Marriage Wins, Scalia Loses

It didn’t take long for the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision affirming same-sex marriage to be dismissed as “legalistic argle-bargle.” It’s right there on page 22 of Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent, which shows that the debate is far from over.

Leave it to others -- such as President Barack Obama, the hundreds gathered outside the court, the millions of same-sex couples who will now have marriage rights, and the majority of Americans who support the right of gay people to marry -- to celebrate the court’s decisions today. Celebrate they should: By invalidating a federal law that denied benefits to same-sex spouses and allowing same-sex marriage to proceed in California, the court took a momentous step forward for the cause of civil rights and equal treatment under the law.