Gay Marriage in Court

http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/06/do...erate-dissent/

This is a pretty good blog for finding information about the most recent Supreme Court decisions. These decisions were definitely a step in the right direction for those who care about civil rights.

The DOMA case, U.S v. Windsor, is significant in terms of its implications for national policy. DOMA, as far as I understand it, said that the federal government would not respect some states' definition of marriage for a broad range of federal purposes. They would allow states to grant marriage licenses to gay couples if the state made it legal, but the federal government would use its own definition of marriage (between man and woman) for purposes of federal law. The court decided this case on a hybrid of federalism and equal protection grounds.

This is a portion of section 3 that was held unconstitutional:

"Section 3 codified non-recognition of same-sex marriages for all federal purposes, including insurance benefits for government employees, social security survivors' benefits, immigration, bankruptcy, and the filing of joint tax returns, as well as excluding same-sex spouses from the scope of laws protecting families of federal officers (18 U. S. C. §115), laws evaluating financial aid eligibility, and federal ethics laws applicable to opposite-sex spouses." From Wikipedia.

So, the fact that it is unconstitutional means that where states permit same sex marriages, the federal government is powerless to deprive those couples of rights given to opposite sex unions.

Hollingsworth v. Perry was decided on standing grounds and so does not hold that it is unconstitutional for a state to pass laws that ban gay marriage. The original cases decided by the California supreme court overturned proposition 8 on the basis that it violated the California state constitution. A federal district court also held that proposition 8 violated the equal protection clause of the federal constitution. However, the supreme court did not affirm that, but instead said that the merits of the case could not be reached because of a lack of standing. Therefore, other circuits are free to determine that laws banning same sex marriage are constitutional, as this is unsettled law at the Supreme Court level.

Briefly, "standing" requirements for judicial decisions are so that courts are not merely reviewing laws and issuing what are called advisory opinions. In order to be justiciable a case must present a live controversy between adverse parties, and as one standing requirement the plaintiff must demonstrate that he has suffered an injury based on enforcement of the law he claims is unconstitutional (or constitutional and thus enforceable). If he has not, then he is not the proper party to bring the suit in court.

In summary-If a state makes gay marriage legal, the federal government must respect that and cannot treat those couples differently from straight couples. However, for the time being it is still possible that states can pass laws making gay marriage illegal.