By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
As hundreds of same-sex couples took their long-awaited wedding vows in Washington state Sunday, the constitutional battle in Washington, D.C., over gay marriage was just getting started.
For years, foes of same-sex marriage had a potent talking point: They'd won every time the issue went to a popular vote. That winning streak has now been shattered in a multistate electoral sweep by gay-marriage supporters — a historic tipping point likely to influence other states and possibly even the Supreme Court.
A divided federal appeals court in New York struck down the Defense of Marriage Act on Thursday as unconstitutional, joining an appeals court in Boston in rejecting the law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
A federal appellate court in Manhattan said the federal government's marriage law is unconstitutional, raising the likelihood that gay marriage will end up before the Supreme Court.
"This is it — the Supreme Court marriage moment that the ACLU has been working towards for years," said James Esseks, litigation director of the American Civil Liberties Union Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & AIDS Project, said. "These cases are poised not just to take down DOMA and Prop 8, but to be the next building blocks for LGBT equality more broadly."
