A reader asks whether there is anything in Judge Walker’s anti-Prop 8 ruling that would confine its rationale to California or to Prop 8. I think that the answer is clearly no. Although there are of course aspects of the opinion that relate only to California, the very grounds on which Walker concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional would compel the conclusion that traditional marriage laws in other states—and the federal Defense of Marriage Act—are also unconstitutional. In other words, Walker’s ruling invents a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.