How would that argument fit with the Court's rejection of the Griffin analogy in Palmer v. Thompson? Griffin involved a system in which there were still state-funded - though privately operated - schools that were racially segregated. In Palmer, the Court stressed that this wasn't so as to the swimming pools. "[T]he Griffin case simply treated the school program for what it was -- an operation of Prince Edward County schools under a thinly disguised 'private' school system actually planned and carried out by the State and the county to maintain segregated education with public funds. That case can give no comfort to petitioners here. Unlike Prince Edward County, Jackson has not pretended to close public pools only to run them under a 'private' label."
Likewise, under Kim Davis's approach, there was no discriminatory marriage system that is being run in parallel with government funding (discriminatory, that is, between same-sex and opposite-sex marriages). All couples in Rowan County had to travel out of the county to get their marriage licenses and certificates, regardless of whether they were same-sex or opposite-sex couples. Again, that might be an unconstitutional burden on the right to marry. But I don't see how Griffin can, in light of Palmer, make it into an Equal Protection Clause violation. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brian Landsberg Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2015 10:49 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: What's happening in KY? -- wrong case, wrong parties Another possible analogy, perhaps, is Griffin v. County School Board, where the Court said: "Prince Edward's public schools were closed and private schools operated in their place with state and county assistance, for one reason, and one reason only: to ensure, through measures taken by the county and the State, that white and colored children in Prince Edward County would not, under any circumstances, go to the same school. Whatever nonracial grounds might support a State's allowing a county to abandon public schools, the object must be a constitutional one, and grounds of race and opposition to desegregation do not qualify as constitutional.... ". While the assistance there to private schools is not paralleled here, the underlying principle seems parallel: a county may not suspend issuance of marriage licenses based on opposition to same sex marriage. Sent from my iPad
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