Two U.S. Supreme Court rulings June 26 are being hailed as victories for equality and will expand the rights of same-sex couples across the nation.
The court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a law denying federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples, and undercut California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 voter initiative that amended the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The Prop. 8 ruling appears to pave the way for gay marriage in California, although the path forward remains unclear.
In a 5-4 vote, the court ruled DOMA unconstitutional, forcing the federal government to give equal treatment to same-sex marriages recognized by the states. The justices’ ruling is confined to “lawful marriages,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion.
“DOMA’s principal effect is to identify and make unequal a subset of state-sanctioned marriages,” the opinion reads. “It contrives to deprive some couples married under the laws of their state, but not others, of both rights and responsibilities, creating two contradictory marriage regimes within the same state.”
DOMA was passed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2004, followed by a dozen other states and the District of Columbia. Judges in three states, including California, have declared DOMA unconstitutional.
In a separate 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court found Prop. 8 supporters didn’t have the legal standing to defend the law in federal court.
The ballot measure, passed in 2008, was struck down by a San Francisco federal court in 2010. Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris declined to defend the measure on the state’s behalf, so Prop. 8 supporters appealed to the Supreme Court. The June 26 decision found the private sponsors of Prop. 8 didn’t have the standing to appeal the lower court’s decision.
“It’s a huge victory,” says Dan Torres, LGBT program director at California Rural Legal Assistance. “What we’re left with is a decision from the district court saying Prop. 8 is unconstitutional.”
Torres says it’s still unclear how exactly gay marriage will proceed now that the ruling has been made.
“The practicality of how marriage licenses will be issued in California has to be worked out,” he says. “In practice there’s still a lot of questions.”
Prop. 8 came months after the California Supreme Court, in June 2008, ruled that the state constitution protects gay people’s right to marry. Same-sex marriages that occurred legally in the five-month window between that ruling and the Prop. 8 vote are still recognized in California.
Support for gay marriage has been on the rise for a decade. A Public Policy Institute of California poll last month found 56 percent of Californians favor same-sex marriage, while a poll from 2000 found only 39 percent favored it.
Even since the 2008 election and the passage of Prop. 8, there has been a marked increase in support for marriage equality. Among people ages 18 to 34, support grew 19 percent. Majorities of women, men, and religious groups like Catholics and mainline Protestants also now favor same-sex marriage.
The most immediate effect of the ruling will be to allow married same-sex couples the same federal benefits as opposite-sex couples. And, as commentators and comedians like to point out, some of the burdens, too.