environmental mission, leading to the downfall of the organization.
‘That’s fine, Delia. But what do wolves have to do with equity, justice, and inclusion?’
The Sierra Club was one of the foremost influential environmentalist groups before it allowed social justice proponents to hijack its agenda, the report suggested. The result was a drop in donations and membership and a rise in layoffs.
A tax filing analysis showed that the group consistently brought in tens of millions of dollars more every year than it spent from 2015 until 2019. In 2020, it was about even, but the expenditures far exceeded revenue in 2022 and 2023.
“Sierra Club is in a downward spiral,” read a letter to the leadership from a group of managers.
The Sierra Club had about four million members and supporters in 2019 but has lost a whopping 60% of those since, the report claimed.
The report said the organization pivoted to expand its focus during President Donald Trump’s first term to include racial justice, labor rights, gay rights, immigrant rights, and other causes. That experiment failed so badly it had to fire Ben Jealous as executive director, whose previous job had been heading up the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
On the way there, the group aliened many of its dedicated volunteers.
It drove away longtime volunteers who loved the club’s single-minded defense of the environment, by asking them to fully embrace its pivot to the left. Some even felt they were investigated by the club for failing to go along. Many hard-core supporters felt the Sierra Club was casting aside the key to its success: It was an eclectic group of activists who had one, and sometimes only one, cause in common.
The Sierra Club also issued an “equity language guide” that warned employees against using problematic words, including “vibrant,” “hardworking,” “lame duck session,” and even the word “Americans.”
One Sierra Club director objected to a budget that paid for only two full-time employees to fight Trump’s policies on the Arctic refuge while funding the equivalent of 108 full-timers on DEI. They passed the budget despite his protest.
After former President Joe Biden won the election in 2020, the report said that the Sierra Club lost supporters over a public argument about making Israeli divestment an environmental issue. The group backed off on the issue but not before damaging support.
RELATED: Wisconsin mom who criticized ‘woke, White’ social justice coordinator beats defamation lawsuit
One anecdote included in the report was a staff member’s response to an ecologist volunteer who opined that Sierra Club should seek more protections for the wolf population in Colorado.
“One of the staff said, ‘That’s fine, Delia. But what do wolves have to do with equity, justice, and inclusion?’” she recalled.
The Colorado chapter responded: “No one was investigated or accused of values misalignment on the basis of wolf conservation efforts.”
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