Monday round-up

This weekend’s clippings continued the focus on the same-sex marriage cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor, argued late last month.  In the Los Angeles Times, David Savage and Maura Dolan discuss comments made by several Justices at the oral arguments suggesting that same-sex parenting was “a new and uncertain development”; they report that these comments have “startled child development experts as well as advocates of gay marriage, because there is considerable research showing children of gay parents do not have more problems than others.” Writing for the Huffington Post, Peter Dreier compares the same-sex marriage cases to Loving v. Virginia and concludes that “[i]t is hard to see how the legal case for same-sex marriage is any different.”  Also at the Huffington Post, Donna Hall notes that the “media coverage of the hearings highlighted the incisive questioning of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan” because “the quotable zingers and tough interrogation belonged entirely to the women.” [Disclosures: Kevin Russell of the law firm Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, was among the counsel on an amicus brief filed by former senators in support of Edith Windsor in Windsor. Tejinder Singh, also of Goldstein & Russell, was among the counsel on anamicus brief filed by international human rights advocates in support of the respondents in Perry.]

Additional coverage of the Court this weekend addressed two of the Term’s other cases.  In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Jeffrey Rosenfeld and Christopher Mason urge the Justices to hold that human genes are not patentable in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., writing that if the Court “allows these types of patents to stand, it will put the endeavors of openly researching, preventing and treating lethal diseases on a lower level of importance than a set of ill-conceived property rights.” And in an op-ed for USA Today, James Bovard argues that the Court should “smack down the raisin racket” at issue in Horne v. Department of Agriculture, in which the Court is considering which legal avenue – a regular federal district court or the Court of Federal Claims – a company must use to challenge the government’s assessment of a sizable fine for violating a federal agency’s order, when the company claims that the fine is an invalid “taking” of property.

Briefly:

• At the blog of the National Constitution Center, Lyle Denniston examines the twice-relisted cert. petition in Elmbrook School District v. Doe, which asks the Court to decide whether the Establishment Clause prohibits the government from conducting a high school graduation in a church building if the function has no religious content and the government selected the venue for reasons of secular convenience.
• Writing for the Huffington Post, Laura Bassett discusses the prospect that the Court will take up the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate in the next year, in light of the Tenth Circuit’s recent agreement to expedite and hear en banc a lawsuit that challenges this provision.
• At Cato at Liberty, Ilya Shapiro discusses the Cato Institute’s amicus brief in Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International.
• PBS’s Judy Woodruff speaks with retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor about her new book, Out of Order, which contains a collection of historical anecdotes about the Court.
• UPDATED: Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, which filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, will hold a press briefing on the case, which is scheduled for oral argument next week.  Interested media should email [email protected] or call 917 365-7848 to RSVP for the call. 
• In a post at the U.K. Supreme Court Blog, this blog’s Lyle Denniston describes the same-sex marriage cases as a “political issue gone legal.”