Historical decisions was handed today.
The LGBT community and President Barack Obama can relish in a huge victory. The Supreme Court had handed the conservatives a defeat. Another devastating blow to the right wing extremism. This will be discussed by the usual suspects in the junk food media.
Now you'll hear from our conservative agitating buddies about how this is going down. They'll say that this was an activist court decision. The Supreme Court has been criticized for this decision as well as the striking down of the Voter Rights Act.
Wow, what a monumental decision. The liberal wing of the Supreme Court assisted with Justice Anthony Kennedy, struck down the controversial Defense of Marriage Act, a legislation that devolved marriage between a man and woman.
Again, I throw my hat to those who fought for this victory. They deserve the right to marry and it's not hurting anyone!
The law passed both houses of Congress by large majorities and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996. Section 3 of DOMA codified the non-recognition of same-sex marriages for all federal purposes, including insurance benefits for government employees, Social Security survivors' benefits, immigration, and the filing of joint tax returns.
Clinton and key legislators have changed their positions and advocated DOMA's repeal. The Obama administration announced in 2011 that it had determined that section 3 was unconstitutional and, though it would continue to enforce the law, it would no longer defend it in court. In response, the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives instructed the House General Counsel to defend the law in place of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Section 3 of DOMA has been found unconstitutional in eight federal courts, including the First and Second Circuit Court of Appeals, on issues including bankruptcy, public employee benefits, estate taxes, and immigration.[n 1] The U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Windsor, declared Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional on June 26, 2013, "as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.
United States v. Windsor is a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York's decision in Windsor v. United States, which found Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional, as it defines the term marriage as "a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife" and spouse as "a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife".
The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in December 2012 and heard oral arguments on March 27, 2013. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Windsor on June 26, 2013, striking down Section 3 of DOMA and declaring the provision unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment.
There are over 30 states that have gay marriage bans. This decision will eventually null and void these bans.
The California Proposition 8 was a ballot measure that allowed citizens to discriminate. It was voted in and placed into a state constitutional amendment after the November 2008 state elections. The measure added a new provision, Section 7.5 of the Declaration of Rights, to the California Constitution, which provides that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
By restricting the recognition of marriage to opposite-sex couples, the proposition effectively overturned the California Supreme Court's ruling of In re Marriage Cases that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. The wording of Proposition 8 was precisely the same as that which had been found in Proposition 22, which had passed in 2000 and, as an ordinary statute, had been invalidated by the State Supreme Court in 2008. California's State Constitution put Proposition 8 into immediate effect the day after the election.
The proposition did not affect domestic partnerships in California, nor same-sex marriages performed before November 5, 2008.
Hollingsworth v. Perry is a case before the United States Supreme Court, on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. There, a three judge appellate panel held that California's Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot initiative that amended the state constitution to allow only opposite-sex couples to marry, was unconstitutional.
Lawsuits challenging Proposition 8 were filed in state and federal courts nearly immediately after the initiative's passage. In Strauss v. Horton (2009), the California Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 8 was a valid enactment under California law. However, in August 2010, Judge Vaughn Walker of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Proposition 8 violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The judgment was stayed pending appeal.
On February 7, 2012, a divided three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld the decision of the district court, though it did so on much narrower grounds than the District Court did.
On June 5, 2012, the Ninth Circuit denied a request for a rehearing en banc.
The proponents of Proposition 8 appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court on July 31, 2012.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case by granting a writ of certiorari on December 7, 2012. Oral arguments were heard on March 26, 2013.
On June 26, 2013, the Court held that the parties who had intervened to defend Proposition 8 (after the state of California declined to defend it) did not have standing. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit with instructions that the appeal be dismissed.
The case has long been regarded as a landmark case by supporters of both the plaintiffs and the defense.
The plaintiffs' attorneys, Theodore Olson and David Boies, were listed on the 2010 Time 100 for "their nonpartisan and strong legal approach to challenging Proposition 8".
The Defense of Marriage Act, the law barring the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages legalized by the states, is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday by a 5-4 vote.
"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,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. “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.”
Justice Kennedy delivered the court’s opinion, and was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito all filed dissenting opinions. Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia's dissent in whole and parts of Alito's opinion.
DOMA, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, prevents same-sex couples whose marriages are recognized by their home state from receiving the hundreds of benefits available to other married couples under federal law. During the Obama administration, the Justice Department initially defended DOMA in court despite the administration’s desire to repeal it. But the Justice Department changed course in early 2011, finding that the law was unconstitutional and declining to defend it any longer. House Republicans have since spent hundreds of thousands of dollars taking over that defense.
Plaintiff Edie Windsor, 84, sued the federal government after the Internal Revenue Service denied her refund request for the $363,000 in federal estate taxes she paid after her spouse, Thea Spyer, died in 2009.
During the March oral arguments in United States v. Windsor, a majority of the court seemed to express doubts about the constitutionality of DOMA. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that supporters of the law seemed to want "two types of marriage," likening same-sex unions to the "skim milk" version of marriage.
The Associated Press and Huffington Post contribute to the remainder.
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