The Supreme Court Rulings: Day of Sorrow, Day of Joy

I'm thrilled with the supreme court ruling against DOMA. This is a tide that can't be stopped.

Last fall my son, living in Minnesota, applied for a job at a university in the south. They were a little worried about how someone from the north would do in the south. At a round table with all the faculty, one young prof. asked him what he liked about Atlanta. "Well," my son said, "you have some good gay rights going here."

"Is that the kind of thing you're into?" said the young prof.

The head of the committee's hand shot out. "You can't ask that!" Because, of course, its strictly against the law to ask about sexual orientation.

My son was hired, and took the job. He moves to Atlanta in a few months, with his wife and new baby.

But. My joy is tempered by the striking down of the heart of the Voting Rights Act. This is such a huge, huge loss for our country.

We had a movement, a wonderful, committed leader, a group of (mostly) young people willing to put their liberty, even their lives at risk.  We had a Congress willing to work together. The reverberations of this will run through our politics for so long. Five to four. So close.

Here's congressman John Lewis, who was tear-gassed and clubbed at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama while fighting for the right to vote in 1965:


And President Johnson, 1965. Imagine the courage it took for this Southern politician to push this legislation through.