We won, we have work to do

Today, as everybody knows, the Supreme Court overturned DOMA and Proposition 8 as unconsitutional. Today will be remembered for the rest of American history and will be written in textbooks for decades to come, but the battle for freedom including and beyond gay rights is just getting started for this century.

On DOMA it is relieving to see that the Federal government will now recognize gay marriages, and this is a major step forward for freedom in our country. DOMA had no legal standing in the first place, for the reasons I outlined here: United States v. Windsor

I am pleased and disappointed with the decision on Proposition 8. I recommend reading Joanna Brooks' article on the issue because she is such an eloquent writer and Mormon. I am delighted that gay marriage has returned to California, and that it now opens opportunities to open district court challenges to anti-marriage laws in states across the country.

We saw the Supreme Court effectively overturn the Voting Rights Act yesterday in Shelby County v. Holder, one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of America. I would have agreed with a decision to extend Department of Justice approval to all changes , but they instead went the other way. Get ready for major bills restricting voting rights to people in the South through large requirements for voter identification and other ineffective and immoral changes to their laws. We need a Right to Vote amendment now to make such proposals harder to defend in court, because we are going down the rabbit hole. We need major voting reform now, and this is just one more tragedy that will convince more people of the desperate need to improve our democracy.

The past 24 hours have been a 67% success rate, hopefully we can change this set of decisions around before the next census... though I am not completely confident if enough people are mobilized it can be done.