Friday, July 05, 2013

What The SCOTUS Left Hand Giveth (DOMA), The SCOTUS Right Hand Taketh (VRA)

This blog's virtual poet-in-residence gives us a rhyming quatrain about the recent SCOTUS decision in United States v. Windsor that found the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. Earlier in the week, The SCOTUS struck down the key enforcement provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in Shelby County v. Holder. It is no small irony that the VRA was wom by civil rights demonstrators in nearby Birmingham, AL and the VRA was gutted at the behest of white Alabamans who live a stone's throw from Birmingham. If that is today's (fair & balanced) historical irony, so be it.

[x The Nation]
The Supreme Court Strikes Down DOMA
By The Deadline Poet (Calvin Trillin)

Tag Cloud of the following article

created at TagCrowd.com
“The court invalidated the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA], which denied
federal benefits to gay couples who are legally married in their states.”
—NBC News

Those not in catacombs in Roma
Will know the court has struck down DOMA.
That’s great for gays in, say, Tacoma—
Unless they move to Oklahoma. Ω

[Calvin Trillin began his career as a writer for Time magazine. Since July 2, 1990, as a columnist at The Nation, Trillin has written his weekly "Deadline Poet" column: humorous poems about current events. Trillin has written considerably more pieces for The Nation than any other single person. A native of Kansas City, MO, Trillin received his BA from Yale College in 1957. He served in the army, and then joined Time.]

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