Waiting for Justice: Voting Rights and Gay Marriage

UPDATE: In a 5-4 ruling, a sharply divided court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, but upheld Section 5.

The high court ruled that Congress may “draft another formula based on current conditions,” which will reflect how racial discrimination has changed in recent years, and which states would be covered by the law. 

Read more here. We continue to wait for the rulings on gay marriage. 

Today is a potentially big day at the U.S. Supreme Court, and that is not just because it is Justice Sotomayor’s birthday. 

We have no idea which opinions or how many of them will be handed down today, but we do know two things. The clock is ticking on the Supreme Court’s term (it ends this week) and they have yet to release the most potentially significant decisions, regarding Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Once the decisions are made public, Big Think and other sites will be scrambling to make sense of them, and avoid situations like this:

In the video above, it is clear that FOX News defers to Bloomberg’s SCOTUSBlog to get their reporting of the ruling right. We suggest you do as well, and follow the LIVE updates here.

The image at the top of this post depicts the Supreme Court fountain this morning (Art Lien). (h/t SCOTUSBlog)