Is pursuing equality on the path our LGBT organizations represent a sound strategy?
The path of taking the state route gains rights for gay and lesbians with each success — and it also ends at SCOTUS. However, it forces those in states with constitutional bans on marriage equality to languish without full civil rights until a favorable decision at that level at some unknown point in the future. It also relies on additional gains that can be made with the repeal of DOMA, for instance, something also promised but that we may not see any time soon. *** I received an email from Tobias Wolff, Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, who had these interesting and thoughtful matters to share as we discuss this. In 1972 — 5 years after Loving v. Virginia, the anti-miscegenation case — the Supreme Court actually did weigh in on the question of the federal constitutional argument for marriage equality. In a case called Baker v. Nelson, the Minnesota courts had denied a marriage equality claim by a gay couple. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court o
