Wednesday's two marriage equality cases came ten years to the day after the Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, struck down Texas's anti-sodomy law.  In his a) snarky  b) intemperate  c) scathing  d) mean-spirited and/or e) prescient dissent to that decision, Justice Scalia wrote to the effect that we should mark his words: once that door had been opened, the Court's upholding same-sex marriage was sure to follow.  In Scalia's dissent in United States v. Windsor, the case that struck down sections of DOMA in a decision written like Lawrence by Justice Kennedy, he is equally infuriated and makes a similar prediction:  now that this shoe has fallen (Scalia seems to have run out of original metaphors to express his distaste), it is inevitable that the other one will drop and the Court will eventually rule that states cannot prohibit same-sex marriages.  Let's hope his foresight is as good as it was ten years ago.

Justice Kennedy's opinion is two-pronged.  One rests on principles of federalism: with exceptions only for flagrantly unconstitutional laws (Loving v. Virginia is the most famous example) laws concerning marriage have always been the province of the states.  One state is free to make the age of consent 13; that marriage is valid in all 50 states.  Most, but not all, states allow first cousins to marry, but once married in Kansas, two cousins also have a valid marriage in Iowa, which prohibits such unions.  If Kennedy had stopped his argument there, perhaps Scalia would have been calmer.  But the other prong, and the one with the most sweeping implications, is that prohibiting same-sex marriages violates equal protection and due process.  Although the majority opinion is explicit that nothing in the decision requires states to allow or recognize gay marriages and although I hate to find myself agreeing with Scalia, once the basis for the argument emphasizes equal protection, it is difficult to see how prohibitions at the state level will finally be allowed to stand.

Scalia's anger is evident from the opening of his dissent:  "the Court's errors . . . spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America."  In the next sentence, he asserts that the Court is "eager--hungry--to tell everyone its view."  This from the man who has voted the day before to thumb his nose at Congressional approval and fifty years of history of the Voting Rights Act.  Among his many implicit attacks on Kennedy and his prose, Scalia attacks Kennedy's "legalistic argle-bargle."  It's easy to imagine Scalia's pleasure with himself for dragging out this phrase.

I don't agree with those who have described Windsor as a baby step.  It's a major step forward, and its implications for further decisions are clear.  Much of course now depends on how, how quickly, and how smoothly it's implemented, and much of that depends on President Obama, who's shown no inclination to dawdle.  For married residents of the twelve states (soon to be thirteen once the legal stay is lifted in California) and the District of Columbia that recognize same-sex marriages, the consequences should be immediate: access to 1,138 rights and benefits.  What's less obvious is how it will affect those who live in or move to the 37 states that forbid gay marriage.  Websites and political pundits on TV have expounded since Wednesday; unfortunately, they've often been assured of contradictory opinions.  The example that seems to have taken hold is what if a couple legally married in New York should move to Alabama?  Most experts agree that they would maintain their federal benefits.  My question is what if Mohamed and I should get married in Iowa, a state that doesn't require residence for marriage, even though we both live in Kansas?  Would we be entitled to federal recognition of our marriage?  I hope (and think) the answer is yes, but it's not evident two days after the decision.

On a personal note, like Rachel Maddow, for many years the old radical in me didn't think this was my fight.  Why should gays aspire to imitate the failed and bourgeois institution of marriage?  But there are over 1100 reasons why I've changed my mind.

The Prop 8 case in California was always messy, as evidenced by the strange alignment of Justices in the 5-4 decision--Roberts, who wrote the opinion, and Scalia on one side, Alito and Thomas on the other; Sotomayor on the opposite side from Ginsburg and Kagan.  But the Court's decision didn't reach to the merits of the case, only to the question of standing.  And even there, the issues were blurred.  The majority found that the proponents of Proposition 8 did have standing as far as the District Court, which found Prop 8 unconstitutional, but did not have standing to appeal.  Thus, the opinion of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was vacated, leaving the essentially identical decision of the District Court as controlling.  Roberts and Scalia were at least consistent in their narrow definition of what constitutes and who has standing.  Although conservatives have put up some feeble opposition to the ruling (their most novel argument is that decision applies only to the two couples who brought the case and has no wider implications), once the stay of implementation which the lower courts put into place until the Supreme Court could decide the case has been lifted, LGBT Californians will become the largest population in the country to have the right to same-sex marriage.