The Status Quo

by Patrick Appel

Talbot reads up on the DOMA case:

Which status quo did the Justice Department lawyers mean? If they were talking about marriage itself, well, yes, heterosexual marriage was the status quo in 1996 [when DOMA passed]. But if they were talking about marriage law, the status quo there was for “the federal government to recognize for federal purposes, any marriage declared valid according to state law.” States ruled. The federal government had to recognize even a marriage that no other states would allowlike one uniting a fourteen-year-old boy and a thirteen-year-old girl, which was permitted nowhere but New Hampshire.

Argentine marriage equality ad via Savage.