Supreme Court Delivers Major Victory For Gay Marriage

In a watershed day for gay rights advocates, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that same-sex marriages were entitled to the same federal benefits as opposite-sex marriages. Coming exactly a decade after Lawrence v. Texas, a seminal case in which the Court struck down sodomy laws, United States v. Windsor marked another important victory for gay rights by invalidating provisions of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman. In a companion case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Court declined to rule on an appeal involving California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriages in the state. The Hollingsworth decision allowed a lower court ruling overturning the California ban to stand. The big decision of the day, however, was Windsor. The Court did not abolish state bans on gay marriage nor did it require every state to legalize same-sex marriages. Instead, it prohibited any legal differentiation on the federal level between same-sex and opposite-sex marriages. Considered the swing vote on the current Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy fit that role again by siding with his liberal colleagues in a 5-4 opinion that will serve as a cornerstone for gay rights. Unsurprisingly, he authored the last of these cornerstones – Lawrence. The case arose from a dispute between Edith Windsor and the Internal Revenue Service over federal estate taxes. When Windsor’s spouse died in 2009, she was forced to pay $363,053 in taxes on the inheritance because DOMA did not recognize her marriage, which was legal in New York. Normally, federal law would exempt a surviving spouse from paying this tax. Historically, states governed the institution of marriage. “Consistent with this allocation of authority,” Justice Kennedy acknowledged, “the Federal Government, through our history, has deferred to state law policy decisions with respect to domestic relations.” New York was the first state to recognize and allow same-sex marriages. “DOMA seeks to injure the very class New York seeks to protect,” Justice Kennedy wrote. Its purpose was to separate, stigmatize and put at a disadvantage those who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the states. “It was its essence.” The legislative provision before the Court did not prevent states from legalizing same-sex unions; it denied such unions any recognition under federal law, thereby serving as a deterrent to such legalization. The Court found fault with this “second-tier” distinction for same-sex couples. “The differentiation demeans the couple,” Justice Kennedy wrote, providing a list of examples, and “humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples.” “By seeking to displace this protection” granted by the state of New York, “and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation” of the Constitution Justice Kennedy concluded, grounding his opinion on the equal protection clause of Fourteenth Amendment, the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, and federalism. Before the Court could even get to the merits of the case, however, it had to tackle other thorny issues, starting with the president’s unusual approach to the case. Upon declaring DOMA unconstitutional, the White House declined to defend the statute in various lawsuits. Yet it still continued to enforce the law’s provisions until the Court issued a definitive ruling on DOMA’s validity. President Barack Obama‘s decision led Republican leaders in the House to form a legislative group to defend DOMA in court. It also irritated some of the justices during oral arguments in March. “And if he has made a determination that executing the law by enforcing the terms is unconstitutional,” Chief Justice John Roberts said at the time, “I don’t see why he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions and execute not only the statute, but do it consistent with his view of the Constitution, rather than saying, oh, we’ll wait till the Supreme Court tells us we have no choice.” While the Court appreciated the president’s “principled determination” that DOMA was unconstitutional, it found it inappropriate for an executive to rely on the courts to invalidate the statute rather than going to Congress to amend or repeal the law. culled from forbes