Jimmy Carter disappoints on the issue of Texas and gay marriage

[MADem]

40. States' rights is a two-edged sword, that is mitigated and sometimes guided by federal intervention.

The bottom line, though, is that states' rights ADVANCED equality in America. The result of states' rights actions by states like the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Vermont and Maine and others was a net gain for marriage rights for all as a consequence of them, and without states' rights, there would be no equality of marriage in the USA. The federal government had neither the desire nor the will to make equality the law of the land. This is an uncomfortable truth--but it is the truth. No 'guise' about it.

States that don't have marriage equality are in the minority today, but the ones that do have it because either the voters of individual states voted for it, or the judges, elected by the voters or appointed by politicians placed into office by the voters, ruled that discrimination in marriage violated those STATES' constitutions.