Plessy v Ferguson
The infamous 1896 Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson was born of a culture that simply could not imagine a world in which the rights of Black Americans were fully equal to those of white Americans. It wasn't until 1967, a time when 90% of white Americans still opposed intermarriage, that the Supreme court struck down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia and with that the tide began to turn. The courts led, the nation followed.
The State Supreme Court in Washington upheld the manifestly unconstitutional ban on same sex marriage despite the illogic and irrelevance of the arguments they embraced. This can only be explained by an overriding set of assumptions that they could not see past. The court held that "limiting marriage to opposite sex couples furthers the well being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children's biological parents." On the face of it, this is absurd. First, same-sex marriage does nothing to discourage opposite-sex parents from rearing their children. Nothing.
Second, if you believe that the only way to have opposite sex parents be so encouraged is to allow only procreating parents be married, then you must follow the logic of your own argument and ban the marriage of heterosexuals who are not capable of having children, and you must ban same sex couples from adopting, and also you must forcibly remove their own biological children and give them to heterosexual parents. But no one suggests any of these draconian measures (except possibly Jeb Bush).
Nor does the court explain how the children of same-sex couples would fail to benefit if their parents were married, which would also be in the state's interest. The only explanation is that the justices were blinded by their preconceptions. It was a clear case of "draw curve, then plot points."
The justices held that "DOMA bears a reasonable relationship to legitimate state interests - procreation and child-rearing." Alas, this is Alice-in-Wonderland reasoning. DOMA bears an inverse relationship to this state's interest. It is in the state's interest that adopted children, and the children of gay and lesbian parents, have married parents providing safe homes. DOMA undermines that interest for the children of same-sex couples, while doing nothing at all for the children of mixed-sex couples. It provides no protection against abuse, violence, neglect; it simply rules out a whole class of loving families as if that somehow would encourage an unrelated set to stay married.
One paragraph I particularly like is this: "DOMA does not violate the state constitution's equal rights amendment because that provision prohibits law that render benefits to... one sex. DOMA treats both sexes the same, neither a man nor a woman may marry a person of the same sex." This reasoning was thrown out long ago by the Supreme court in the Loving case, in which the Supreme Court held "The Equal Protection Clause requires the consideration of whether the classifications drawn by any statute constitute an arbitrary and invidious discrimination." I can not think of a more arbitrary and invidious discrimination than that found here.
This court failed in its responsibility to protect the marginalized against the assumptions and prejudices of the majority because the majority of this very court is so entrenched in those assumptions and prejuidices.
Without drawing pernicious comparisons, I think this is efficacious to our understanding of how learned people of past ages could make what look, in retrospect, to be unthinkable and nearly unbelievable mistakes. How did the educated people of Copernicus's age deny that the Earth was not the center of the Universe? How did Anti-semitism survive its obvious canards and allow the willing execution of millions? How did racism thrive through slavery and Jim Crow? How do today's myths and lies continue? Why are we still debating evolution?
The fact is that for many, even for those who make their career in rational thinking, underlying assumptions trump facts until they are wrestled to the ground by irrefutable and painful events.
While we wait, children and families suffer.