Now What Will the Celebration Over ENDA Look Like?
What a relief it was to hear that the US Supreme Court had overturned Section 3 of the “Defense of Marriage Act” that was signed into law by centrist Democrat Bill Clinton in 1996. No longer can the federal government define marriage as exclusively heterosexual. Now it’s back to the states, for this Court is for nothing if it isn’t states’ rights. The President can decide if federal marriage benefits are defined by the definition of marriage in the state one lives or the state one is married in, but the battle for full marriage equality depends upon politics at those state levels and some long, drawn-out court cases that must begin soon with same-sex couples suing for recognition in their non-accepting home states. One legal hurdle is gone, and the celebrations all around the nation were exuberant, maybe overly. There should be relief that on the way to full human rights the law has taken this turn even as the right-wing flails in reaction and there’s so much more to do. The pu...