Raw Story

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that brings same-sex marriage back into the national debate, featuring a familiar face for those who have followed this issue over the past dozen years. However, one retired Harvard constitutional law scholar thinks he knows what will unfold once the high court rules.

For the past ten years, same-sex couples have had the same freedoms as straight couples, including access to civil marriage and the legal protections that come with it.

Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who spent six days in jail after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, is now appealing a verdict that requires her to pay $100,000 in restitution and $260,000 in attorneys' fees to the couple she targeted. Davis claimed that issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple violated her religious beliefs.

In her filing, Davis called the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges “egregiously wrong.” “The mistake must be corrected,” said Davis’ lawyer, Mathew Staver, in the filing.

In other cases involving public officials refusing to do their jobs for religious reasons, legal decisions have been mixed. For example, a baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding won her case. However, in a case involving a Minnesota pharmacist who refused to sell Plan B or “the morning after pill,” the courts ruled that the pharmacist could deny the medication as long as another pharmacist was available to dispense it.

Former constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe pointed to Davis’s case and a recent USA Today article, which cited the 2022 passage of the Respect for Marriage Act. The law, which passed Congress with bipartisan support, requires all states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages.

"It wouldn’t surprise me if SCOTUS took up this case and ruled (wrongly) for Kim Davis on religious freedom grounds but declined (rightly) to consider her outlandish request that Obergefell be overturned," said Tribe on Bluesky.

Georgia law professor Anthony Michael Kreis similarly pointed out, "There’s also federal statutory protections on the books. And it would be a very messy right to dismantle."

"We certainly know that [Justices Samuel] Alito and [Clarence] Thomas would gladly walk Obergefell back," he added. "But, the Court as it is comprised of now, almost surely doesn’t have the appetite. Anything is possible, but [Justices Amy Coney] Barrett and [John] Roberts (I suspect [Brett Kavanaugh] Kav too) aren’t going to bite. Don’t trust them. But let’s be good legal realists."

Lawyer and journalist Imani Gandy authored a thread where she explained why she is less optimistic.

"We've had a decade of marriage equality—and that may be all we get," said Gandy. "Just like I warned about Roe for years, I'm warning you now: Obergefell is absolutely on the chopping block. The same 'history and tradition' test that killed abortion rights? That's their blueprint for same-sex marriage."

Even if Davis is unsuccessful, Gandy thinks "Christian conservatives will find another one. Don't let anyone tell you the polling is too strong. 61% of Americans supported abortion rights too. This Court doesn't care about public opinion. The votes are there. Thomas and Alito have been gunning for Obergefell since day one. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett all signed onto Dobbs using the framework they'll use against marriage equality. Roberts literally read his Obergefell dissent from the bench—he's THAT mad about it. That's 6 votes."

Vice President JD Vance’s visit last week to a small community in Southern England has been met with fierce protests from locals, and while most of the opposition stems from the Trump administration’s policy positions, a number of locals are growing increasingly frustrated with Vance's accompanying security detail, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

“We’ve had a curtailment of our freedoms here, just by his mere presence, in terms of where we can walk and where we can be,” said Steve Akers, deputy mayor of Chipping Norton, just over three miles away from Vance’s vacation home in Dean, speaking with the Wall Street Journal.

“And the American Secret Service knocking on people’s doors and asking about their Facebook profiles.”

Vance and his family are staying at an 18th-century manor house in Dean, which he rents for nearly $11,000 a week. He’s characterized the visit as both a family vacation and a diplomatic visit, and is expected to return to the United States on Friday, marking the trip as the vice president’s longest since assuming office.

His ten-day visit, however, has already caused chaos in the small English community, as well as communities outside of Dean, sparking further outrage for longtime residents.

“Roads near the tiny hamlet of Dean, where the Vance family has been staying at an 18th-century manor, have been closed and only residents are allowed through,” wrote Roya Shahidi with the Wall Street Journal.

“Some in Dean have complained that local police or the U.S. Secret Service have knocked on their doors to verify their identity and even ask about their social-media profiles, according to local officials.”

A no-fly zone was also established over the Dean community and beyond, impacting the British television personality Jeremy Clarkson, former host of the popular British Broadcasting Corporation show “Top Gear,” who owns a farm near Dean, the subject of an ongoing reality show “Clarkson’s Farm,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

President Donald Trump has found a new role for his daughter Ivanka in his second administration—Ultimate Fighting Championship event coordinator for a historic White House bout.

The 43-year-old former senior adviser, who largely dropped out of the political spotlight after being front and center during her father's first presidency, is now spearheading plans for the first UFC fight ever held on White House grounds.

