Federal gay marriage ban is ruled unconstitutional

From the Washington Post courtesy of Eschaton:

The federal law banning gay marriage is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define the institution and therefore denies married gay couples some federal benefits, a federal judge ruled Thursday in Boston.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro ruled in favor of gay couples' rights in two separate challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, a 1996 law that the Obama administration has argued for repealing. The rulings apply to Massachusetts but could have broader implications if they're upheld on appeal.

And

The act "plainly encroaches" upon the right of the state to determine marriage, Tauro said in his ruling on a lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Martha Coakley. In a ruling in a separate case filed by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, Tauro ruled the act violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

"Congress undertook this classification for the one purpose that lies entirely outside of legislative bounds, to disadvantage a group of which it disapproves. And such a classification the Constitution clearly will not permit," Tauro wrote.

More here.

DOMA was mean spirited and Constitutionally futile from the get-go. Mean spirited because marriage has always, always, always been under state jurisdiction, and Congress knew they were playing out of bounds when they passed the law: it is nothing short of a great big "FUCK YOU" to American gays and lesbians, just to show the homophobes back home that their Senators and Congressmen put their panties on one leg at a time. Constitutionally futile for essentially the same reason. Not a damned thing in the Constitution gives the federal government the power to regulate marriage in any way at all. And because powers not specifically granted by the Constitution to the federal government necessarily belong to the states, well, I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself.

So it's nice to see the federal courts start to chip away at such oppressive drivel.

But it's the equal protection ruling that gets me excited. You see, there's already enough basis in the Supreme Court decision on gay sodomy, Lawrence and Garner versus Texas, to suggest that gays and lesbians are, indeed, members of a group worthy of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. As Justice Scalia pointed out in his dissenting opinion, specifically targeting Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion, if gays and lesbians, as a group, are protected by the fourteenth amendment, then nothing can deny them the right to marriage. If this case makes it all the way to Washington, there is every reason to believe that the Court will be bound by the precedent it set with Lawrence.

I keep saying it's only a matter of time, and the clock just keeps on ticking...

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