Masshole Judge Overturns DOMA, Uses Teabaggers' Favorite Amendment For Gayness

 
 Your right-wing types often go on and on and on about "keeping the gummint out of my hair" and "state rights," and take as their proof text the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which basically says that the Feds can't do anything but fight wars and mint gold coins and maybe build interstate highways, and the states should be in charge of everything else. And if you've had to listen to all this, you've probably had the urge to say "So why should the gummint be all up in some dude's business if he wants to marry another dude?" but you don't because you promised your mom that you wouldn't start any fights at Thanksgiving this year. Well, Joseph L. Tauro just basically said the exact thing that you wanted to shout over turkey and stuffing, except he's a federal judge who was appointed by gay communist Richard Nixon 38 years ago, and he said it in a court decision declaring parts of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, so it's really a lot more meaningful than your holiday-ruining diatribe.

Tauro's decision (actually two decisions on two separate but related lawsuits) did not declare that Real American states had to recognize ungodly sodomarriages contracted in the gay states, which, depressing though that might be, at least avoids a probable nuclear-level freakout that would get boring heterosexuality enshrined in the Constitution, forever. But! He did rule that the federal government could not discriminate between legally contracted straight and gay marriages, because, according to the Teabaggers precious, precious Tenth Amendment, only state governments get to decide what a legitimate marriage is. So same-sex marrieds in the states that condone their same-sex-marriedness can file joint tax returns, get spousal Social Security and Medicare benefits, and do all the other hot fucking-and-sucking-related perversions on the "gay agenda."

Did this elderly judge specifically tailor his decision to irritate conservatives? Probably, according to a Yale Law professor!

Professor Balkin said Judge Tauro was "attempting to hoist conservatives by their own petard, by saying: 'You like the 10th Amendment? I'll give you the 10th Amendment! I'll strike down DOMA!'"

Here is a fun side note to this: One of the lawsuits was actually filed by the state of Massachusetts, which argued that DOMA essentially forced the state to discriminate against its own citizens in handing out all the federal largesse that passes through the state government. The suit was brought by the state's Attorney General, Martha Coakley, who you probably vaguely remember as the woman who somehow lost a Massachusetts Senate election to a frequently naked Republican who drives a pickup truck . Scott Brown, of course, is so terrified of gay marriage that he'll do anything to stop it, even berating children with obscenities , so this may be some small measure of revenge on her part.

The Obama Administration, which is defending the law in court, will appeal the decision, obviously, even though they're officially against it, because they are lame. So enjoy the prospect of having simplified tax paperwork while it lasts, gays who live in five states and/or the District of Columbia! Once it gets to the Supreme Court, it will inevitably be overturned in a decision that will mostly consist of Scalia and Roberts coughing and saying "faggot" under their breath. [ NYT ]