Supreme Court Prolongs Gay-Marriage Struggle

June 26 (Bloomberg) -- “All deliberate speed” -- that wasthe gradualist coda the U.S. Supreme Court added in 1955 to itssecond Brown v. Board of Education ruling after it ended schoolsegregation. In striking down the Defense of Marriage Actwithout establishing a general constitutional right for gaypeople to marry, the court did the same thing for same-sexmarriage that it once did for segregation: declared a principlewithout putting it fully into practice.

In Brown, the court’s goal of making desegregationpalatable failed when Southern whites mounted widespreadresistance. Whether the same strategy will work better this timeremains to be seen, but it certainly sets the stage for manylegal and political battles over gay marriage in the yearsahead.