BREAKING: Obama endorses STATES RIGHTS

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. The way this can be fixed is:

1. By federal legislation regulating marriage. Right now marriage is, by default, controlled by individual states because there is no federal marriage legislation (especially since DOMA is not being enforced), and the Constitution leaves everything to the states that is not specifically regulated by Congress. But I do not see this Congress doing anything to change this situation any time soon. And if they did it wouldn't be anything good. One thing to think about: Right now there are a few states that do recognize same-sex marriage. If Congress - as it currently exists - were to start regulating marriage you can bet same-sex marriage would be outlawed everywhere. So maybe leaving the matter to the states for now isn't necessarily as bad as we think.

2. Or by challenging state laws banning same-sex marriage under the same theory used in Loving v. Virginia, which declared laws against interracial marriage to be an unconstitutional violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Unfortunately this Supreme Court would probably come up with some stupid, politically-motivated and disingenuous reasoning why Loving should not be considered precedent and the Fourteenth Amendment inapplicable to same-sex marriage.

So: For the time being maybe all that can be done is work on changing state laws - all politics is local, after all - and look to the future when a different Supreme Court might consider a constitutional challenge to state laws against same-sex marriage. This can't happen if the Supreme Court continues to be controlled by the likes of Roberts and Scalia. But if Obama is re-elected and can appoint more liberal justices there could be a chance in the foreseeable future.