"When [Trump] called me and asked me to do it, he said, 'I want Ivanka in the middle of this,'" UFC CEO Dana White revealed on CBS Mornings Tuesday. "So Ivanka reached out to me, and her and I started talking about the possibilities, where it would be and, you know, I put together all the renderings."

The president, a devoted UFC fan who has attended multiple fights cage-side with his eldest daughter, has been floating the White House fight concept for months. White confirmed the event will take place July 4, 2026, launching America's 250th birthday celebration.

"It is definitely going to happen," declared White, whose influence with young male voters reportedly helped Trump's 2024 victory. CBS News confirmed a White House source verified the event planning.

Ivanka's return marks a dramatic shift after her self-imposed political exile. Following four years as a senior adviser managing economic initiatives, she rejected involvement in Trump's 2024 campaign, citing the "darkness" of politics.

"I love policy and impact. I hate politics. And unfortunately, the two are not separable," she explained on the Him & Her podcast before Trump's January inauguration. "I know the cost, and it's a price that I'm not willing to make my kids bear."

While Trump weathered controversies and global tensions, Ivanka maintained distance, attending elite social events like Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's Venice wedding. However, the opportunity to organize a groundbreaking sports spectacle—with guidance from her casino-owning father who previously hosted UFC events—apparently proved irresistible for the mother of three.

A Danville, Virginia, city councilman was set on fire by a man who broke into his workplace and doused him with gasoline, WBTM reported.

Lee Vogler was attacked after the suspect entered the offices of Showcase Magazine, where Vogler is an employee.

Vogler tried to escape the building after the man dumped a 5-gallon bucket of gasoline on him, but was set on fire after the suspect chased him down, the report said.

"Vogler is awake and talking," the report said. He is being treated at a burn center in Lynchburg.

Police arrested Shotsie Michael Buck Hayes, 29, of Danville, in the attack.

"Based on the investigation at the time of this release, the victim and the suspect are known to each other and the attack stems from a personal matter not related to the victim’s position on Danville City Council or any other political affiliation," the report said.

Read the WBTM article here.

There are still some centrist Democrats in Washington who want to be seen as above politics, rather than of politics, and so take great care to make sure you understand that the Epstein scandal is “bull----,” and that they have nobler things to do, like serving the American people.

It so happens that’s what the president would like us to do — focus on how well the economy is performing, for instance, or on the allegations that Barack Obama cheated on the 2016 election, whatever that’s supposed to mean. In other words, Donald Trump would rather we pay attention to something else. Anything but the Epstein scandal.

Fortunately, I think this holier-than-thou attitude among certain moderate (and unnamed) members of the Democratic caucus is not representative of the whole party. Even Nancy Pelosi — the centrist’s centrist — has come around. First, the former House Speaker said the Epstein scandal was “a distraction.” But she voted with other House Democrats to release the Epstein files.

Here and there are hints that ambitious Democrats recognize that the Epstein scandal is the best frame in which to shoehorn virtually all their allegations against the president. Even if the facts of the Epstein case are never fully known, the scandal itself still remains the most constructive means of convincing not only a majority of the people, but his own people, that Donald Trump isn’t what he appears to be.

If we boil down the Epstein scandal to a word, it might be “weakness.” MAGA world was willing to overlook virtually any crime Trump committed with the understanding that he would, as president, use that power to bring to justice people who were, in MAGA’s eyes, “the real criminals.” Who those “criminals” were can be found here. Anyway, it’s safe to say MAGA gave Trump the power, then he … didn’t use it.

I think, as far as MAGA is concerned, the psychological ramifications of weakness are deeply hidden beneath all other considerations. Right now, there’s focus on details, like the fact that Trump gave Jeffrey Epstein a birthday note in which he appears to joke about their shared interest in sex with underage girls, and the fact that Trump’s goons at the Justice Department are now trying to get Epstein’s accomplice, who is currently serving the rest of her life in prison on child-sex trafficking convictions, to declare that Trump never knew Epstein and Epstein never knew Trump, in exchange for a presidential pardon.

But MAGA isn’t a detailed-oriented bunch. They supported Trump for 10 years because he was supposed to be the biggest and strongest of the big and strong, a man of action willing to break all the rules to “restore justice,” because all the rules had been corrupted by “the real criminals.”

Yet when it came time to act — to release the Epstein files, thus exposing a cosmic conspiracy against America — Trump choked.

As far as MAGA is concerned, every question about the Epstein scandal is downstream from the fact that Trump didn’t use the power he was given to do what he was supposed to do. Even if Trump manages to paper over the scandal, by getting convicted child-sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell to say nice things about him, for instance, he still can’t explain his impotence. Indeed, the more he papers it over, the more he deepens the appearance among his own people that he’s weak.

