this is great progress. just like the pope isn’t infallible, pretending that the president is creates entirely wrong incentives. it makes it very hard to back away from stupid ideas. i hope we evolve to a point where laws routinely come with sunset clauses and regular review to make sure they are not doing more harm than good.

how was it that Bill Clinton, the first President to champion gay rights, put his name on one of the most discriminatory anti-gay statutes in American history? The simple answer is that he got boxed in by his political opponents, and that his campaign positions on gay rights ran ahead of public opinion. But there was another important factor: a failure to imagine how quickly gay rights would evolve, and how difficult it would be to undo the damage that DOMA did.

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