Jackson holds firm in questioning over marriage equality
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling for same-sex marriage — issued nearly seven years ago in 2015 — is considered settled law and in the rear-view mirror of history for many Americans, but Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) opted to press Ketanji Brown Jackson on the decision as an example of policy-making from the bench in questions during her confirmation hearing.Jackson, nominated by President Joe Biden to serve on the U.S.
Supreme Court, stood firm March 22 in response to the questions despite lamentations from Cornyn the decision found a due process and right for same-sex couples to marry that overruled the will of the people who voted to ban gay nuptials in his state."That is the nature of a right," Jackson replied. "When there is a right, it means that there are limitations on regulation, even if people are regulating pursuant to their sincerely held religious beliefs."In the nearly 15-minute exchange between Cornyn and Jackson, the Texas Republican pressed her on the expansive interpretation by the courts of due process and equal protection clauses, which he said led to Supreme Court decisions condemned to the dustbin of history like Dred Scott v.
Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson. The Dred Scott decision, in 1857, said that all people of African descent, free or enslaved, were not United States citizens and therefore had no right to sue in federal court.
The Plessy v. Ferguson case, in 1896, upheld the constitutionality of segregation as long as such facilities were equal in quality, which came to be known as "separate but equal."Cornyn, however, also included with those rulings the 2015 decision in Obergefell v.
