How is it so hard to understand that striking down DOMA *affirms* the rights of the states that have legalized SSM? The federal government was blocking the will of those states. In fact, the ruling strengthens those state laws, by making those marriages truly equal. No state was forced to start performing these marriages, except for CA, whose population supports SSM by a large margin, and whose politicians also clearly support it. Now, if MS or AL start having SSM in the next century, we can start talking about this in terms of "states' rights."
The federal government was NOT blocking the will of those states that allow same sex marriage at all, not in any way.
DOMA did not prohibit states from creating same sex marriage; it did not compel states to recognize only man-woman marriage; it did not invalidate same-sex marriage.
DOMA only was the federal government indicating that what the federal government would recognize as marriage, for only federal purposes. Thus by DOMA limiting the terms of its applicability to only the federal government's own action, the law could not possibly be unconstitutional. The federal government having authority to define and recognize the terms of its own action is the minimal authority of congress. There isn't any 'right' in existence that involves, or compels, the federal government to recognize and reward it.
Nothing in the ruling could make same-sex marriage "truly equal" as it is inherently unequal in its provision to society, which is why societies the world over, throughout mankind's history, have never recognized same-sex marriage rather than heterosexual marriage. If they were equal, then surely even only one society would have recognize same-sex marriage rather than heterosexual marriage, but it has never happened. The fact is that committed heterosexual unions have been invariably recognized by societies as being of particular value to them, because those unions provide the stable environment to transition offspring to adolescence and produce well-adapted citizens. Gay unions never provide offspring, and do not populate and promote societies by the offspring they do not provide.
If California "supports SSM marriage by a large margin", then how is it that Prop 8 passed by 4.48 percent, and was incorporated into the Constitution? I think what you mean is that California's dictatorial Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches support SSM by a large margin, and have no qualms dictating their view on every Californian, despite the legal alteration to the Constitution, along providing a great many other Social Engineering dictates that have people fleeing the state in droves, and illegals flooding into the state.
If states have the "right" <power> to redefine words, and society itself, by that redefinition, then what sort of tyranny are states incapable of compelling on their citizenry? States are only limited by the scope of their imagination in what transparent excuses they need to come up with the discovery of new rights, so the term no longer has any real meaning. But don't worry, as society will soon be remade to the terms of a small group of scheming elitists who love to dictate their Utopian vision to a subservient citizenry. And what about Freedom? Well, what's in a name, if it can be denied by a whole array of creative collective social obligations!
