This is the Kator Daily Podcast for Thursday, October 8th, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Adding to the nervousness of a potential new Republican appointed justice on the Supreme Court.

Some comments from Justice Clarence Thomas have renewed fears that same-sex marriage

legalized with the Oberge-Oberga-Feld decision may soon be at risk if not overturned outright. How reasonable are those

concerns. Cato's Walter Olson discusses what renewed this fear. There is a concern

primarily on the left that based on some statements made by Justice Clarence Thomas in denying cert to case brought by Kim Davis here in Kentucky about her refusal for the most part of

willing to certify gay unions. In denying that case Justice Thomas wrote that Obergefell the case that legalized

same-sex marriage nationwide that it would have and would continue to have, in his words, some disastrous consequences.

And a lot of people have taken that, again primarily on the left, to mean this is Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito

beginning to lay the groundwork to attempt to overturn Obergefell and leave the decision about gay marriage to states.

What was Thomas saying and is that a fair assessment?

It's a very strange concurrence and it doesn't say how far Thomas and Alito would actually go.

They want to revisit the intersection of the Obergefeld decision with the religious liberty.

That much is clear, and it's very strongly stated, it's very critical of Obergefell.

But do they just want to adjust how it inter relates with religious liberty?

Do they want to go further and strike down part of it because it's in their view inconsistent with religious liberty or do they want to strike down all of it?

Since as they say they disagreed with its original rationale, they descended at the time.

Those are three different positions.

We don't actually know whether they both have the most extreme position,

whether in fact they have the same position as each other.

We know that they are demanding something that would be happening anyway, which is the court

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