What’s driving this insiders’ insurrection? Perhaps a sense that a libertarian-leaning belief in fully extending the freedom to marry to all Americans does not, in fact, clash with a conservative commitment to holding together the social fabric, as marriage entails personal responsibility and social stability. Or perhaps these GOP leaders are beginning to see an alignment of their rhetoric about individual liberty with public opinion; in the last month, two national polls, by CNN and the Associated Press, showed that a majority of Americans nationwide now support marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

The implications of such a historic shift in the GOP establishment’s stance on marriage should not be underestimated. For Republicans, it means they could become less moored to their socially conservative base and may get back in touch with the cautious but forward-looking American political center that is vital to GOP hopes of cobbling together a governing majority. For the country, it is evidence that we are inching ever closer to a national consensus that gay and lesbian couples should have the freedom to marry under the law.

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 The first case was brought by the state of Massachusetts. Judge Tauro declared Congress violated the Tenth Amendment by originally passing DOMA. They took away the states decisions determining which couples can be considered married.

His second ruling was on Gill v. Office of Personnel Management. It was decided that DOMA violated equal protection embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. This case was argued by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), GLAD represented eight married couples and three widowers in the suit.

 Two other major equality court cases continue to develop in California, the Prop. 8 trial and Log Cabin Republicans trial against the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. The decision in Boston today is a great step toward equality for all Americans, regardless of their sexual orientation.

 Governor Lingle has openly spoke against same-sex marriage and stated, “House Bill 444 is essentially same-sex marriage by another name.”

 The bill would have granted gay and lesbian couples the same rights and benefits the state provides to married couples.

 For weeks she heard testament from both sides of the issue and Tuesday made her decision in the packed Honolulu Capitol with cheers from one side and tears and “”We’ll keep fighting!” “Let’s go!” “We Shall Overcome!” from the other side.

Five states — California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington — grant same-sex couples rights without allowing marriage itself. Maryland, Rhode Island and New York legally recognize marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut and the District of Columbia permit same-sex marriage.

“Supporters of same-sex marriage are understandably giddy with excitement over the impending decision from U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker. There’s pretty much universal agreement that the liberal-conservative tag team of David Boies and Ted Olson made an excellent and compelling argument for why the voter-approved Proposition 8 in California violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of due process and equal protection. But the prospect of victory has me and more than a few others concerned about what may follow.

Perry v. Schwarzenegger is not the only marriage equality case out there. Folks have their eyes on one out of Massachusetts. But no matter how Judge Walker rules in the Prop 8 suit, which is expected sometime this summer, the case is certain to be appealed to the federal Ninth Circuit and then to the Supreme Court. And therein lies the danger. If the current ideological makeup of the court doesn’t change by then, the victory that could come at the hands of Judge Walker could turn into a defeat in the Roberts Court. And even if the justices put ideology aside, it might still be reluctant to impose its will on the country.

Jonathan Rauch wrote an excellent piece for the New York Times last Saturday that also expressed concern about same-sex marriage and the high court. The foundation of his argument was something Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan said cast a spotlight on that latter point. “The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals,” she said. “But the court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people.”

To understand the importance of that last sentence we need to go back to the 1986 ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick. This case involved two consenting adult gay men who were arrested for violating Georgia’s anti-sodomy law. Michael Hardwick challenged the law’s constitutionality in federal court. When the case reached the Supreme Court, the question before it was whether consensual sodomy by homosexuals was a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution. The answer was no in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Byron R. White. This is a key paragraph in the majority opinion to file away for a moment.

Sodomy was a criminal offense at common law, and was forbidden by the laws of the original 13 States when they ratified the Bill of Rights. In 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, all but 5 of the 37 States in the Union had criminal sodomy laws. In fact, until 1961, all 50 States outlawed sodomy, and today, 24 States and the District of Columbia continue to provide criminal penalties for sodomy performed in private and between consenting adults. Against this background, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” or “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” is, at best, facetious.

The constitutionality of sodomy laws returned 17 years later in Lawrence v. Texas. The question before the Supreme Court in 2003 was “the validity of a Texas statute making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct.” The 6-3 decision, which overturned Bowers v. Hardwick and invalidated anti-sodomy laws across the country, was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. His majority opinion remains heralded as the most pro-gay decision to come from the high court. In a key rebuttal to Bowers, Kennedy wrote:

In our own constitutional system the deficiencies in Bowers became even more apparent in the years following its announcement. The 25 States with laws prohibiting the relevant conduct referenced in the Bowers decision are reduced now to 13, of which 4 enforce their laws only against homosexual conduct. In those States where sodomy is still proscribed, whether for same-sex or heterosexual conduct, there is a pattern of nonenforcement with respect to consenting adults acting in private. The State of Texas admitted in 1994 that as of that date it had not prosecuted anyone under those circumstances. State v. Morales, 869 S. W. 2d 941, 943.

The historical trend between the two cases is obvious. In addition to recognizing the violation of equal protection and due process guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court in the Lawrence case also noted that society was moving away from criminalizing the consensual intimate relationships of same-sex couples. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of society’s acceptance of marriage equality.

Yes, there has been progress, much of it within the last 10 years. Same-sex couples are able to legally wed in five states (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire) and, most recently, the District of Columbia. Maryland, Rhode Island and New York legally recognize marriages performed in other jurisdictions. But in that same period, 30 states passed constitutional amendments or statutes that define marriage as being between one man and one woman. In fact, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled unanimously on June 30 to uphold that state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and civil unions. Remember what Kagan said about the court recognizing the limits on itself and respecting “the choices made by the American people”? Given the current landscape, it would be astounding if the court overturned the will of the people as expressed through state constitutions, acts of the legislature and at the ballot box.

Here’s something else to consider. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that ushered in marriage equality there in 2004 also kicked off a push to enshrine discrimination in the Constitution through an amendment banning same-sex marriage. It went nowhere then. I’m not so sure today. Two-thirds of the states — 38 — are needed to amend the U.S. Constitution. As I just mentioned 30 states have already done it on their own. Or look at it this way, 45 of the 50 states currently do not permit same-sex marriage.

Legally speaking, the kindling is there for a controlled blaze confined to California or an inferno that could stop the national march toward marriage equality in its tracks possibly for decades either through a constitutional amendment (extremely difficult, but not impossible) or, as Rauch put it, through an “aggressively dismissive ruling” from the Supreme Court. All that’s needed is a spark. Right now, Judge Walker is the man holding the matches.” -Jonathan Capehart

The ruling was 7-0 from the judges. Wednesday, they ruled that the 2006 constitutional amendment was properly put to voters in a statewide referendum.
The suit was filed that the 2006 amendment violated a rule that limits referendum questions to a single subject to be voted on. The lawsuit, filed by a voter opposed to the amendment, argued that gay marriage and civil unions were two different subjects and not a constituting as a single subject.

Justice Gableman says both subjects “carry out the same general purpose of preserving the legal status of marriage in Wisconsin as between only one man and one woman.”

The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act has been challenged in federal courts twice this month. Arguing that the act is unconstitutional, gay rights groups brought a case before the judge earlier in May. Activists describe that it is unfair to allow benefits to straight couples but not to same-sex couples.

 In Massachusetts., the attorney general’s offices is arguing that it is a state’s right to be able to define marriage. They claim that the Defense of Marriage Act could potentially deny couples Medicaid and several other same-sex couple benefits in Massachusetts.

 Massachusetts has 15,000 same-sex couples that have married in the stated following the 2004 law making marriage legal for same-sex couples. There have been no indications of which side the rulings will favor.

I’m a bystander in the same-sex marriage debate — I haven’t given to any cause on either side. But in 2006 I did vote against a Virginia same-sex marriage amendment, which passed. I didn’t, and don’t, think social issues should be subjected to votes like that. I don’t support much direct democracy in general — this is a republic, and we shouldn’t throw these kinds of decisions to the electorate at large.But why was I willing to be so disrespectful to one group of activists? Unlike with most activists, I don’t really see the direct impact on their lives, or on the lives of the people who agree with them, of the cause they oppose. Antitax protesters are threatened by higher taxes. Anti-health-care-bill protesters fear their coverage will get worse. Anti-meat-eating protesters believe animals are being murdered and the environment is being made worse.

Even the birther movement has always made a kind of sense — oust Obama from office, and you get a chance to reverse what damage you think he’s done to your country.

But who’s threatened by legal same-sex marriage? Whose life is made worse? If there was science suggesting that children raised by same-sex parents are worse off than children raised by traditional families, that would be one thing, but I haven’t seen it. We’ve watched legal same-sex marriage in several European countries and several states, and it hasn’t ushered in some decline in the quality of life, or marriage, for those who don’t participate in it.

That’s what I don’t understand. That’s my bias, for now. I’ll happily entertain arguments for the contrary.

Our solidarity exposes two of the myths perpetuated by opponents of marriage equality and by the media. Let’s call these myths “God vs. gay” and “black vs. white.”

Opponents of marriage equality would like us to believe that one cannot be both pro-God and pro-gay. Yet we lead a coalition of nearly 200 D.C. clergy who support marriage equality precisely because of our commitment to God’s inclusive love and justice. Our clergy are black, white, Latino and from every ward in the District. We are Baptists and Jews, Catholics and Methodists, who have worked side by side for years on issues ranging from peace to affordable housing, and who now stand together again to raise a faithful voice for justice. Let us be clear: God vs. gay is a myth we reject. God vs. injustice is a truth we affirm.

Meanwhile, opponents of marriage equality have tried to use this issue to divide our communities along racial lines, and the press often plays into their hands. The gay community is repeatedly characterized as a group of well-to-do white folks, while all people of color are portrayed as heterosexuals who oppose gay marriage. This is the myth of “black vs. white.” To suggest that the struggle for marriage equality in Washington affects only a small number of white people from Dupont Circle is an affront to the rich diversity of the District’s gay and lesbian community, and it erases the lives of thousands of gay and lesbian people of color, some of whom are members of our churches.

The occasional suggestion that marriages between people of different sexes may somehow be threatened by marriages of people of the same sex does not withstand discussion. It is difficult to the point of impossibility to envision two love-struck heterosexuals contemplating marriage to decide against it because gays and lesbians also have the right to marry; it is equally hard to envision a couple whose marriage is troubled basing the decision of whether to divorce on whether their gay neighbors are married or living in a domestic partnership. And even if depriving lesbians of the right to marry each other could force them into marrying someone they do not love but who happens to be of the opposite sex, it is impossible to see how that could be thought to be as likely to lead to a stable, loving relationship as a marriage to the person they do love.

Moreover, there is no longer any credible contention that depriving gays and lesbians of basic rights will cause them to change their sexual orientation. Even if there was, the attempt would be constitutionally defective. But, in fact, the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians is as much a God-given characteristic as the color of their skin or the sexual orientation of their straight brothers and sisters. It is also a condition that, like race, has historically been subject to abusive and often violent discrimination. It is precisely where a minority’s basic human rights are abridged that our Constitution’s promise of due process and equal protection is most vital.

It is time to end discrimination against gays and lesbians and allow marriage rights for all.

Mike Angell, who is studying to become an Episcopal priest at the Virginia Theological Seminary, said yesterday’s decision comes as a relief. “I have a number of friends — straight and gay — who requested me to perform their weddings once I’m ordained,” said Angell, who believes in equality for gay parishioners. “I would have felt limited and compromised blessing hetero couples but not gay couples. It’s an issue of justice.”

Regardless of how one church or another feels about blessing same-sex marriages, it is not up to the government to choose which religious marriages will get recognized by the state and which won’t.