Supreme Court Upholds Gay Marriage

   The US Supreme Court continued their streak of unpredictability last Wednesday with several important decisions, two of them flying in the face of what long-time observers would've expected given their present ideological makeup. In an apparent and welcome bow to the plethora of contradictions that exist between the 50 states' versions of what constitutes a legal marriage and the Fifth Amendment, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was summarily overturned by the justices. 

   The 5-4 decision went along conservative/liberal lines with centrist Anthony Kennedy providing the swing vote, touching off a firestorm of anger from many religious groups and universal rejoicing from the gay community. The ruling stipulates that wedded homosexuals deserve and will now receive all 1,138 federal rights and benefits accorded to heterosexual couples in the 13 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that recognize their marriages. These include privileges that traditional married couples have received de rigueur for years like the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), employer-provided health benefits, estate tax exemption, surviving child/parent benefits, among hundreds of others. The list's length should certainly explain why the rights of same-sex marriage, as opposed to benefitless civil unions,  have been sought by the LGBT community for so long, aside from the emotional and social ameliorations.       

   Kennedy, writing for the majority opinion, called into play the dichotomy that has existed since May, 2004 when Massachusetts became the first state to recognize gay marriage. He wrote, “By creating two contradictory marriage regimes within the same state, DOMA forces same-sex couples to live as married for the purpose of state law, but unmarried for the purpose of federal law”. This created scenarios of one same-sex partner receiving an inheritance from a deceased spouse in Illinois but not Rhode Island, and partial Social Security payments to homosexual spouses in Connecticut and full benefits in, say, Maine, depending on their current state laws. Clearly this was a picture that needed clearing up, and this ruling certainly does that, without forcing the abstaining  37 states to allow similar unions.  

   Additionally the Court took no stand on California's Proposition 8, the law that had ended gay marriage there via voter referendum after it had been legalized by their Supreme Court. This allowed a subsequent lower court decision overturning the Proposition as unconstitutional to remain as law, effectively re-legalizing same-sex marriage. This received the same 5-4 decision, but ironically with different judges.   

   The five prevailing judges deserve much credit for their pro-humana stances, and were undoubtedly influenced by the welcome sea change that has occurred across America over the past 9 years. We all remember the hue and cry that erupted after the Massachusetts decision as millions of right wingers acted like the 10% or so gay population getting their marital rights  was somehow going to threaten their own unions (an example of fractured logic if there ever was one). And the typical and expected anger from many Christian groups along with virtually every organization with the word "Family" in its title was white hot and unabated, as Bible quotes and various Old Testament stories were referenced to show how this civil rights redress was somehow immoral "in the eyes of God". The fact that these unions obviously won't include the bearing of children was an oft-cited point as well from these dissenters, which like most of their arguments is easily disproved by pointing out the millions of heterosexual couples who also intentionally forgo having children  (maybe their marriages should be annulled by the same token ?) 

   In reality, what has happened has a lot more to do with Americans coming to realize that our gay brethren are people too, subject to all of the physical and emotional highs and lows, successes and failures, faults and virtues as the rest of us. And a same-sex couple moving in down the street poses no more of a threat to the typical nuclear family than a single twentysomething settling in that same house does, an easily understood point now but a real cause celebre for years after the Massachusetts verdict. And with all those other states subsequently changing their laws and allowing gay unions since 2004, with the prospect of many others also making the change as we go forward, the snowball was rolling and picking up speed. 

   Like so many civil rights issues over the years this landmark one will be a bitter pill for the more conservative states and their citizens to digest. Checking out territories like Texas, the Dakotas and Arizona among others with their own ongoing controversies involving womens' issues, immigration and assaults on minority voting registration, one can easily see that homosexuals aren't the only group of Americans who are faced with this continuous battle for parity, obliged to vigilantly keep their guards up to prevent the erosion of what they've spent years fighting to win. Check out Rick Perry and the Texas legislature's current health/reproductive rights onslaught against that state's female population, as well as the new voter-suppression laws that many of the southern states are busily enacting after this week's gutting of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by this same Supreme Court, for further illumination.   

   But overall America, especially during the past half-century, has been striving to become a more inclusive society, further  evidenced by what looks like an upcoming bipartisan immigration bill that will pave the way for over 10 million immigrants to become American citizens.  By just harkening to the idea that "all men are created equal", many of us look upon these changes affecting genders, nationalities, races and now sexual preferences as an overall positive thing. But all of us had better get used to it.