Things are about to get weird. After months of hearing from conservatives and fundamentalists about how they were going to secede, leave the country, or burn themselves in effigy over same-sex marriage, the day has arrived. The Supreme Court has rendered their decision in a 5-4 ruling that same-sex marriage is to be law of the land.
As a result of this ruling, same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marry, and states cannot take that right away from them. The decision requires all 50 states to recognize all legally performed marriages from all jurisdictions, and to extend marriage to same-sex couples. In short, the court's decision requires all states to treat marriages of same-sex couples exactly as they treat marriages of different-sex couples.
On April 28, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in cases from each of the four states that make up the Sixth Circuit: Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. It had challenged plaintiffs and defendants to answer two questions:
Question 1: Must states allow same-sex couples to marry under the United States Constitution?
Question 2: Must states recognize the legal marriages entered by same-sex couples in other jurisdictions?
The Court this morning answered yes to both.
That means there a number of things that we can all look forward to. Here are just a few.
Breitbart's hate bag, John Nolte, will not see the rainbow flag taken down, burned, or banned like the Confederate battle flag. Here's what he wrote in his vitriolic bigoted blog post:
Under the banner of what is dishonestly called a gay pride or gay "rights" flag, hate, fascism, and intolerance has festered for years, specifically against Christians and conservatives. Under the auspices of a "rights and equality" symbol, Leftists have been on a rampage to take way the rights of others through bullying, lies, and online terrorism.The list of misdeeds and victims resulting from an increasingly emboldened Big Gay Hate Machine continues to grow.
In case it wasn't obvious, that was about the gay-pride flag, which he'll be seeing a lot more of in the coming days.
Joseph Farah, founder of WorldNetDaily, the one-stop shop for right-wing lunacy, sent out an all-points bulletin to governors last week suggesting that they secede from the union if SCOTUS rules against state bans of same-sex marriage. We can look forward to him and his followers leaving the country. I suggested Somalia as a perfect bastion of libertarianism and homophobia.
Earlier this month, Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, in an unfortunate choice of words, suggested that homosexuality was being "crammed down [the] throats" of Christians, noting that Tiffany's & Co is "advertising wedding rings for gay couples." Graham called for a boycott of the jeweler and Wells Fargo, which apparently both use same-sex couples in their ads. Ironically, he posted his outrage on Facebook, whose CEO and founder marched alongside his employees in 2013 in San Francisco's pride parade. He and his flock are going to run out of places to shop and bank pretty quickly.
Another particularly nutty preacher, Rick Scarborough, an ex-Southern Baptist Bible thumper who runs Vision America and the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration claimed he had congressmen interested in signing a pledge to oppose any court ruling making same-sex marriage legal:
We're saying, before that, we will never obey that tyrannical law. It's counter to natural law, and God's higher law... We will simply refuse to comply with recognizing same-sex "marriage" as legitimate. The Supreme Court does not have the inherent right [to make that change]. We're going to continue doing what we've always done ... they better have a lot of prisons and jails.
Now the high court is threatening to unleash the spirit of hell on the nation, if they deny what nature clearly teaches on this subject of gender and marriage.
And, here's the good one:
We are not going to bow, we are not going to bend, and if necessary, we will burn.
The preachers need to get out front, the leaders need to get out front, out front of these ordinary citizens and say, "Shoot me first."
That's right: He's prepared to burn to death to fight gay marriage. Here's the clip:
Tom DeLay was stoking homophobic fears and warning of a massive revolt if the Supreme Court rules to strike down gay marriage bans. "If this Supreme Court rules against marriage, all hell is going to break loose," DeLay said on The Steve Malzberg Show.
DeLay went on to say that he had pledges signed by politicians, including -- who else? -- Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, who have vowed to defy a ruling by SCOTUS. Of course, neither of them holds any political office, but why should that matter? They're the dynamic anti-gay duo.
During the interview, while DeLay is ranting about "all hell breaking loose" if gays marry, he pulls out an idea we'll be hearing a lot about and attempts to explain that anyone who "understands the Constitution" knows that the legislative and executive branches do not need to enforce a Supreme Court ruling, "and not only that, if the states would just invoke the 10th Amendment and assert their sovereignty, they could defy a ruling by the Supreme Court." And that's relevant to anyone who doesn't care to look deeper than "Gays can't marry because it's gross" or "Being gay is a choice."
And here's one that's going to be loads of fun, and one we can look forward to: Glenn Beck and religious-right activist Jim Garlow have 10,000 passionate pastors prepared to give up their lives if necessary in the fight against the coming persecution of Christians:
The number in the Black Robe Regiment is about 70,000 now. The number that I think will walk through a wall of fire, you know, and possible death, is anywhere between 17,000 and 10,000. That is an extraordinary number of people that are willing to lay it all down on the table and willing to go to jail or go to death because they serve God and not man.
Time and time again the Republicans are being shown by SCOTUS and by the people of this country that they are consistently wrong in their views. They have been on the wrong side of history consistently over the recent decades, and between Obamacare on Thursday and same-sex marriage today, they have had their asses handed to them twice, just in the last week.
So we have a lot to look forward to in the coming days and weeks. I'm hoping tickets go on sale soon.
See more by Richard Zombeck at Liberals Unite, and follow him on Twitter.