The Main Obstacle for Gay Marriage is Gone

The U.S. Supreme Court is lifting the ban on gay marriage, but what sparked the decision was neither zeitgeist nor majority opinion, but rather cool, nonpartisan law.

The Supreme Court toppled two laws, both of which represented grave intrusions by Washington on the rights of U.S. states. The justices of the Court repealed the federal law banning gay marriage, and forbade the Department of Justice from requiring authorization of voting laws in several states. In the U.S., marriage rights and voting rights belong to the states.

Regarding marriage, the Court said that Washington may not pass laws that discriminate against a portion of the population in any of its states, no matter the reason. Regarding voting rights, it said that Washington may only interfere with states’ rights for current problems. It may not, behind a curtain of 50-year-old data, pretend to be solving a problem that was fixed years ago.

The Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which recognized only the legitimacy of unions between a man and a woman, was overturned. This law had been binding at the federal level. A lesbian widow from New York, where gay marriage is legal, sued because of discrimination by the Internal Revenue Service.

Culture War or Party Quarrel?

The Supreme Court agreed with her. The law threatened to destroy constitutional equality, the protection of which, in this case, falls to the states. Now the primary obstacle for country-wide recognition of gay marriage is gone.

A paragraph of the Voting Rights Act from 1965 was also repealed. In that act, Washington had wanted to keep racists at the state level from inventing outrageous voting requirements, such as a “moral lifestyle.”

In 1965, only a small fraction of registered voters in the south were black. That time is past. The Court, therefore, told Congress: The problem that this special requirement was supposed to fix has been fixed. Give us a current reason for its necessity, and it will be OK.

That’s how America is. Culture war? Party quarrel? When it comes down to it, neither the zeitgeist nor the majority opinion reigns. What matters is cool, nonpartisan justice.