New Jersey

Damn, this gay marriage thing was tough to understand and to decide what was best outcome at this time in New Jersey.

I did not want to give Karl Rove anything to stop the GOP getting screwed on November 7th.

And when I heard it was a 4/3 decision, I thought "damn, even New Jersey has three judges against us." Until I realized that the three dissenters wanted full marriage for gays in name also. The majority "just" wanted all the rights and privileges, but allowed the legislature to decided what name to give the institution, and told lesbian and gay people to get to work persuading their neighbours to accept them.

NO JUDGE DISSENTED from the decision that gay and lesbian couples deserve equality.

It's a brilliant decision given the timing: nothing to rile the Christianists to get out to vite, but it will create another civil union state.

Andrew Sullivan's prediction of a patchwork of development for gay marriage, made eight years ago, is coming true.

As a historian I know that social mores can change within a matter of months: but the trend to accept legal gay unions is probably now unstoppable in Western Civilization.

In the long run, Western Civilization will die. Later civilizations will have different sets of familial institutions and rules (clones can't marry clones, perhaps). Who knows? But in our episteme, "Gay is Good" is rapidly becoming "Gay is Boringly Normal."

It's a WIN all round for gays and lesbians.

Until the next episteme that is.