Folks, SCOTUS took a stand against Federal overreach today, and I pray we all can see and applaud that even in the midst of everything else. SCOTUS removed the opportunity for the current administration/congress to try to make a federal definition of marriage. By gutting DOMA the way it did, SCOTUS reinforced the Constitutional concept that it is the State's right to define marriage - not the Fed. And what the State calls a Marriage, must be recognized as such by the Fed. Right now that means 12 states will have gay marriage, 30 will not, and 8 are undeclared. And the Fed can't say boo about it ... we should like that, we should celebrate that, because the Fed cannot be trusted.
Recognize the larger picture ... if the Federal government could define marriage, and they were going to starting Sept 1 with the interim Same Sex Domestic Partner DOD ID card program, then what us conservatives would call marriage would be taken away from us over time. We're worried about 130,000 same sex couples ability to file joint on taxes, when statistically they contribute less than they take, when we should recognize that the long war is against marriage itself. I don't want the Fed to have the keys to that. So I see today as a victory for states' rights, particularly for the 30 states who have defined marriage between a man and a woman. SCOTUS gave nothing that would undermine their right to define that for themselves.
As for Prop 8, SCOTUS was not asked to discuss the legality of 3 activist judges overturning a popular election that declared in a sweeping landslide marriage as between a man and woman only. Were I a CA resident, I'd be storming the state Supreme Court, Governors office, and crying foul that legal votes are being swept aside. But that's not a Federal problem to solve either.
There are many many more fights looming on the horizon - polymarriage, bestiality, pedophilia, child marriage. As long as people continue to degrade the definition of marriage in culture, its only a matter of time before they'll vote to legalize anything. We've got to stop thinking we're a Union, divided into 50 more easily manageable states, and recognize we're 50 sovereign states, united for a limited purpose as defined by the Constitution. If you're not fighting for your State, you're missing the picture.
Spiritually, it was always only ever going to get a whole lot worse before it gets much much better.