Anti-SSM forces use same playbook as anti-ACA forces. Seriously.

Way back in January, when the King v. Burwell brouhaha was starting to heat up (yes, it had been a possibility since last summer, but the Supreme Court didn't actually agree to hear the case until the end of last year), I posted the following:

Yup. 5-6 million customers across 37 states will suddenly be unable to afford their shiny new policies, and at the same time will no longer be legally required to have them. Many of them will thus drop their coverage, meaning quite a few insurance companies would lose upwards of 70-80% of their customer base.

Furthermore, the other 20-30% would likely have a much higher percentage of people with truly serious medical issues, in turn causing the very "death spiral" of increasing premiums which ACA opponents claimed would happen if the law operated under the current situation (but which never happened).

In other words, the "death spiral" didn't happen the way they thought it would, so they're making damned sure that it DOES happen by tearing the law apart any way they can.

Thankfully, of course, that didn't happen, and 6.5 million (it turned out to be higher than I thought in January) people won't end up facing up to 1,000% premium rate hikes to keep the exact same policy next year after all.

Don't get me wrong: Overall premiums will go up next year (as they always do every year), and in some states/situations they will go up fairly substantially...but it's not gonna be the insane "death spiral" that opponents have been predicting for 5 years now.

I'm bringing this up again today because of what's happening across multiple states in response to the other big SCOTUS news last week: The Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which finally brings marriage equality to same-sex couples nationwide.

For years, anti-gay forces have been insisting that allowing same sex couples to get married would lead to the downfall of the institution of "traditional" (ie, heterosexual) marriage itself. Polygamy, people marrying turtles, fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!! The list is endless.

Of course, Massachusetts legalized same sex marriage over 11 years ago, and to the best of my knowledge, the earth hasn't opened up and swallowed the state whole, so those arguments have lost a bit of their believability over the past decade or so.

Instead, the homophobes have decided to try the same take-my-ball-and-go-home strategy that worked so smashingly for them in KvB:

Michigan judge halts ALL marriages in 75th District court to avoid marrying same-sex couples

It hasn’t been particularly surprising to see marriages being halted in places like Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. In these states, some government officials are refusing to marry or issue marriage licenses to ANY couple, same-sex or opposite-sex, in order to avoid having to marry same-sex couples. However, this bigotry has now come to Michigan.

75th District Judge Michael Carpenter, a former county prosecutor, has ordered ALL marriages by judges in the 75th District to be halted. No reason has been given but the intent is obvious.

As Same Bagenstos noted, there's probably a better analogy to be found here:

Massive Resistance in a Small Town

At the center of Virginia is the tiny town of Farmville in Prince Edward County. During the civil rights movement, there were no snarling dogs here, no fire hoses or billy clubs, no lunch counters that made the front page. Driving through the town today, it’s hard to imagine it as a stage for conflict.

...After the 1954 Brown ruling, there were efforts across the South to block integration. In Virginia, the governor closed public schools in several cities to prevent them from integrating. In 1959, the courts ruled that the closings were unconstitutional, and those schools reopened—at the same time, Prince Edward County refused to integrate and locked its doors.

For five years, Prince Edward schools remained closed while legal challenges bounced between courts. During that time, most white children attended the new private school created by segregationist leaders and funded by state tuition grants and private donations. About 1,700 black and lower-income white students tried to find schooling elsewhere or stayed home, waiting.

I have no idea whether the same sex marriage situation will end up playing out similarly to the racial integration story, but if it does, it sounds like no one will be allowed to get married in some areas of the country until a certain segment gets over their collective temper tantrum and grows the hell up.

Yes, that's right: In the end, letting consenting adults marry the ones they love didn't end up harming the institution of marriage...so the bigots are are, again, making damned sure that it DOES get damaged.

Let's just hope it doesn't take 5 years for this hissy fit to stop.