When he is bad, he is very very bad, but when he is good, he is very very good. Here in his Washington Post column Charles Krauthammer (also senior serious intellectual, FOX News) looks at SCOTUS’ DOMA decision and explains quite well what it means.
He’s not particularly judgmental about either the issue or about the Court’s action. He breaks the decision down to its essentials and says – as I believe – that Federal recognition is now inevitable. Because, as he noted, the Court used the rationale of ‘equal protection under the law’. By saying so in the decision, he says, they pretty much guarantee that full recognition is on the docket next session and it will happen.
. . . if the argument is equal protection, one question is left hanging. Why should equal protection apply only in states that recognize gay marriage? Why doesn’t it apply equally — indeed, even perhaps more forcefully — to gays who want to marry in states that refuse to marry them?
If discriminating (regarding federal benefits) between a gay couple and a straight couple is prohibited in New York where gay marriage is legal, by what logic is discrimination permitted in Texas, where a gay couple is prevented from marrying in the first place?
Krauthammer finds none. He notes the broad smile on the face of David Boise who argued for the Prop 8 ruling and says:
He understood immediately that once the court finds it unconstitutional to discriminate between gay and straight couples, nationalizing gay marriage is just one step away.
Yup. I think Boise and Charles have it exactly right. This week’s half measure is temporary. The fat lady hasn’t quite finished singing yet.
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 