DOMA defeated!
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Michael,
In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court today gutted the Defense of Marriage Act. Now all couples who are legally married must be recognized as such by the federal government, including same-sex couples who have won the right to wed in 12 states and the District of Columbia. And in California, same-sex couples will likely be able to marry again soon.
This outcome was predicted by legal experts, but it’s still a remarkable and hopeful moment. And while the ruling doesn’t extend marriage equality to any other states, it does mean that when we finally win there too, those wins will be even sweeter.
I’m proud that openly LGBT elected officials led fights in states that today recognize our marriages. They’ve been crucial to building the bridges to equality that their straight colleagues cross.
Now we must begin to change the hearts and minds of voters, lawmakers and political leaders in the 38 states that still forbid gays and lesbians to marry. That will take the work of the fantastic coalitions that have seen much success in recent years, and it will require electing more LGBT people to change legislatures from the inside.
Today we owe a hearty thank-you to the legal team that won a huge victory for Edie Windsor and same-sex couples across the country. The American Civil Liberties Union had a lot of help from some of our movement’s most dedicated and impressive legal minds, and all of them have worked hard on cases that brought us to this moment.
Most importantly, we owe much gratitude to Edie Windsor herself, who refused to give up when her government told her she was a second-class citizen. Because of her bravery, we’re a step closer to erasing discrimination against same-sex couples. Please join me in sending Edie your thanks here : hXXp://thankedie.com/?code=victory
Yours in Victory,
Chuck
Chuck Wolfe
President and CEO -
This only applies to Section 3 of DoMA.
Sections 1 and 2 are still the law of the land.
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Michael,
Great news!
Just minutes ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Windsor v. Connecticut that struck down Section 3 of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA), which discriminated against legally married same-sex couples. This is fantastic news for families across Maine and around the country.
The court also issued a ruling in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the case about California’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples, Prop 8. The court found that the supporters of Prop 8 lack standing, clearing the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California. This is a victory for California and the nation.
The repeal of DOMA means married same-sex couples in Maine are one step closer to full equality under the law. This ruling ends federal marriage discrimination and means that couples who are married in Maine and other states that honor the freedom to marry will finally be treated fairly by the federal government in everything from taxes to Social Security.
This is an historic day in the march toward full equality for LGBT people in Maine and throughout the United States and it’s been a long time coming. EqualityMaine is incredibly grateful for the work of the brilliant and skilled legal advocates who have worked tirelessly on these cases and related challenges.
The repeal of DOMA wouldn’t impact so many Mainers so directly had we not won the freedom to marry here last year. For that victory – and your support that made it possible – we will be forever grateful.
Thank you for all you do,
Betsy Smith
EqualityMaine Executive DirectorClick here for more details on both of these decisions : hXXp://www.scotusblog.com/
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Great!!
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Yahoo News report
Supreme Court strikes down DOMA; rules it interferes with states, ‘dignity’ of same-sex marriages
A gay rights activist waves a flag in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building June 24, 2013 in Washington DC. …
The Supreme Court has 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 challenge to 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 and clearing the way for gay marriage to again be legal in the nation's most populous state.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's conservative-leaning swing vote with a legal history of supporting gay rights, joined his liberal colleagues in both decisions, which will dramatically expand the rights of married gay couples in the country to access more than 1,000 federal benefits and responsibilities of marriage previously denied them.
"The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States," Kennedy wrote of DOMA. He concluded that states must be allowed by the federal government to confer "dignity" on same-sex couples if they choose to legalize gay marriage.
DOMA "undermines" same-sex marriages in visible ways and "tells those couples, and all the world, that their otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of federal recognition."
The case is Windsor v. United States, a challenge to the federal 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages even in the 12 states and District of Columbia that allow them. DOMA extended to more than 1,000 federal laws and statutes, including immigration, taxes, and Social Security benefits.
Eighty-three-year-old New Yorker Edith Windsor brought the suit after she was made to pay more than $363,000 in estate taxes when her same-sex spouse died. If the federal government had recognized her marriage, Windsor would not have owed the sum. She argued that the government has no rational reason to exclude her marriage of more than four decades from the benefits and obligations other married couples receive.
DOMA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996.
With this decision, Kennedy furthers his reputation as a champion of gay rights. He authored two of the most important Supreme Court decisions involving, and ultimately affirming, gay rights: Lawrence v. Texas (2003) and Romer v. Evans (1996). In Romer, Kennedy struck down Colorado's constitutional amendment banning localities from passing anti-discrimination laws protecting gays and lesbians. In Lawrence, Kennedy invalidated state anti-sodomy laws, ruling that gay people have a right to engage in sexual behavior in their own homes.
