DOMA DOWN

the Defense of Marriage Act has been voided as an unconstitutional Fifth Amendment equal protection violation.

    On July 1 the Catholic Info Center in DC just blocks from the White House has a panel that will break it down for you.

   For the liberal wing to side with State's rights in a federalist inspired opinion is a different twist but not unsurprising for a group that wanted to reach a specific conclusion. It is an opinion that says essentially the federal government has to go with what the states say is a marriage and can't give a federal blanket rule for it- even when it comes to definition for purposes of federal rights like federal taxation. That is an odd statement.

   The opinion was predictably 5-4. The Judges who spent most of their lives in states with large gay populations that are married with children formed the liberal majority and the guys who go to church the dissenters. One of the guys who goes to church is the father of a priest.

   There is no moral statement about whether gay marriage is moral anywhere- there is no applauding the great gays who adopt. There is a straightforward statement that if the states make a decision historically reserved for the states to enact then the federal government for all its rulemaking purposes has to accept it. Its a reverse pre-emption argument.

   So if Utah decided polygamy was legal, the entire country now has to accept Utah's decision and give
joint tax breaks to one guy and five different women if Utah says so??  This is actually the reverse of what allowed the civil rights movement to take hold- the Southern states were the bad actors and the feds could send in the Marshalls.

   It is a question of federal power. And the feds just lost some.

Kennedy, originally from the great State of Californicate, where multiple marriages are more the rule and San Francisco hosts the largest gay population in the country, wrote the opinion keeping in mind the children of gay couples who want equal legitimacy to kids of opposite sex parents. Hopefully more kids will get adopted now- that could be one unintended fall out in a fallen world.