Meet Me in St. Louis, Louie

Marriages are happening in the Gateway City as I type, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:

Denying Missouri's gay couples the opportunity to marry is unconstitutional, a judge ruled Wednesday. As a result, St. Louis Circuit Judge Rex Burlison said in his decision, marriage licenses can be issued throughout Missouri beginning today. In St. Louis city, four license were issued immediately after the ruling.

"The Court finds and declares that any same sex couple that satisfies all the requirements for marriage under Missouri law, other than being of different sexes, is legally entitled to a marriage license," Burlison wrote.

He said the Missouri Constitution violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. However, the state attorney general said he will appeal the ruling to the Missouri Supreme Court. Burlison's ruling comes more than four months after four couples were married at St. Louis City Hall, even though there is a 10-year-old state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

Full text of the ruling, which it seems applies only to the city of St. Louis, is here. Freedom to Marry has pics of several happy couples tying the knot at the courthouse.


In other news, with most local races now fully counted, Republicans have retained their majority in the House of Representatives and gained majority control of the Senate. Crap. This bodes no good.