The decisions mark the first time the highest court has waded into the issue of same-sex marriage. Just 40 years ago, the Supreme Court tersely refused to hear a case brought by a gay couple who wanted to get married in Minnesota, writing that that their claim raised no significant legal issue. At the time, legal opinions often treated homosexuality as criminal, sexually deviant behavior rather than involuntary sexual orientation. Since then, public opinion has changed dramatically on gay people and same-sex marriage, with a majority of Americans only just recently saying they support it. Now, 12 states representing about 18 percent of the U.S. population allow same-sex marriage. With California, the percentage of people living in gay marriage states shoots up to 30.
The Supreme Court has refused to wade into the constitutional issues surrounding the California gay marriage case, dismissing the Proposition 8 argument on procedural grounds. The legal dodge means a lower court's ruling making same-sex marriage legal in California will most likely stand, opening the door to marriage to gays and lesbians in the country's most populous state.
California voters passed Proposition 8 to ban same-sex marriage in 2008, after 18,000 same-sex couples had already tied the knot under a state Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. A same-sex married couple with children, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, sued the state of California when their six-month-old marriage was invalidated by the ballot initiative. They argued that Proposition 8 discriminated against them and their union based only on their sexual orientation, and that the state had no rational reason for denying them the right to marry. Two lower courts ruled in their favor, and then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he would no longer defend Proposition 8 in court, leaving a coalition of Prop 8 supporters led by a former state legislator to take up its defense.
Same-sex marriage will most likely not be immediately legal in California, since the losing side is given a few weeks to petition the courts.
The Prop 8 case was argued by two high-profile lawyers, Ted Olson and David Boies, who previously faced off against each other in Bush v. Gore. Olson, a conservative and Bush's former solicitor general, and Boies, a liberal, have cast gay marriage as the civil rights issue of our time.
Boies said on the steps of the Supreme Court Wednesday that "Today the United States Supreme Court said as much. They cannot point to anything that harms them because these two love each other”
Olson made the argument that gay marriage should be a conservative cause in a recent interview with NPR. "If you are a conservative, how could you be against a relationship in which people who love one another want to publicly state their vows … and engage in a household in which they are committed to one another and become part of the community and accepted like other people?"
The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), a coalition of mostly Republican House lawmakers, defended DOMA since the Obama administration announced they believed the law was unconstitutional in 2011. (Chief Justice John Roberts criticized the president for this move during oral arguments in the case, saying the president lacked “the courage of his convictions” in continuing to enforce the law but no longer defending it in court.)
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AOL / Huffpost Report
Supreme Court Rules On Prop 8
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Wednesday left for dead California's same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8, but the question of gay and lesbian couples' constitutional right to marry remains very much alive.
By a 5-4 vote, the justices held in Hollingsworth v. Perry that the traditional marriage activists who put Proposition 8 on California ballots in 2008 did not have the constitutional authority, or standing, to defend the law in federal courts after the state refused to appeal its loss at trial.
“We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “We decline to do so for the first time here.”
Roberts was joined in his majority opinion by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. Justice Anthony Kennedy filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor.
The judgement of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was vacated and the case remanded with instructions to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. While California will likely begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the decision will not have an impact beyond the state's borders, and other same-sex marriage bans across the country will be left intact.
California voters added the ban to the state's constitution in 2008 through a ballot initiative that reversed the state Supreme Court's recognition of same-sex marriage earlier that year. Two same-sex couples challenged Proposition 8 in federal court, and by the time their suit reached the justices, two lower courts had declared the ban unconstitutional.
Because standing is a threshold question in any federal case, the justices did not reach the plaintiffs' main argument that Proposition 8 violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and deprives same-sex couples of the right to marry.
"_t is not enough that the party invoking the power of the court have a keen interest in the issue," the majority wrote. Because the Court did not find that the Proposition 8 proponents had "concrete and particularized injury," the justices concluded that they "have no authority to decide this case on the merits, and neither did the Ninth Circuit."
Now that the justices have reversed the appeals court's finding and vacated its decision to strike down the ban on constitutional grounds, Judge Vaughn Walker's wide-ranging 2010 judgment against the California government remains the only decision to which both plaintiffs and defendants were properly before a federal court.
In that ruling, Walker wrote, "Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right. To characterize plaintiffs' objective as 'the right to same-sex marriage' would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy – namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages."
Video @ hXXp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/supreme-court-prop-8_n_3434854.html?1372257363_
