When news happens, queer academics are like anyone else: we turn on a device and open up whatever social media or blogs we follow. Imagine a nation of professors staring into computer monitors and handheld devices, expressing themselves sharply in 140 characters and sharing links a mile a minute. We used to take to the streets; now we first take to the screens to find out if anyone is in the streets.

It was on Facebook and Twitter that the initial conversations about queer politics and civil rights occurred following the final week of Supreme Court decisions in June 2013. These decisions dug deeply into the heart of the progressive politics many academics hold dear, while delivering what has come to be known as “marriage equality” to gays and lesbians. Although both sides claimed victory in this case, affirmative action in college admissions was left to hang by an ever more frayed thread in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl raised the historic specter of deracinated Native American children adopted out of their communities at the hands of benevolent whites. In Shelby County v. Holder, a crucial aspect of the Voting Rights Act was voided: several states have responded by reactivating voter identification laws to, in the words of conservative activists, “prevent voter fraud.”

And that big exhale you heard on Wednesday, the final day of the term? That was a nation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people responding to United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry (formerly Perry v. Schwarzenegger). In a 5-4 decision, the court voided a key portion of the Defense of Marriage Act. Where they are legal, gay marriages will now be federally recognized. Gay and lesbian Californians are once again planning to marry, some for the second or third time (same-sex marriages have been legalized and voided several times in California since 2008). Even Antonin Scalia’s typically nasty dissent seems to recognize that state bans on gay marriage have become legally vulnerable. “No one should be fooled,” he said, “it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe.” That other shoe may involve states like North Carolina and Florida reversing bans that currently drive gay federal retirement dollars to more welcoming states.