I didn’t hear the news until late last evening and it’s ironical: I saw it first on Facebook.

The Honorable J. Dale Youngs, a judge in whose presence I quake a bit but would always gladly trod, found that Missouri must recognize same-gender marriages lawfully performed elsewhere.

“The undisputed facts before the Court show that, to the extent these laws prohibit plaintiffs’ legally contracted marriages from other states being recognized here, they are wholly irrational, do not rest upon any reasonable basis, and are purely arbitrary,” Youngs wrote. “All they do is treat one segment of the population — gay men and lesbians — differently than their same-sex counterparts, for no logical reason.”

The case in which Judge Youngs ruled did not ask the Court to find that Missouri’s ban on same-gender marriage violates the U. S. Constitution.  That ruling awaits another case, another day.  And his decision will be appealed.  But this step takes Missouri in the direction that I, as a lawyer, a person, and an American citizen residing here in the Show Me State, believe that we should travel.

I learned in law school that, “a marriage valid where celebrated is valid everywhere”.  Our Conflicts of Law professor cautioned that absurd and sometimes offensive results could flow from this principle.  Nonetheless, he said, the firm conviction of our nation’s state members called for honoring the decisions of each neighboring jurisdiction.

I recalled his lesson when Missouri voters approved the constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.  I felt then that we couldn’t refuse to acknowledge valid marriages from other jurisdiction.  I researched this issue once, when a woman came to me wanting a divorce from a wife whom she lawfully married in Iowa.  I can’t do that, I reluctantly told her.  But if it’s any consolation, she can’t enforce any marital rights in Missouri.  It wasn’t — a consolation, that is — but it was the answer that I had to give her.

Now Judge Youngs has confirmed what I believed, and done so with the strength and elegance that I have seen him levy across his bench time and time again.   We lawyers often take a beating in the press, around the barroom and at the dinner table.  But today, one of ours has shown that we are, indeed, the guardians of the people’s right to be free from unreasonable actions by the government.  Though we still await a Court’s ruling on the Constitutional amendment which set our freedom back a hundred years, yesterday’s decision starts what I pray will be a crumbling of the barriers to equality for the men and women of Missouri whose sexual orientation has long stood between them and equal treatment under our law.

A tip of my law-license to Judge Youngs.  He makes me proud to be a member of the Missouri bar.  Another day I might grumble about the difficulty of my profession, the grueling workload, or ungrateful clients who refuse to pay even when I do my best or get the outcome they desire.

But today, I have no complaints about the practice of law.  Judge Youngs reminds me of the true purpose of our profession, and renews my resolve to tirelessly work to fulfill that noble end.