When I was interning on Capitol Hill in the late '80s, my Senator was Wyche Fowler, a Democrat from Georgia - there used to be such a thing. I worked as a drone answering constituent mail. We got a lot of astroturf letters about Fowler's vote against Robert Bork. Bork had been nominated to the Supreme Court by Reagan, despite Bork's role in the Saturday Night Massacre, his whackaloon views on original intent, his thinly veiled racism and being a huge prick.
Anthony Kennedy was selected in his place.
And today, Kennedy did what he has done with some consistency over the past few years and that is take stand - a mild stand, but a stand - against the prejudicial treatment of gays and lesbians.
The twin rulings - allowing Prop 8 to go away and ruling some parts of DOMA unconstitutional - are important steps for marriage equality. The end of Prop 8 validates marriage equality in the nation's biggest state. If Illinois finally gets around to passing marriage equality, then three of the five most populous states will recognize same sex marriages.
The DOMA ruling is both broader and more narrow, as it only ends federal discrimination against same sex married couples. It did not address the full faith and credit issues present in DOMA. You can be not-opposite married in Connecticut, but move to Philly and you're no longer married.
Yeah, that makes sense.
But my guess is that the Court simply didn't want to rush into legitimizing same sex marriage across the country. Before too long, someone is going to move from California to Arizona (why?) and their marriage will be invalidated, they will have standing and the case will start to make its way back to DC.
By that time, Kennedy must be thinking, people's opinion will have continued to shift in favor of marriage equality.
That or Scalia will finally have that massive coronary he's been working on.
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