your link for the 2nd circuit is the same link for the 4th......so one of these links, at least, is a lie..........regardless they did not have the right to avoid that precedent
A mistake in copying a link incorrectly is not a lie. Here is the corrected link -->>
http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisio...6-98fa59ffb645/1/doc/12-2335_complete_opn.pdf
They didn't "avoid" the precedent. Avoiding the precedent would have been not mentioning it.
But they did mention it.
Precedent's are not inviolate such when the conditions under which the precedent are not the same or when the SCOTUS indicates that the previous conditions no longer apply. Which of course exactly what happened with Roamer v. Evans, Lawrence overturned Bowers and when they issued the Windsor decision, all showing that homosexual have due process and equal protection rights.
If the SCOTUS had thought that Baker was still applicable, then they would have slapped down the first appeal that reached them concerning SSCM. But they didn't. In the end the District and Circuit Court Judges got the
correct read from the SCOTUS as they specifically overturned Baker as part of Obergefell.
>>>>
saying that the SCOTUS would have done the right thing in slapping down the appeal.........when of course their mind was already made up ...........is kind of a circular argument. ...............
No, its a clear demonstration that you don't know what you're talking about. You're insisting that the lower courts were bound to Baker, when they weren't.
The lower court rulings overwhelmingly relied on more recent precedent, most relevantly tghe the precedent of Windsor. With its communication of the court's position on same sex marriage so clearly that even Scalia said it was 'beyond mistaking' and that the State same sex marriage bans being overturned using the logic of Windsor was 'inevitable.'
Scalia and the lower courts were right on how to interpret the Windsor ruling: the USSC did affirm same sex marriage and did overturn state marriage bans. The lower courts got it right. With the exception of the 6th which the USSC reviewed and overturned.
Your position that the lower courts should have ignored Windsor, Lawrence and Romer in favor of Baker was wrong. As the USSC demonstrated so elegantly in Obergefell.