The Court did not rule that DOMA was Unconstitutional because it attempted to clarify the Full Faith and Credit Clause in a way not previously held in the case law, nor in a way inconsistent with its original meaning. Had the court found so narrowly, the question of whether States must grant full faith and credit to all marriage arrangements would still be an open question.
It no longer is; as a matter of fact, it is considerably WORSE than that.
READ Kennedy's opinion. The Court ruled that DOMA was Unconstitutional because it violated the Equal Protection Clause for an identifiable class of persons. Although it did not go as far as to say there is a right to homosexual "marriage," that a future Court must do so is now a foregone conclusion.
The Court's decision today clearly signals that if homosexuals are denied marriage licenses in my state (PA) that is per se a violation of Equal Protection under the Law, and if they bring suit against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in Federal Court, they will succeed in creating a right to be "married" here.
With all due respect -- and with the irony that your moniker requires -- the Court today went much farther than rule that the Federal Government could not make a marriage law that infringed on States' rights. It ruled in fact that NO LEGAL ENTITY covered by the Fourteenth Amendment may make a law that infringes on the "right" of homosexuals to marry.
That is the reason for Scalia's savage deprecation of the majority opinion. When the legislature destroys the Constitution, at least it does so with the assent of the people. When the Court does so, it does so under the authority of nothing more than the opinion of five lawyers.
With all due respect to Justice Kennedy, pro-big federal government activist Justices cannot afford to reference the 10th Amendment for any reason.
I haven't read opinion yet, but if Kennedy referred to equal protections clause in Section 1 of 14th Amendment then that is a wrong, PC interpretation of that clause.
More specifically, note that regardless of the equal protections clause in Sec. 1 of 14A, note that Sec. 2 of that amendment discriminates on the basis of sex, age and citizenship. In fact, if John Bingham had meant for equal protections clause to be understood the way that activist justices are now interpreting it, then there would have been no need for the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments which protect voting rights on the basis of race, sex, taxes owed and age respectively.
Regarding 14A's equal protections clause, the states have the 10A-protected power to discriminate on any basis not protected by an express constitutional right. What 14A's equal protections clause does is to require the states to discriminate equally on criteria not protected by the Constitution.
It's ironic that the equal protections clause of California's constitution is expressly based, I believe, on 14A's equal protection clause.