Hip, Hip, Hip, HUZZAH, SCOTUS!

Three very loud cheers for SCOTUS for at long last handing down the 21st Century version of Virginia v. Loving. I wish it had been done earlier, but at least now it is DONE.

And this case is, I hasten to repeat, the same-sex version of Virginia v Loving, right down to the arguments used against it. The ONLY argument against this case -- I'd name it but I can't find the damn official name; all the papers are just calling it "the same sex marriage case" --the ONLY argument not used previously for Virginia v Loving, from "God's agin' it" to "it's just gross" is that same sex marriage should be compared not to Virginia v Loving but instead compared to Roe v Wade.

Yes, folks have actually stood on their hind legs in front of God and everybody and announced that a "marry whom you will" case is not analogous to a previous "marry whom you will" case but instead a "your body is your own... but everybody else gets a right to protest what you do with it" case.

SCOTUS may have stuck their finger in the air to see which way the wind was blowing before they had the nerve to actually rule, they may have had zero choice but to rule in this way, but at long last the wait and even the shadow of doubt are over.

Yes We Can and Yes We Did

(I can't edit using post-by-email, so a little bit of spam today. Sorrynotsorry.)

One November, not that long ago, I went to the polls and voted on a state constitutional amendment, and at the end of that day was proud and thrilled to see that I, and hundreds of thousands like me, had once and for all shattered the nasty argument "when you put 'gay marriage' to a popular vote, it never wins." To this day I am damn proud of having played my part in ripping the wheels off the "traditional marriage" juggernaut.

One January, not that long ago, I heard the incumbent President of the United States say "We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall" - which is when I gasped so loud I scared the cats, dropped into a chair like I'd been shot, and burst into tears. I never thought I would live long enough to see the President of the United States put sexual rights as any kind of a thing on the Presidental platform, much less on an equal historical footing as women's equality and civil rights. The President? Talking about LBGQT as citizens robbed of their equal rights? It would be as unthinkable as, as, as -- as Alabama quietly bringing down the Confederate flag!

Slightly under 2 hours ago, the Supreme Court of the United States put same-sex marriage expressly on the same footing as civil rights. "They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law," Kennedy writes. "The Constitution grants them that right.”

It is not a day of unmixed joy; in fact, it is a day of reminders that promises made have not been kept. Seneca Falls did not usher in gender equality. The crimes that caused the March on Selma have not stopped -- the first of the Charlestown Nine will be buried today, the Confederate flag still flying highest in the state, while a black church in Charlotte burnt to the ground last night in an act of arson. Stonewall led to this hour, but neither Stonewall nor SCOTUS can stop the backlash that will come.

But.

But.

But!

History has bent that little bit more towards justice today. Belatedly. Imperfectly. UNMISTAKABLY.


Four years ago, Sarah Palin nastily asked "How's that hope-y, change-y thing workin' for ya?"

Pretty darn good, Ms. Palin. Pretty darn good.