[news] I almost forgot...

Gay couples are just like straight couples. So, they get equal rights...in New Jersey.

Cue the Apocalypse...in New Jersey.

Here's the opinion.


When judicial opinions come out that people disagree with, the first accusation isn't that they're wrong--it's that they're cheating. So, there are a ton of commentaries out right now saying that this is judicial activism. Ok, great. Nothing new.

There's another breed of non-academic critique, though, saying that this is perverting the idea of equality. I find those much more interesting. For those people, equality is some kind of mathematical formula. You plug in the numbers, simplify the terms, and then check your answer in the back of the book. Not always the Bible, but often.

One such commentator said that the court pulled a fast one by shifting equal protection from the individual to "the couple." The court said gay couples are like straight couples, therefore they get all the same rights. The critique says that's sleight of hand--equal protection is for the individual, not groups. And it's not a violation of equal protection to forbid everyone from marrying someone of the same sex.

Anyone who claims absolutes or exclusive access to truth in constitutional law should be greatly mistrusted. If I passed a law today saying that nobody could be black, that'd be "equal protection" under that formula. It's not against black people as individuals because nobody can be black.

Equal protection can't mean that everyone is identical. They're not. For it to work, I think it has to at least mean that people aren't treated worse for their differences just because they're different. We can argue baselines and relevant differences and all that, but I'll tell you--I know when someone's shitting on me just because they don't like me. And that, I believe, is a sign that they don't think I'm as good as them. That they'd pass laws that institutionalize that. That they are violating my guarantee of equality.

It's not hard. No math required.