New Mexico!

The state's Supreme Court, by unanimous decision, has said same-sex couples may marry. Starting now. A few months ago individual counties in New Mexico began declaring (some by court order) that they would offer marriage equality. The various county clerks got together to ask their highest court to clarify the issue. And now it is clear. NM will be the 17th state (though it takes effect in NM before it does in Illinois).

Ari Ezra Waldman, who writes the law column for the blog Towleroad, was succinct:

Regular readers of Towleroad's law column already know the basics: The constitution--in this case, a state constitution--guarantees equal protection of the law. Denying marriage licenses to certain individuals simply because of their sex or sexual orientation is unequal treatment that the state has to justify. Because the LGBT community has long been a victim of institutionalized and insidious discrimination, the state has a high burden to meet, a burden we call "intermediate scrutiny." The supposed justification that restricting marriage to opposite sex couples prevents accidental children out of wedlock is no justification for discrimination because marriage has never had anything to do with raising children. Because the state cannot meets its burden, the discrimination is unconstitutional. Gays can marry.

It is remarkable that this legal narrative has become so simple, so obvious, so matter-of-fact that we can summarize it in a paragraph and move on.

Waldman expands on all that. He notes that the ruling by the national Supremes and the cases that led up to it make a case like this pretty much a formula.

In this case the only reason that was given why New Mexico should prohibit marriage equality is "responsible procreation." Waldman wrote:

The only real argument for treating same-sex and opposite-sex couples differently when it came to marriage was that keeping marriage an exclusive right of heterosexuals advanced the state goal of encouraging "responsible procreation." That is, that because opposite-sex couples are the only ones that could accidentally have children, they need marriage to keep children inside the marital union.

That, of course, is preposterous on many levels. And the New Mexico Supreme Court agreed. Marriage, the justices said, had never been associated or dependent upon child rearing or procreation. And banning an entire group of marrying would, in any event, do nothing to encourage an entirely different group to marry.

Timothy Kincaid has a map that shows our progress at the end of the year. In this year the count of states with marriage equality has jumped from 9 to 17. And don't forget DC.