"DOMA IN A COMA"
The Supreme Court handed down two rulings on June 26, 2013 --- United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry --- bolstering same-sex marriage by ruling part of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and allowing a lower court ruling to stand that struck down California's Proposition 8 ballot initiative, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman.
In the first decision, United States v. Windsor, the court ruled today that a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denies federal benefits to same-sex couples, is unconstitutional.
And in a separate opinion, Hollingsworth v. Perry, the court dismissed a case that asked the court to overturn a lower-court decision striking down the California marriage law. The decision paves the way for marriages to resume in California.
Details on United States v. Windsor:
The federal Defense of Marriage Act defines “marriage,” for purposes of over a thousand federal laws and programs, as a union between a man and a woman only. Today the Court ruled, by a vote of five to four, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy, that the law is unconstitutional. The Court explained that the states have long had the responsibility of regulating and defining marriage, and some states have opted to allow same-sex couples to marry to give them the protection and dignity associated with marriage. By denying recognition to same-sex couples who are legally married, federal law discriminates against them to express disapproval of state-sanctioned same-sex marriage. This decision means that same-sex couples who are legally married must now be treated the same under federal law as married opposite-sex couples.[United States v. Windsor, Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), Docket No. 12-307, Op. Below: 2nd Circuit, Opinion Written: Justice Kennedy, Decision: June 26, 2013]
Syllabus on Hollingsworth v. Perry:
After the California Supreme Court held that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violated the California Constitution, state voters passed a ballot initiative known as Proposition 8, amending the StateConstitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Respondents, same-sex couples who wish to marry, filed suit in federal court, challenging Proposition 8 under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and namingas defendants California’s Governor and other state and local officials responsible for enforcing California’s marriage laws. The officials refused to defend the law, so the District Court allowed petitioners—the initiative’s official proponents—to intervene to defend it. After a bench trial, the court declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional and enjoined the public officials named as defendants from enforcing thelaw. Those officials elected not to appeal, but petitioners did. The Ninth Circuit certified a question to the California Supreme Court: whether official proponents of a ballot initiative have authority to assert the State’s interest in defending the constitutionality of the initiative when public officials refuse to do so. After the California Supreme Court answered in the affirmative, the Ninth Circuit concluded that petitioners had standing under federal law to defendProposition 8’s constitutionality. On the merits, the court affirmed the District Court’s order.
Held: Petitioners did not have standing to appeal the District Court’sorder. Pp. 5–17.
[Hollingsworth, Et Al. v. Perry, Et Al., Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), No. 12-144, Opinion Below: 9th Circuit, Opinion Written: Justice Roberts, CJ, Decision June 26, 2013]
"SCALIA THE PESSIMIST"
"Justice Scalia predicts the future, once again, in gay-marriage dissent" --- [www.abajournal.com/news/article, June 27, 2013].
Ten years ago, Justice Antonin Scalia warned in Lawrence v. Texas that the Supreme Court majority had created “a massive disruption of the current social order” by striking down a Texas law barring sodomy.
“State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity ... every single one of these laws is called into question by today's decision,” he wrote. Based on the court majority’s reasoning, “what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples?”
The Washington Post and U.S. News note Scalia’s prediction, as well as his new slippery-slope warnings in his dissent Wednesday in United States v. Windsor. The majority opinion cited equal protection and due process considerations when it struck down the Defense of Marriage Act ("DOMA") that bans federal benefits to same-sex married couples.
“By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition,” Scalia wrote in his Windsor dissent. He points to wording in the majority opinion finding that supporters of DOMA acted to “disparage and to injure” same-sex couples, to “demean,” to “impose inequality” and to impose “stigma.”
“As I have said, the real rationale of today’s opinion, whatever disappearing trail of its legalistic argle-bargle one chooses to follow, is that DOMA is motivated by ‘ “bare . . . desire to harm” ’couples in same-sex marriages. … How easy it is, indeed how inevitable, to reach the same conclusion with regard to state laws denying same-sex couples marital status.”
Mother Jones magazine highlighted “the best (or worst) lines from Scalia’s angry dissent” in an article that began this way: “Justice Antonin Scalia is not a big fan of gay sex, gay marriage, or gay anything.”
www.CharlesJeromeWare.com
Attorney Charles Jerome Ware is renowned and consistently ranked among the best attorneys and legal counsellors in the United States. [GQ Magazine, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Columbia Flier, USA TODAY, The Howard County Sun, The Anniston Star, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX-TV NEWS, WHUR, WHUT, MPT, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, ABA Journal, et al.]
[www.scotusblog.com/U.S. v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry/June 26, 2013; abcnews.go.com/Politics/Supreme Court/June 27, 2013]
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