- SCOTUS rules that the right to same-sex marriage is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment
IT'S ABOUT DAMNED TIME! Here's the beginning of what the Supremes held (.pdf):
Held: The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State. Pp. 3–28.
- What’s Next for the GOP After the Obamacare Ruling?
Notwithstanding Scalia's dissent, the GOP lost this one, and politically, they should be grateful; the new law is very popular. Ryan Grim and Dana Liebelson at HuffPo have gathered the worst of Scalia's rantings (sorry; that's what they are) for your amusement.
(For the record: contrary to fundamentalist rantings, Stella and I, who could always legally marry if we wanted to, did not feel any shift in our relationship this morning, only gratitude that now some of our gay friends in long-term committed couple relationships can marry [Dog help them!] if they decide to.) UPDATE a few minutes later: Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (Rrrrr...) condescends to reply:
I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat.Fine. I believe it was settled by the first Chief Justice, working from the constitutionally mandated oath that every Court member swears to uphold the Constitution, that the Supreme Court has the right of judicial review, not some fuckwit governor/preacher from the Deep South. Do it, Mike; refuse to implement the ruling. I'll laugh and laugh when (after a trial, of course) they take you, whining and complaining, off to the slammer... serves you right. If you need a copy of the relevant wiki linked above, I could mail you one at the jailhouse...
UPDATE sometime after the evening news: If I heard correctly, Harris County (i.e., Houston), TX licensed and actually married about 20 LGBT couples today. How did your place of residence do?
UPDATE 6/27/2015 8:44am CT: Michael Langenmayr at Kos quotes Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's closing paragraph in the Court's opinion; I think it is worth reproducing here:
No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Trace and I had been together for over twenty years, never separated more than week. When we married the experience was powerful, not at all what we expected, but the civic justice of a union that was so powerful, loving and mutual it carried freedom to its apex of potential. Trace died two weeks later. That memory carries me through grief, which still, after a year, floods my broken heart.
ReplyDeleteMichael, that is a moving and heartfelt tribute, obviously from (and to) a loving spouse. I am glad you were able to marry before Trace passed away. It makes a difference, at the least, to the individuals involved, and frankly, no one else's opinion matters. Thank you for sharing your personal insight with the rest of us!
Delete