Scalia Unhinged: Activist Supreme Court says; Hey, we’re taking away your vote…but look, we’re defending gay marriage.

Big Picture: Funny how the bad news, voter suppression is constitutional, is about to be buried under the praise and adulation in the media over the passage of gay marriage.

The media might also like to focus on the partisan judicial activism on full display by the unwavering conservative Justices legislating from the bench. These guys know they are now the de facto governing body, usurping the legislative branch. It’s time to question the credibility of Alito, Scalia, Roberts and Thomas.

All the coverage so far has been devoid of legal opinions from the likes of Jonathan Turley, Jeffrey Toobin and others. So many legal, factual questions need to be cleared up. Anyway, here’s what happened:

Sections from Kennedy Decision

jsonline: The Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act "… Under DOMA, same-sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways," Justice Kennedy said.

How anyone could not see the problem with DOMA is beyond me, but…

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. Scalia read his dissent aloud. Scalia said the court should not have decided the case. But, given that it did, he said, "we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation."

Get that? Scalia first says he has the power to overturn the Voting Rights Act adopted by legislation, but then loses that power when it comes to overturning DOMA? I’m not making sense of this, and another reason why I want a lawyer.

UPDATE: I just found this quote from Scalia's dissent over DOMA, which is just amazing when you consider how he ordered congress to rewrite the Voting Rights Act:

"That is jaw-dropping. It is an assertion of judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive. It envisions a Supreme Court standing (or rather enthroned) at the apex of government, empowered to decide all constitutional questions, always and every- where “primary” in its role."

State Bans on Gay Marriage Unaffected: You would think the ruling on DOMA, similar to state bans, would overturn those laws too, but it doesn't.

The court also voted 5-4 in its decision to leave in place the initial California trial court declaration that the state's ban is unconstitutional. The high court itself said nothing about the validity of gay marriage bans in California and roughly three dozen other states, including Wisconsin.

Surprising too were the flip flopping conservative Justices who upheld the gay marriage ban in California as unconstitutional, but saw no problem with the federal law. My head is spinning:

The outcome was not along ideological lines. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia.