Observations

Calloo callay!  O frabjous day!  Prop 8 is dimissed, and thanks to this lady, DOMA is dead - unconstitutional on its face.  Married couples - all of them - now have 1000+ federal rights pertaining thereto, and Californians once again free to marry the gender of their choosing.  This is a day of moving forward.

Details: DOMA was ruled unconstitutional, flat out.  Justice Kennedy joined to make a 5-4 majority, and as expected in that outcome, quoted Loving v. Virginia, holding that marriage is “an area that has long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the states”, and stated that DOMA “rejects this long-established precept.”  And there were some strong words had: “By seeking to injure the very class New York seeks to protect, DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government.  The Consitution’s guarantee of equality ‘must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot’ justify disparate treatment of that group…DOMA cannot survive under these principles.”  You can read the whole thing in the PDF of the ruling - it’s suprisingly readable, actually, and heartening to read.  This is about as good a ruling as we could expect - there was some theoretical possibility of a wider ruling, but it was severely unlikely, and this is pretty damn awesome.

In Prop 8, they ruled that the defendants didn’t have standing, meaning the case will be dismissed and Prop 8 falls, but without any broader ruling or precedent.  So Californians’ rights to marriage are restored, but the rest of us still have a ways to go.  It would have been nice to have a ruling “on the merits”, as they say, but the final word on Prop 8 has been spoken either way, and Prop 8 is dead.

It’s a good day for marriage equality across the nation, and especially in California . We’ve still got a long ways to go - 31 states still have constitutional amendments against it.  Trans* rights are still fledgling or nonexistent, and recognition of poly relationships probably isn’t even a twinkle in Bernie Sanders’ eye.  But today, Californian couples - regardless of gender - can be married, and same-sex couples across the nation will have their marriages recognized by the Federal government.

As for the 31 states, I think that number will only go down at this point, starting with Oregon in November 2014.  It’s a good day for marriage equality.