Federal Judge Rules Parts of Doma Unconstitutional

The areas of the lawsuit were rather specific, and pertained only to couples legally married in Massachusetts, but the the fact that the judge, Joseph Tauro, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the Mass AG and GLAD brought separate suits, is good news.

I'm an engineer, and not a lawyer, dammit, but I think that part of the decision, where the judge found a 10^th amendment violation, because, "federal restrictions on funding for states that recognize same-sex marriage violates the 10th Amendment,which, "declares that rights not explicitly granted to the federal government, or denied to the states, belong to the states," is likely to be overturned.

Basically the 10^th amendment has not been a big part of jurisprudence since some time in the 1930s, and runs in the face of precedent.

The second decision, in GLAD's case, is based on the 5^th amendment equal protection claims, which I think will go a lot further.

Still, I think that it's heading to the Supreme Court, and that the decision will be overturned by a 5-4 majority.

If I were an attorney for the plaintiffs, I would be starting to suggest that some of the justices who have already made statements that pre-judge the outcome, most notably Scalia, whose public endorsements of bigotry have been longstanding, recuse themselves.

If you don't start making a stink about these now, then they will be sitting on the bench with their minds already made up later.