The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark victory for gay rights on Wednesday by forcing the federal government to recognize same-sex marriage in states where it is legal and paving the way for it in California, the most populous state.
As expected, however, the court fell short of a broader ruling endorsing a fundamental right for gay people to marry, meaning that there will be no impact in the more than 30 states that do not recognize gay marriage.
The two cases, both decided on 5-4 votes, concerned the constitutionality of a key part of a federal law, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), that denied benefits to same-sex married couples, and a voter-approved California state law enacted in 2008, called Proposition 8, that banned gay marriage.
The court struck down Section 3 of DOMA, which limited the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal benefits, as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, 76, appointed to the court by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1988, was the key vote and wrote the DOMA opinion, the third major gay rights ruling he has authored since 1996.
In a separate opinion, the court ducked a decision on Proposition 8 by finding that supporters of the California law did not have standing to appeal a federal district court ruling that struck it down. By doing so, the justices let stand the lower-court ruling that had found the ban unconstitutional.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the Proposition 8 opinion, ruling along procedural lines in a way that said nothing about how the court would rule on the merits. The court was split upon unusual lines, with liberals and conservatives in the majority and the dissent.
By ruling this way on Proposition 8, the court effectively let states set their own policy on gay marriage, and as a result ballot initiative battles are certain to break out across the country. Further battles are likely also in courts and legislatures, state by state.
President Barack Obama applauded the court's DOMA decision and directed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review all relevant federal laws to ensure the ruling is implemented.
Gay marriage stirs cultural, religious and political passions in the United States as elsewhere.
The Supreme Court rulings come amid rapid progress for advocates of gay marriage in recent months and years in the United States and internationally. Opinion polls show a steady increase in U.S. public support for gay marriage.
....Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was in the minority, as were Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
The ruling overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, which passed with bipartisan support and which President Bill Clinton signed.
The decision will raise a series of major questions for the Obama administration about how aggressively to overhaul references to marriage throughout the many volumes that lay out the laws of the United States.
The five-member majority in the California case was different from the one in the Defense of Marriage case, in a sign that the California case was less straightforward. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justice Scalia, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Stephen G. Breyer and Justice Elena Kagan.
“In the majority’s telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us,” Justice Scalia wrote in his dissent in the case on the federal law. “The truth is more complicated.”
Justice Scalia read from his dissent on the bench, a step justices take in a small share of cases, typically to show that they have especially strong views.
Justice Kennedy, in his opinion, wrote that the law was “unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.”
If California becomes the 13th state to legalize same-sex marriage, about 30 percent of Americans will live in jurisdictions where it is legal. Until last year, when four states voted in favor of same-sex marriage at the ballot box, it had failed — or bans on it had succeeded — every time it had appeared on a statewide initiative.
Opponents of same-sex marriage have said that they remain hopeful that they can mount a political comeback, much as opponents of abortion used Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision, as a springboard to a more aggressive movement. Brian Brown, the head of the National Organization for Marriage, vowed Wednesday after the rulings to push for a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Gay rights advocates said they would continue pushing to legalize same-sex marriage in new states.
....Numerous public figures including former President Bill Clinton, who in 1996 signed the DOMA law, and prominent groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics have come out this year in support of same-sex marriage and gay civil rights.
Individual members of Congress - Democrats and Republicans - also voiced new support for gay marriage this year.
Even with recent developments, there is still significant opposition among Republicans, including House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, who had ordered the House to intervene in the DOMA case in defense of the law. Boehner said in a statement he was "obviously disappointed in the ruling" and predicted that a "robust national debate over marriage" would continue.
While more developments lie ahead, the legal fight over gay marriage already constitutes one of the most concentrated civil rights sagas in U.S. history.
Just 20 years ago, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that its state constitution could allow gay marriage, prompting a nationwide backlash and spurring Congress and a majority of states, including Hawaii, to pass laws defining marriage as between only a man and woman.
In 2003, when the top court of Massachusetts established a right to same-sex marriage under its constitution, the action triggered another backlash as states then adopted constitutional amendments against such unions. Five years later, the tide began to reverse, and states slowly began joining Massachusetts in permitting gays to marry.
The cases are United States v. Windsor, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-307 and Hollingsworth v. Perry, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-144.
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