[Time]

“The Justice Department finally filed suit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday, accusing the Arizona official of engaging ‘in a pattern or practice of unlawful discriminatory police conduct directed at Latinos in Maricopa County.'” [TPM]

After Barack Obama historically announced his support for States’ Rights regarding gay marriage yesterday, we thought we’d take a fresh look at Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 Supreme Court case that struck down laws against interracial marriages. How, we wondered, did Earl Warren make a federal case out of it?

The Fourteenth Amendment, of course. Equal protection under the law. It was only ratified in 1868; we’ll get around to implementing it sooner or later.

But a couple of details from the decision caught our attention. The reason we were looking it up was obvious: The marriage of Obama’s parents would have been illegal in a third of the country. Hawaii was cool with it. And so was the District of Columbia, where Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were married in June 1958.

It’s only when the Happy Couple moved to Virginia a few months later that trouble arose. That October, a grand jury indicted them for violating the state ban.

Read more »

Stinquer Andrew — and from what we can tell, the majority of Accredited Pundits — seems to think today’s announcement is a Big Fucking Deal, worthy of observing his supplied Unicorn Moment.

We, on the other hand, find ourself reaching Andy Rooney levels of curmudgeonliness, since Obama only announced his “personal” view on gay marriage, and is content to let states like North Carolina (and California!) decide the matter for themselves.

So, rather than go all Eeyore on you, here’s your Unicorn. We’ll be nursing a whiskey in the corner, waiting for our opinion to evolve.

[Daily Beast, via Sully]

President Obama Officially Affirms His Support for Same-Sex Marriage – Watch a special live report now: abcn.ws/kgR7lz

— ABC News (@ABC) May 9, 2012

But wait! There’s buzzkill!

The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states deciding the issue on their own. But he said he’s confident that more Americans will grow comfortable with gays and lesbians getting married, citing his own daughters’ comfort with the concept.

Smart thinking. LBJ was also careful to affirm his personal support for civil rights, but let the states handle it.

President Obama Affirms His Support for Same Sex Marriage [ABC/Yahoo]

Meanwhile, at Fox Nation…

Read more »

From Stinque Book Club selection The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas: “Jonah Goldberg’s first book, Liberal Fascism, was a number one New York Times bestseller. A fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, he is the founding editor of National Review Online and has twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.” The Pulitzer part? Well, no. [MSNBC]