Friday, June 26, 2015, became a significant day in our nation's long history of fighting for, and in most cases (though often with excruciatingly long delays) eventually achieving, equal rights for oppressed or minority groups. With the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling (a disappointing stance by the court, but that's for another diatribe) in the Obergefell vs. Hodges case, the majority justices have dictated that marriage is an open right to all, protected by the Fourteenth Ammendment of the Constitution (and a litany of amicus briefs, empathy, and COMMON SENSE). The ruling deems all state laws inhibiting the rights of the gay community to lawfully wed are illegal. It also indemnifies the rights of all wedded gay couples at the federal level, a policy the federal government had been practicing the past several years but not officially articulated in law and thus always at risk of the changing whims of political tides.
It is in those concepts of Constitutionality and the shifting nature of political debate and climate that I had some ponderings reading a few quizzical thoughts in the paper.
In an article produced by David Lauter and Mark Z Baraback of the Tribune Washington bureau, “Marriage decision quickly splits '16 presidential race,” a cataloging of Republican presidential candidates' positions on the Obergefell decision read as one would expect, with most hopefuls towing the party line, some harder than others as they try to feed their bases. That's when I found a reference to everyone's favorite Canadian that left me puzzled, then jocular at it's fundamental hypocrisy.
