Thursday and Friday we had a break in the winter weather, and today is supposed to be warm as well, though at the moment we have thunder, lightning, and heavy rain.  Kimber doesn't mind rain or snow, but she is not a fan of thunder, so she's cowering on her bed.  Monday a "wintry mix" is forecast, so winter isn't quite over.  Last Tuesday and Wednesday, however, were still gray and chilly, so they were good days to stay in front of the TV, listening to all the commentary on the arguments before SCOTUS.  My own comments are just those of an amateur, but when has that ever stopped me?  Although the projected results, at least in the DOMA case, appear to  be encouraging, the quality of the arguments from what are supposed to be nine of our finest legal minds was disheartening.  With eight justices (Thomas doesn't speak, of course) having only 80-90 minutes on each of the two days, I suppose we shouldn't expect debate in depth.

Justice Scalia is, of course, incorrigible.  In his offensive remarks in the Voting Rights Act case when he talked about voting as "racial entitlement," he said, "There have been studies" without ever citing any of them or even bothering to make his point explicit.  In the Prop 8 case, talking about the effects of same-sex adoption and parenting, he did much the same thing, only in reverse, denying that there were sociological data despite the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics had filed an amicus brief summarizing exactly those data.  His point was irrelevant anyway, since California permits adoption by unmarried hetero- and homosexuals.  Justice Alito's low point was probably his argument that same-sex marriages are newer than the Internet--neither true nor relevant to the liberty or equal rights arguments for such marriages.  And Chief Justice Roberts performed no better.  His argument that calling a union a 'marriage' was simply a matter of labeling was patently false (and was hardly the argument the opponents of Prop 8 were making) and was followed by an incomprehensible analogy to the use of the word 'friend.'  He seemed irritated with President Obama, who, he suggested, if he isn't going to defend DOMA, should simply refuse to enforce it.  Can you imagine the conservative outrage if Obama applied a sort of line-item veto, selectively refusing to enforce laws he had decided were unconstitutional rather than waiting for the Supreme Court to make a decision?  There would be howls about his usurpation of power.

Since the anti-same-sex marriage forces can't use tradition as a legal justification, they initially fell back on procreation as the primary purpose of marriage.  First, shouldn't their lawyers (and the Justices) show some understanding of the history of marriage?  Procreation was never the primary purpose.  And, as Justice Kagan pointed out, if procreation were the primary purpose, whole classes, besides gays, would be ruled out.  I wondered what Chief Justice Roberts, both of whose children are adopted, was thinking during this part of the argument.  Since neither moral objections nor tradition are constitutionally available grounds for challenging same-sex marriages and since procreation as primary goal doesn't hold water, the opponents of gay marriages had trouble finding their footing.   Here's what Paul Clement, the pro-DOMA lawyer, came up with:  "The link between procreation and marriage itself reflects a unique social difficulty with opposite-sex couples that is not present with same-sex couples--namely, the undeniable and distinct tendency of opposite-sex couple relationships to produce unplanned and unintended pregnancies."  If you can parse that sentence and figure out what possible point he was making, you're a better speaker of English than I am. 

Almost no one thinks that SCOTUS is going to issue a sweeping decision in the Prop 8 case, though how narrowly it rules and what effect that will have on the California law seems unclear.  At best, whether through a ruling about lack of standing or a more substantive decision, the Court would re-instate the lower court decision, thus allowing same-sex marriages to resume in our most populous state.  The common prediction on the DOMA case is that the Court will find DOMA unconstitutional and that the federal government will be empowered to grant the 1100 federal benefits that accrue to legally married couples.  Last year at this time, Mohamed and I were thinking about going to Iowa, my home state, to get married there.  You don't have to be a resident of Iowa or a U.S. citizen to marry under Iowa laws.  But since there would be no actual benefits and it seemed as if it would take more energy than I had for this symbolic gesture, especially as there is a three-day waiting period in Iowa, we decided not to do it.

Now, however, if DOMA is struck down, everything would change.  We could make the four-hour drive to Des Moines, check in at a hotel with a comfy bed where I could crash, get the license, wait for three days, perhaps with a one-hour drive to Story City, where I grew up, and then on the third day get married.  My income taxes would fall, since my federal marital status would have changed; if I had more money than I do, Mohamed would be exempt from inheritance taxes; and most important, he could get a green card and future visa problems would disappear.  We'll have to wait till the end of June to know whether that's going to be possible.  Three months and counting...