Nullifying same-sex marriages that took place when same-sex marriage was legal in California would be like making smoking illegal and then going back and arresting everyone who smoked before the law changed. It would be like arresting everyone who drank alcohol prior to Prohibition. It would be like overturning Roe v. Wade and then arresting every woman who had ever had an abortion. If we start enforcing laws retroactively, everyone is going to end up in jail. And it certainly would discourage people from following the law, because who knows when a law might be overturned, making any legal action that you carried out suddenly illegal, and you suddenly a criminal.
If a federal law was passed making adoption by gay men and lesbians illegal, would we then go yank all the adopted children out of their formerly legal homes and away from their parents?
It's likely that the courts won't nullify these marriages, but the precedent it could set if they did is more than absurd--it's terrifying.
