Reaction to the Marriage Rulings: Sullivan

Last night, Andrew Sullivan summed up his thoughts about the momentous day:

Marriage is not a political act; it’s a human one. It is based on love, before it is rooted in law. Same-sex marriages have always existed because the human heart has always existed in complicated, beautiful and strange ways. But to have them recognized by the wider community, protected from vengeful relatives, preserved in times of illness and death, and elevated as a responsible, adult and equal contribution to our common good is a huge moment in human consciousness. It has happened elsewhere. But here in America, the debate was the most profound, lengthy and impassioned. This country’s democratic institutions made this a tough road but thereby also gave us the chance and time to persuade the country, which we did. . . .

So to those who are often tempted to write off America’s ability to perfect its union still further, to lead the world in the clarity of its moral and political discourse, and to resist the pull of fundamentalism when it conflicts with human dignity, let me just say: I believe.

Because I have seen.

And he quotes political theorist Hannah Arendt:

The right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right compared to which "the right to attend an integrated school, the right to sit where one pleases on a bus, the right to go into any hotel or recreation area or place of amusement, regardless of one’s skin or color or race" are minor indeed. Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs.

Update: One of Sullivan's readers crystallizes a thought that was already forming in your Head Trucker's mind:

I don’t know about you, but my head explodes when I read the following from Scalia’s dissent: “We have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation.”

You mean like you invalidated a whole section of the Voting Rights Act (just yesterday!) and tried unsuccessfully to sink the entire Affordable Care Act? I’m not a lawyer, and my lawyer friends assure me that Scalia is brilliant, if extremist, but I read that kind of head-turning inconsistency and all I see is a hack, not a brilliant legal mind. And again, I’m not a lawyer, but isn’t the entire purpose of the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of legislation (democratically adopted or otherwise) and invalidate it when necessary? What a dipshit.