June 27, 2013 12:22PM

Gay Marriage at the Supreme Court: The Morning After

By Walter Olson

I liveblogged yesterday's decisions at Overlawyered. A few excerpts:

Kennedy’s majority opinion in Windsor cites the "federalism brief" by Cato-associated scholars, but disentangling the federalism strands from the “equal liberty” strands is likely to keep scholars busy for a long while.

From Josh Blackman, “The Top 10 Most Liberty-Oriented Kennedy Quotes in Windsor.” Flashback: Windsor decision was written by Second Circuit’s Dennis Jacobs, leading conservative and a favorite judge of the Federalist Society (and of mine). And earlier, from my colleague David Boaz, a post on Judge Vaughn Walker, who struck down Prop 8 and who like Jacobs has faced vitriol at various points from ostensibly progressive quarters.

GOP platforms for years have been decrying the unfairness of the death tax, but it took Edith Windsor to do something about it.

Randy Barnett, SCOTUSBlog: “Federalism marries liberty in the DOMA decision.” And a Trevor Burrus podcast for Cato.

Just minutes after it was issued, the Windsor decision made a difference for one couple:

At 10:30 a.m. EDT this morning in a New York Immigration Court, attorneys from our law firm (Masliah Soloway) requested and were granted a continuance in removal (deportation) proceedings for a Colombian gay man married to an American citizen for whom we had filed a marriage-based green card petition last year. A copy of the 77-page Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor was delivered to the court by our summer intern, Gabe, who ran five blocks and made it in time for the decision to be submitted to the Immigration Judge and to serve a copy on the Immigration & Customs Enforcement Assistant Chief Counsel. DOMA is DEAD and it had its first impact on a binational couple within 30 minutes of the Supreme Court ruling.

Hoping it will make the difference for my friends Eleanor and Fumiko as well.

Both Perry and Windsor remind us that standing issues are regularly 1) orthogonal to underlying substance; 2) important for own sake. 

Whole thing here.