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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