The Supreme Court's two gay marriage decisions

For once, the Court's decisions went just about as I would have had it. The only place I was not quite right was that the overrule of California Proposition 8 was on the grounds of “lack of standing,” rather than appealing to an earlier decision in a Colorado case that a right, once given, could not be taken away. But the practical effect is the same; the lower court's decision was upheld, and that court used the argument I would have cited.

The DOMA decision got it exactly right. The states have always said who had a right to marry, and if the Federal government restricts that right, they are impairing the right to equal protection. As Justice Kennedy wrote in his opinion, “The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the state, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity.” Those who talk of the “traditional” definition of marriage have a lot of things wrong; traditionally marriage has been regulated by the states, not the Federal government, and over the years the nature of marriage has changed — in the nineteenth century it made a wife the property of her husband, for one thing. So appealing to “tradition” is nonsense.