Irrational Exuberance for Gay Marriage

When the Supreme Court agreed in early December to hear two cases on gay marriage, the New York Times hailed the "Next Civil Rights Landmark" and contrasted the Court's swiftness in addressing the issue with the years it tarried before ruling on interracial marriage in the segregated South. That was an odd comparison. Apart from containing the word "marriage" and having drawn the interest of the high court, the two issues have nothing to do with one another. The most wild-eyed Ku Klux Klansman of the 1960s did not doubt that, if permitted, mixed-race couples could, and would, fulfill every condition of matrimony. The constitutional question—an easy one as it turned out—was whether a country with a tradition of freedom of association could permit government to stand in their way.