It's sad that there are so few of us who see what a great injustice this is. I hope that our country will be able to arrest its current backslide into theocratic hegemony, and add once again move in a progressive direction.

To those that think this is 'a battle for the legislature,' consider Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that laws banning interracial couples from marrying was unconstitutional. 1967, people! We're not talking about the beginning of the civil rights movement, we're talking about the end, when equality for African-Americans was supposedly accomplished. Did you know that the FIRST time that a majority of Americans approved of interracial marriage was in 1991? Issues of equality under the law should not be an issue for "the people" to decide as a majority. These issues have a firm right and wrong answer; unlike some other policy questions such as tax reform. They are questions of human dignity.

The debate about whether same-sex couples or opposite-sex couples are more suited to be married is irrelevant. As this article noted, marriage licenses are not a limited resource, there is no demonstrated harm to opposite-sex couples by allowing same-sex couples to marry. Thus, no rational basis can be demonstrated for denying same-sex couples.

Regarding whether children SHOULD have same-sex parents, the debate is also irrelevant. Children DO have same-sex parents, and by denying their parents protection under the law, the NYSC has harmed the exact children it purports to protect. I thoroughly enjoyed this article. Here's hoping we don't get the same result in Washington State (my home) in the coming months as its Supreme Court is expected to give a decision very soon.

Responding to:

"It goes back to the test used to decide the case. The judge is saying that, using the example above, the legislature could rationally deny homosexuals the right to marry, and therefore the Domestic Relations Law is constitutional. (Remember, the plaintiffs, in the judge's eyes, failed to prove that the argument was irrational.) That is the heart of the ruling, and a little less broad than Miles makes it out to be."

The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that marriage is a fundamental right. See Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 (1942). See also Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). As such, a statute that denies a person a fundamental right must undergo Strict Scrutiny. Strict scrutiny means that a law must(1) be justified by a compelling governmental interest, and (2) be narrowly tailored to the achievement of the stated purpose. See Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989). I doubt you will find many judges that thinks that banning same-sex marriage satisfies strict scrutiny, which is why all State Supreme Courts that have upheld gay marriage bans have considered the statutes using the rational basis test, which is in error.

This is a tired old saw, one I've yet to see statistically proven, and contradicted by the people I meet. Lesbians are capable of being real players. The lesbians I know are just as capable of promiscuity (or being sexually liberated, if you prefer) as some of the gay men I know. Conversely, I know gay men who will settle for nothing less than complete monogamy.

It does seem to me that the men I know who have multiple partners are more likely to be up front about it, while the women are more frequently in the old fashioned straight couple mode of presenting the image of a stable relationship, while surreptitiously going after half the girls on the softball team. That's the only real difference I see.

This whole nonsense about how men are genetically wired to sleep around and so gays are hedonists, while women are genetically wired to be monogamous and so lesbians are the pefection of domesticity is rubbish.

Sexist, too.

I've always supported human rights and my definition of that includes gay rights. I grew up beside a gay community and have always been proud of my region's diversity and enlightened open mindedness. So, I’m very reluctant to say anything that might hurt or offend my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

However, one aspect of the gay marriage argument does truly bother me: that two parents of the same gender are no different from two parents, one of each gender. I just don’t see how that’s logically tenable and it undermines the gay marriage argument imho because it predicates the argument on what seems a demonstrably false biological equivalency. I’d support a “good enough” argument for gay marriage and child rearing before an “equal” argument, because the latter seems reckless, ideological, and outright false.

I’m not denying that gay parents are frequently good and even great, or that straight couples are often terrible. It’s just this: all else being equal, a great mother and father is the ideal, superior to any other arrangement. Better than even a great single parent or great partners of the same sex.

As far as government's role to encourage the ideal while balancing individual's rights, the difference between advocacy and eugenics, well that's a tricky area with no bright lines and as gay marriage shows people disagree greatly on government's role.

However, it's worth considering nobody is banning single parenting, marriages of convenience to raise existing children, or many other less than perfect arrangements. Likewise nobody has been taken seriously when arguing those arrangements are equally ideal either. I was raised by a single mother who despite her extrordinary care and effort, neither of us would pretend that was ideal and that a father (specifically) wouldn't have been welcome.

An immediate parent from each gender does matter and have value.

I think you missed the point, which was not to say that the judge hadn't professed to use the rational basis test (which, as someone else pointed out, may not even be the correct test if marriage really is a fundamental right). It was that the judge flubbed his way through a nutbar rationale in order to rule against the plaintiffs. The "context" quoted merely lays out the highly irrational reasons often used by states to uphold these laws, with a few extra irrationalities added in. The legislature could find that marriage is simply an inducement for straight people not to leave each other, and therefore the legislature wants to exclude gays and lesbians? Maybe I'm living on another planet, but that doesn't seem rational to me at all. The "rational basis" test is just that: Does it make sense? Is there a real reason to treat certain people differently than others under the law, or do we just not like these people? Is it logic or prejudice? I think it's clear that current marriage restrictions (and not the idiotic game of What Were The Founders Thinking) fall into the latter category, and in my opinion the judges who attempt to fit them into the first are the ones who run afoul of their duties.