Yesterday

Good thing I waited ! Quick as a wink the massive 9th circuit sort of went dark blue today... but I get ahead of myself. I woke up yesterday, and as I always do checked to see if we had started any new wars or were bombed or anything - then make coffee and take Koda out. I did that, and less than a half an hour came back, and the gays had blown up the internet.

Yesterday, but starting with Today. Today was the first day of term of the 14 -15 Supreme Court, first Tuesday in October always is. So yesterday they released a sort of syllabus of what this year will encompass, including which cases before them that they will not be granting cert to, the cases on their docket that they will not be hearing this term, allowing the lower court ruling to stand. There were five gay marriage cases on that list coming from Virginia , Utah, Oklahoma, Indiana and Wisconsin. All states that had an anti same sex marriage law on its books that the courts had deemed unconstitutional,  the states all appealed and lost , there by sending the cases to the Supreme Court.
Meaning that in some states same sex couples could , and did, get married yesterday - and the thing is the ruling coming out of the circuit courts effects the entire circuit, all the states.

After today there will only be the 5th, 11th 8th and 6th with doma-like laws still on the books. And those could / will fall soon.

Hopefully this map will embiggen so you can see, if not just google , if you care, US Circuit Courts - the reason it is important is that , like I said the non-rulings yesterday are for the whole circuit - so as Virginia welcomes in a new era of equality, SO WILL NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA , along with West Virginia. Indiana and Wisc. join Illinois that already has marriage equality. Utah and Oklahoma bring Kansas, Wyoming and Colorado ( which started issuing licenses yesterday ) NM already has it. That is why yesterday was such a big deal , the sort of the lgbt ersatz Brown v Board ( I am way to Victorian to say " back door " ). 

Then late this afternoon a Federal Judge in the big green 9th up there on the map, all of the west including Alaska and Hawaii ruled that Idaho and Nevada's DOMA's were unconstitutional - meaning that , when not if, the 9th comes in, it will be much easier to list the states in the US that DO NOT have marriage equality. The little map I posted of the dark blue states that do have same sex marriage, may be wrong by morning... that is how fast this is moving.

A Little History Lesson

( we have covered this before, but it never hurts to have a little refresher )

In the Summer of 1982 in Decatur, Ga. a guy named Michael Hardwick had a date, and it went well. He and his date came back to his apartment and were having a fine consensual adult time, when a policeman came to serve Mr Hardwick with a summons to appear FOR A TICKET THAT HE HAD ALREADY PAID. Entering the apartment AND opening Mr Hardwick's door , he interrupted the date - AND ARRESTED BOTH MEN FOR SODOMY, which was in 1982 against the law in Ga. In 1986 the Supreme court ruled that Mr Hardwick and his date did not have the right to have the consensual adult time in the privacy of their own closed door bedroom. Gays are icky. Got it ? That is just 1986 - twenty eight years ago, acting on being gay was illegal. If you don't know any of this case, google Bowers v Hardwick and get your mind blown....

It was not until 2003 that the Supreme Court overturned that case in Lawrence v Texas . A case that Justice Scalia rightly predicted would usher in same sex marriage, the one thing he has ever said that I agree with. So, its 2003 and being gay, or at least acting on gay is no longer against the law .

Backtracking here, in 1993 Hawaii freaked out all the old white guys in Congress with talk of letting the gays be full citizens there in the Aloha state - causing such an uproar that Bill Clinton was forced ( its my story, he was forced ) to sign the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 - saying that no state had to recognize any other states same sex marriage and that the Federal Government could not either. 

A quick trip from there to just last year when k+b SUPER HERO EDIE WINDSOR took on this law and won - starting the domino effect that you are seeing today.

Edie Windsor learning she had won!

The only reason for this little trip in the way back machine is just to bring home in all our minds the speed with which this all has happened. From Michael Hardwick getting arrested in the privacy of his own home - to Edie Windsor having a case called Windsor v USA , and WINNING.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

The forces against us are not going away quietly, at all - not that there are at all that many of them, but they are finding their way on to the 24 hour news stations and crying all their states rights sobs . The usual suspects from the GOP are getting all WE WILL HAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT... blah blah blah. This tooth paste is not going back in that tube. 

Also, I am just on the cusp of being old enough to have lived through this before - only it was not the gays in my deep south. Stirring up that old states rights canard again - that did not work out for you so well the first go round

I for one do not in anyway understand how the people saying and doing all these things in light of the courts decision can not see that this is exactly how history will remember.

So stay tuned - this has been a real roller coaster of a ride .