Wednesday, June 26, 2013

DOMA clause 3 falls, Prop8 supporters denied standing

I'm out of the country, but in case you haven't heard:
The Supreme Court released two major decisions expanding gay rights across the country on Wednesday as hordes of cheering demonstrators greeted the news outside. The justices struck down a federal law barring the recognition of same-sex marriage in a split decision, ruling that the law violates the rights of gays and lesbians and intrudes into states' rights to define and regulate marriage. The court also dismissed a case involving California's gay marriage ban, ruling that supporters of the ban did not have the legal standing, or right, to appeal a lower court's decision striking down Proposition 8 as discriminatory. 
The decision clears the way for gay marriage to again be legal in the nation's most populous state, even though the justices did not address the broader legal argument that gay people have a fundamental right to marriage. 
The twin decisions throw the fight over gay marriage back to the states, because the court ruled the federal government must recognize the unions if states sanction them, but did not curtail states' rights to ban gay marriage if they choose
Quote from the opinion:
DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others. The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment

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