sundries

[rm]

No German practice yesterday. Too much news. Too much laundry. Patty was very sweet with me in my news frenzy place. Tonight though it's all Project Runway. And hopefully some more Buffy. We want to finish Buffy and Angel before Patty heads to Cardiff and then do remote movie dates for Being Human.

Woo, Click-n-Ship from Duchess.

For those, presumably not from the US or California or really, really not paying attention, or just really over-excited on Twitter, a few details:

1. No same-sex legal marriages can take place in CA right now. There is a stay which will probably remain in place as this thing goes through the 9th Circuit and on to the Supremes. This could take years.

2. The US has not legalized gay marriage.

3. There is no guarantee of what will happen in the Supreme Court (because of the purpose of the 9th Circuit, that should be no problem), although yesterday's ruling was extremely, extremely cleverly reasoned and incredibly legally sound. It's a remarkably strong document.

4. DOMA is still on the books.

5. Other than momentum and hope, today is exactly like yesterday.

Please do read the ruling. It is a remarkable document that is profoundly philosophically feminist and has some remarkable things to say about gender. Reading the ruling gave me chills. It was like an "I was promised flying cars" moment with Actual Flying Cars, not because it's the first big step towards the legalization of same-sex marriage in this country, but because of what it says about gender and marriage in general. That felt like the future.

Hey, while we're here, if you don't think same-sex marriage should be legal; if you don't think the issue is essentially about the state's recognition or not of my humanity; if it's vitaly important to you to refer to me as "a homosexual" as if I were an object of study or a disease; if you don't understand the purpose of the judiciary in this country (which is yes, to make law and make sure law conforms to the constitution); if you have an actual problem with the 14th and 17th amendments, you can leave now. I'm not your minstrel show, and I'm not some illogical liberal/woman/homosexual; you just failed civics class. I mean it. Out out out.

There is, predictably, not a ton of other news on my radar this morning, although Elena Kagan is expected to be confirmed to the Supreme Court today.

Less annoying than the Tom Hardy thing: Joseph Gordon-Levitt in The Advocate. Really, it's a fabulous funny little interview.

Comments

[griffen.livejournal.com]

To be considered a "suspect class" for equal protection purposes, I think membership has to be defined by an immutable trait.

That can't be the case, because if a trait had to be immutable, then religion (a choice, except for certain ethnic groups that overlap with religious beliefs, such as ethnic Jews) would not qualify as a "suspect class" - and yet it does.

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, which gives this case (http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/540/540.US.712.02-1315.html) as its source, religious groups have never actually been held to be a suspect class by the Supreme Court. (I did some googling and it seems widely believed that they are a suspect class and a lower court or two may have ruled so.) Seemingly the religion cases get decided on free exercise grounds rather than equal protection grounds. (Which sort of makes sense--discrimination cases involving religious groups seem to usually be about practicing the religion.)