OK all you kiddos out there under 30:
If you had told me "when I was your age" we would see the friggin' supreme court on the edge of a decision that would or could possibly change the definition of marriage to include same sex couples ... I mean - I NEVER would have believed it.
HOWEVER...
If you had told me at the same time how many
semi-automatic assault weapons would be in private homes purchased in private sales without background checks - I'd have told you were nuts and reading too many books about crazy anarchists.
OR
That too many states would be systematically dissembling abortion rights, and at least
one law was signed by a governor
who declared that he and his state legislature were hoping to challenge our rights in the US Supreme Court ... I'd have reminded you that Roe v Wade had passed and we were creating more clinics that offered safe abortions and that the way our society was progressing it was crazy to think our rights would be threatened!
And
If you had told me that in 2013 all of this would take place, and that as much as we gain, we lose in other places; that we would still have such small percentages of women representing 51% of the population in elected local state and national offices, I'd have told you: THAT precisely, would the problem.
Thank goodness for the women on our Supreme Court.
My favorite quotes from the past two days:
Well, is what happened in 1996 — and I'm going to quote from the House Report here — is that "Congress decided to reflect an honor of collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality." Is that what happened in 1996?"
and
Suppose a state said that, Because we think that the focus of marriage really should be on procreation, we are not going to give marriage licenses anymore to any couple where both people are over the age of 55. Would that be constitutional?" - Justice Elena Kagan
(that one falls in the why-didn't-I-think-of-that category!)
"Outside of the marriage context, can you think of any other rational basis, reason, for a state using sexual orientation as a factor in denying homosexuals benefits or imposing burdens on them? Is there any other rational decision-making that the government could make? Denying them a job, not granting them benefits of some sort, any other decision?" Justice Sonia Sotomayor
On the issue of benefits:
They're not — they're not a question of additional benefits. I mean, they touch every aspect of life. Your partner is sick. Social Security. I mean, it's pervasive. It's not as though, well, there's this little federal sphere and it's only a tax question. It's — it's — as Justice Kennedy said, 1,100 statutes, and it affects every area of life. And so he was really diminishing what the state has said is marriage. You're saying, no, state said two kinds of marriage; the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage. - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
spurring the #skimmilkmarriage trend