I promised myself I wouldn't be glued to my web browser all day. I promised myself that last night, when I heard the news that today was the Day of Decision.
I kept that promise. Sort of.
I still read my morning blogs, and read the assessment on Calitics about the possible ways a decision might look:
Loss: Walker decides it's constitutional to vote on people's civil rights.
Win (sort of): Walker decides that the implementation of Prop 8 is unconstitutional, because there are already 18,000 same-sex married couples (my husband and I being one of them) in the state and it's not okay to deny that right to other people. Kind of a Solomon-splitting-the-baby decision, and not exactly one full of clarity.
Win (true win): Walker decides that Prop 8 is unconstitutional either on 14th Amendment grounds, Due Process grounds, or (in our dreams) both.
So, knowing that, and knowing I had things to do today, I avoided the blogs after that. I didn't look at the news sites, I didn't search "Prop 8 decision," I stayed away from the browser... right up until my iPhone lit up with a text message that Walker had overturned Prop 8.
But nothing more.
I had to know: which win did we get? The one that says it's unconstitutional because of my husband and me and the members of the 18K club? Or the one that says it's unconstitutional because it's freaking unconstitutional, dammit, and you don't get to play games with people's fundamental civil rights?
So I hopped on my browser, and made my husband late for an appointment.
And there it was, big as life and twice as beautiful.
UNCONSTITUTIONAL on the basis of equal protection.
UNCONSTITUTIONAL on the basis of due process.
STRICT SCRUTINY applies to GLBTs, but isn't necessary in this case because the intervenors can't even pass a rational-basis test.
I was stunned. And then I laughed. And then I downloaded the text of the decision and read through it voraciously while my husband was at his appointment, reading bits (okay, more than bits - whole paragraphs! whole pages, even!) to Plays Well With Others and Agent Pokemon and explaining how big this was, and grinning as they cheered and clapped and asked intelligent questions.
I haven't cried. Yet. I'm still sitting here absorbing the fact that even though we all kind of hoped for it and maybe even expected it, Walker still did the right thing when he could have punted with the second choice Calitics listed, or even crushed us all by saying "Nope, it's constitutional." I'm sitting here realizing that because he documented every fact meticulously, the Ninth and SCOTUS have very little legal chance of weaseling out of the facts of the case. I'm sitting here and coming to the delightful conclusion that even the Roberts Court can't overturn this, because they'd have to revoke and overturn (at minimum) Lawrence, Romer, Roe, and Loving, and they're just not going to do that. I'm sitting here realizing that he used Scalia's own words against him in this decision, and that's going to make Antonin have a stroke or something like it from the fury.
I'm sitting here realizing that finally - FINALLY - after nearly a year and a half as second-class citizens (my gay and lesbian friends who couldn't marry at all being third-class citizens) that the wrong has been righted. My husband and I are equal to anyone else in this country. And this decision could have the far-reaching, sweeping effect of overturning every constitutional amendment in every state that says "fags and dykes can't get married," no matter how they try to hide that that's what it says.
I'm absorbing the fact that we won. This makes up for that dark night of the soul in November 2008 that my husband and I went through, stunned and disbelieving, trying to rejoice that Obama had been elected at the same time as we tried to absorb that the citizens of our state had acted in bigotry and hatred for no other reason than that we loved each other.
Thank you, Judge Walker. Thank you for reaffirming, once again, that I'm a citizen with rights and privileges equal to any other citizen. Thank you for reaffirming that bigoted ideas about morality don't cut any ice in a court of law. Thank you for restoring my faith in the justice system and the Constitution of this country.
Thank you for refusing to back down in the face of hate.
Thank you for refusing to give in to bigotry, and for showing their bigotry for what it is: lies, superstitions, and fears - not truth.
Thank you for speaking truth to hatred.
Just.. thank you, Judge Walker.
Thank you.