[WORDPRESS REALLY SUCKS. THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE POSTED MONDAY.]
Sailing, sailing . . . which means I have no Internet and am tele-posting this through sheer force of will, like the time my mother made my brother’s crutch fall just be setting her mind to it.
My brother had broken his leg hitting tennis balls on the ice (and went on to Harvard? seriously?) and so was on crutches. Crutches can be fun, if you’re not on them. It was fun to try to get one of the crutches to stand upright on its own . . . don’t breathe or you could knock it over . . . and then watch my mother knock it over via telekinesis. We pronounced it tele-KIN-ness-sis though I believe it’s tele-keh-NEE-sis. And it’s just possible it was not telekinesis, however pronounced, that toppled the crutch. But if not, then how do you account for the way she started the engine of our 1958 Buick one frigid February morning after my dad had, indisputably, “flooded” it? I could explain to younger readers what “flooding” a car engine was, and how it used to lead to cursing, missed trains, and threatened marriages, but it’s only that — marriages — that are the focus today.
Because as you’ve doubtless heard, the Supreme Court Friday accepted two same-sex marriage cases for review, with decisions expected in June.
The first case will likely strike down DOMA — the so-called “Defense of Marriage” Act — unless a majority of the Justices think it’s “equal justice under the law” for Uncle Sam to afford all legally married couples the same tax treatment . . . except for couples like this one, together for 42 years and deemed legally married by the State of New York, but hit with a $363,000 federal estate tax bill anyway.
The second case will likely strike down California’s “Prop 8,” allowing same-sex marriages (approved by California’s legislature, governor, and appeals court) to resume, and likely also dealing . . . in some needle-threading way . . . with whether to force marriage equality on states whose legislatures have not approved it — or civil unions, or anything else. Mississippi springs to mind.
The world faces bigger issues. But marriage equality is one on which progress is being made — and gaining momentum.
