Justice Ginsburg: Supreme Court hugs gay rights, won't let women 'decide for themselves what their destiny will be'

Justice Ginsburg: Supreme Court hugs gay rights, won&#039;t let women &#039;decide for themselves what their destiny will be&#039;

(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg welcomes the Supreme Court's recent embrace of gay rights, telling a law school last week that in the past few years, the high court has used lofty language about the bedrock values of "liberty and equality" and "equal dignity" when it comes to same-sex marriage, relationship, and family issues. But, The New York Times notes, Ginsburg is less enthusiastic about the Supreme Court's recent history with gender issues, including equal pay, abortion and contraception, and medical and family leave.

The high court, and especially its current all-male five-justice conservative majority, has never fully embraced "the ability of women to decide for themselves what their destiny will be," Ginsburg told an audience at Duke University School of Law. The conservative wing has especially "ventured into a minefield" with its Hobby Lobby decision, she said, positing, "What of the employer whose religious faith teaches that it's sinful to employ a single woman without her father's consent or a married woman without her husband's consent?"

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Justice Kennedy is the product of a placid middle-class existence in which most women stayed within traditional roles. Some of his judicial writing, Justice Ginsburg once wrote in dissent, reflected "ancient notions about women's place in the family." But Justice Kennedy, 78, has long had gay friends, and his legal philosophy is characterized by an expansive commitment to individual liberty. [The New York Times]

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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