Some numbers relevant to the rulings…
The Supreme Court’s rulings on a pair of landmark cases on Wednesday, which overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act and effectively legalized same-sex marriage in California, are the latest in a recent series of legal and legislative victories for same-sex marriage advocates worldwide.
By Aug. 1, same-sex marriage will be legal in California, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington — all states where it was not legal one year earlier.
There are about 59 million people living in these seven states, which means that the availability of same-sex marriage in the United States as a percentage of population will have more than doubled within the year. As of early last year, same-sex marriage was legal only in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and the District of Columbia, which have 35 million people among them.
I’m not sure what this all means in the grand scheme of things but it certainly seemed more more germane to the day’s events than the fact that John Roberts has a gay cousin.
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