This weakness, and the implied fraudulence within it, could be the foundation for what some might call a “permission structure” in which GOP voters are allowed to complain about Trump without seeming liberal or woke or some other thing that’s taboo in their communities. They might vote for a Democrat or, likely, stay home on Election Day.

Without this permission-structure, the Democrats would have a much harder time reaching GOP voters. As long as the president was the ultimate victim of a conspiracy against America, and the ultimate hero ordained to save America from the greatest of evils, no amount of suffering would divide them. The Democrats could talk all day every day about rural hospitals closing and Medicaid vanishing as a result of Trump’s big budget bill, and GOP voters would never blame him.

But with a permission-structure in place, or a semblance of one, GOP voters might start believing the Democrats or even better, they might start believing the evidence of their own eyes. The consequences of Trump’s policies — mainly his tariffs and “One Big Beautiful Bill” — will be felt hard. GOP voters and their families will suffer. However, instead of complaining about their suffering, and looking weak to their peers, they might find ways to complain about Trump’s weakness in the face of their perceived enemies, therefore, remaining loyal to their cause.

They can say they didn’t leave Trump.

Trump left them.

But the Epstein scandal has potential to widen in such a way that the president’s base is no longer our primary focus. Indeed, it is the ideal framing for attracting virtually anyone with a generalized sense that something is deeply and perhaps irreversibly wrong with this country. I think it would be especially effective for people who do not follow politics except as a form of entertainment. (The so-called Joe Rogan crowd.) It can be short-hand for the fact that the rich and powerful regularly act outside the boundaries of the law while the rest of us watch our hopes and dreams go up in the smoke. In the case of Epstein, young girls were groomed, consumed and thrown away.

In other words, people believe there is a conspiracy against America, because there is a conspiracy against America. The difference is that some of them believe the bad guys are Satan-worshiping Jews who drink children’s blood and sell girls for sex, while others believe the bad guys are rich white men like Trump who act with total impunity.

A new poll released by Fox shows broad public awareness of the Epstein scandal as well as broad public skepticism of the Trump administration’s handling of it.

“Only 13 percent think the government has been open and transparent about the Jeffrey Epstein case, while more than five times as many, 67 percent, disagree — including 60 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of MAGA supporters. One voter in five says they haven’t been following the case.”

Trump is weak, but within that weakness is a deep moral cancer that requires broad acts of liberal reform through democratic means to restore justice and heal the republic. The longer the Epstein scandal goes on, the more the president brings needed attention to that cancer. As Lindsay Beyerstein said, he is literally trying to get a woman who is “a pedophile, a sex trafficker and a perjurer … to vouch for him.”

Sadly, some centrist Democrats see the Epstein scandal as “bull----.”

They should, however, see it as a means of achieving a noble end.

Unlike most polls that propose answers, a new Washington Post survey asked voters open-ended questions requesting responses about President Donald Trump's scandal around Jeffrey Epstein and the documents surrounding his investigation.

The poll was conducted by text to a random sample of 1,089 people, according to the Post, and "was weighted to match U.S. population demographics, partisanship and 2024 vote choice." The margin of sampling error was "plus or minus 3.3 percentage points," the report said.

The survey revealed that just 38% of Republicans approved of Trump's handling of the scandal. Trump typically enjoys high support among Republican voters, but even that has fallen over the issue.

Trump's "disapproval" rating for the way he's handling the scandal reached 58% in the Post survey with only 16% willing to say they "approve" of the way Trump is handling the matter.

Meanwhile, 67% of respondents wanted all of the files to be released from the case, not merely the grand jury testimony or a few documents. Another 19% said that they "somewhat support" the release. The total of the two marked a whopping 86% of respondents who want the files released.

While several participants self-identified as MAGA Republicans, even some of those supporters were unwilling to give Trump a pass.

"Everything else in his campaign has been about transparency, why not this?" texted a 24-year-old MAGA Republican woman from Washington state, according to the Post. She wasn't the only young MAGA follower to question the president.

"I want to know who is on the list and if Donald Trump is on the list," answered a 25-year-old Illinois man who identified as a MAGA Republican.

A 47-year-old non-MAGA Republican from Utah commented, "The information should just be released. Instead of doing this, he has been attempting to minimize their importance and misdirect focus elsewhere."

Another non-MAGA Republican, 54, told the Post, "He has been claiming for years he would release the files. Now he is trying everything he can to not release the files because he knows he is on the list."

See the full responses here.