Excerpts from Supreme Court gay marriage rulings  (AP) -
Excerpts from the majority and dissenting opinions handed down
by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 5-4 rulings Wednesday striking
down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, and leaving
in place a trial court's ruling that California's Proposition 8
is unconstitutional:       Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting
from the majority opinion:  _ "The majority concludes that the
only motive for this act was the `bare . . . desire to harm a
politically unpopular group.' Bear in mind that the object of
this condemnation is not the legislature of some once
Confederate Southern state (familiar objects of the court's
scorn, see, e.g., Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U. S. 578 (1987)),
but our respected coordinate branches, the Congress and
presidency of the United States. Laying such a charge against
them should require the most extraordinary evidence, and I would
have thought that every attempt would be made to indulge a more
anodyne explanation for the statute. The