Wikipedia’s marriage map has been updated to reflect the Arkansas ruling:
Joe Jervis, who is heavily covering Arkansas, notes that the map “might change today if the Arkansas ruling is stayed.” Lyle Denniston unpacks the ruling:
The judge likened the denial of equality to homosexuals to the denial of equality to racial minorities, and summoned up for comparison the Supreme Court’s discredited ruling in the Dred Scott case in 1857 saying that black people “had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them.”
He also relied upon the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia, striking down Virginia’s ban on interracial marriages. He closed his opinion with these remarks about the woman involved in that case: “It has been over forty years since Mildred Loving was given the right to marry the person of her choice. The hatred and fears have long since vanished and she and her husband lived full lives together; so it will be for the same-sex couples. It is time to let that beacon of freedom shine brighter on all our brothers and sisters. We will be stronger for it.”
Dale Carpenter looks at the national picture:
There are now more than 70 lawsuits involving same-sex marriage pending in courts around the country. A dozen federal district courts have issued opinions in favor of same-sex marriage since last summer’s Supreme Court decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor. Five federal appellate courts are now considering the issue.
A photo of the happy couple who got the first marriage license:
The Dish 
