Actually this is a two-fer for us.

Heightened scrutiny means that the target of the law is a class of people for which it is legally assumed that targeting them is going to always be unconstitutional. You don’t have to look at every single law that singles out black people for different treatment to see if this one in particular is unconstitutional because it’s a given. Police wont enforce a racist law; they already know it won’t fly.

For gay people, it’s been a mixed bag. Without heightened scrutiny, every new anti-gay law that is presented is assumed to be just fine until it is challenged in court. Even blatantly unconstitutional laws like Tennessee’s “can’t say gay” law is presumed legal until proven otherwise.

Judge White said the same thing that Judge Walker said: gay people deserve the presumptions of heightened scrutiny, but this law here wouldn’t pass the ‘oh, gee, make up anything as long as it’s not completely delusional’ rational basis test.

yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

I love this. Not only is it true but we would be better served by recognizing it as such.

Too often we equate opposition to same-sex marriage with hatred. While this may feed our need to dislike and discredit the opposition, it changes few minds.

“You’re a hater” is not very effective in convincing someone – who doesn’t hate you – that they should rethink this issue. But “you haven’t given careful, rational reflection to the issue and are accepting instead a pre-judged conclusion” may well encourage a change of position.

White was appointed to the Federal Bench by… wait for it… DUBYA!!

Marriage has been, due to the whims of fate, primarily decided by Republican Judges appointed by Republican Presidents who looked at the constitution and couldn’t find that gosh darn asterisk that excluded gay people (drat that strict adherence to the wording). And so when I hear Republican nominees tell their audiences that they will appoint judges that uphold the constitution and not read some liberal social agenda into it, I just nod and giggle.

The multimillion dollar House defense of DOMA, starring Paul Clement as a $500 rent-a-gent, has not only failed, but made the case even worse by implementing an even higher level of scrutiny?

I sure hope so, because I am currently smiling mit schadenfreude.