“But ultimately the Supreme Court will have to step in to complete the nation’s journey on marriage equality, just as it did in Loving v. Virginia, from 1967, when the Justices rejected the last remaining bans on interracial marriage. Kennedy’s opinion in Windsor makes plain that that day is drawing ever nearer. Scalia, as it happens, saw this more clearly than anyone. 'The real rationale of today’s opinion,' he wrote in his dissent, 'is that DOMA is motivated by a ”bare . . . desire to harm“ couples in same-sex marriages.' And he added, 'How easy it is, indeed how inevitable, to reach the same conclusion with regard to state laws denying same-sex couples marital status.' Scalia’s declaration was meant as a threat. We should consider it a promise.”

-- Jeffrey Toobin, “Adieu, DOMA!” in the Talk of the Town section of The New Yorker, July 8 & 15, 2013

Tags: Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, Gay Marriage, Antonin Scalia