First of all, we have another victory for equal rights today. An Iowa district court today ruled that the state's so-called "defense of marriage act" is unconstitutional. The ruling provides all the basic arguments for marriage equality, with the judge saying "Couples, such as plaintiffs, who are otherwise qualified to marry one another may not be denied licenses to marry or certificates of marriage or in any other way prevented from entering into a civil marriage pursuant to Iowa Code Chapter 595 by reason of the fact that both persons compromising such a couple are of the same sex."

You can read all about it here. And before you read all those hot-air Republicans trying to further divide us with fear of "activist judges," remember that so-called "activist judges" are the reason for the success of the civil rights movement. Without judges declaring "separate but equal" not equal, Jim Crow would still be the law of much of the land, and Brown v. Board of Education would never have come to pass. Those judges, and today's judges who rule in favor of marriage equality, are not activists, they are the embodiment of the founders' ideals of checks and balances, of the progress of our great society, and of the idea that our democracy should be a living breathing life-affirming entity. Remember also, if you would, that marriage should not be described by the words "gay" or "same-sex"--those are adjectives to describe couples. The term to use--what this is really all about--is "equality." Marriage equality.

Now, who among the leading Democrats running for president will embrace this decision? Iowa's presidential caucuses are just a few short months away.