Replies

For the majority:

By seeking to injure the very class New York seeks to protect,DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government. The Constitution’s guarantee of equality “must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot” justify disparate treatment of that group.

Despite the fact that the four liberals allowed Kennedy to couch the majority opinion largely in States' rights arguments, does this sound like the holding of someone who intends to uphold a State's marriage laws if they forbid gay marriage? It does not.

Dissenting (Alito -- correctly -- notes that in defining marriage, DOMA does not infringe on the States' rights to regulate it.)

"It leaves the choice to the people, acting through their elected representatives at both the federal and state levels. The Constitution does not guarantee the right to enter into a same-sex marriage. Indeed, no provision of the Constitution speaks to the issue."

Dissenting (Nino. Who understands the real danger implied in 5th and 14th Amendment arguments offered by the majority):

"It takes real cheek for today's majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here—when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority's moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress's hateful moral judgment against it. I promise you this: The only thing that will "confine" the Court's holding is its sense of what it can get away with."

Just so.

I have a rule of thumb you might find useful: When you are on the side of a Constitutional issue that is opposed by Thomas, Alito and Scalia, you are on the wrong side of the Constitution. These men are not gods; they can be wrong. But ALL THREE of them are NEVER wrong at the same time.