SCOTUS on gay marriage: DOMA falls, no standing on Prop 8

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Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is declared unconstitutional (in violation of the 5th amendment) in a 5-4 ruling (Kennedy delivered the majority opinion).

Link to the opinion of the court:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12 ... 7_6j37.pdf

The Court rules that the Petitioners did not have standing to appeal in the Proposition 8 case in a 5-4 ruling (Roberts delivered the majority opinion).

Link to the opinion of the court:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12 ... 4_8ok0.pdf

EDIT: Updated the DOMA link, as the old one died...

Last edited by GGPViper on 27 Jun 2013, 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not surprised, but taking the easy way out on Prop 8 was wrong.

The executive is obligated to defend the law. Obama refused to do his job with DOMA, and CA refused to do it with Prop 8. This means the courts are not beholden to the people when the government fails to do its job, and the people are a party harmed when the state fails or refuses to do its duty.

And now, the speculations begin, of course.

If the petitioners *did* have standing (which could very well be the case - if not almost certain - in the future if the marriage laws of another state are challenged, and the state decides to defend them), how would SCOTUS have ruled in the light of the DOMA opinion?

The crucial issue here is probably Loving v. Virginia (interracial marriage). It was mentioned twice in the DOMA opinion, but the description of its scope is (likely with full intent) vague in the DOMA opinion.

It seems like the writing is on the wall with DOMA being struck down and Prop 8 essentially being struck down in California. It really is amazing how fast the world changes.

Actually, zer0, you're mistaken. The executive branch is obligated to do its best to carry out the law as passed by the legislative; however, if the judicial branch has to decide a challenge against the law, the executive can choose whether or not to defend said law. The executive branch is not "lesser" than the legislative.

What I found interesting was the minority opinion on DOMA. Apparently Antonin Scalia has not read the 14th Amendment to the Constitution; he maintained that SCOTUS had no basis on which to overturn that provision of DOMA, even though its specific withdrawal of certain rights from certain legally-married couples seems to clearly run afoul of the last part of Section 1: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

But on the issue of STANDING, the state of California should have brought suit to appeal the District Court's (federal) ruling against Prop 8 as a federal court was ruling against the state constitution as amended by lawful process of the people of California. Ruling Prop 8 by saying the appellees don't have standing means if your state won't do its job, tough luck to your rights being represented in court.

A similar ruling was done when someone sued about election issues saying only the losing candidate had standing to bring suit...well, that means everyone AFFECTED by an election who makes claim about illicit actions in the election can't do jack unless the looser wants to bring the suit. STANDING is supposed to exist for anyone AFFECTED by an event or law.

I agree with the DOMA decision, there is no reason what so ever that if we are going to have same sex relationships then we need to honestly implement them. The fact that they didn't strike down the whole thing seems to be a bit of a compromise but I am from a country where Marriage is a federal power. It makes no sense for states where there is legal gay marriage that couples should still face issues getting legal access to rights inheritance rights etc. DOMA is a bad idea, as a defence of marriage based on reserving perks, it sucks. Even if there is no consensus on the subject of marriage, there should be no issue with people getting to visit one another in hospital or having to pay punishing inheritance taxes. Picking on same sex couples is not a method of defending marriage that I would ever support. The section of DOMA that has been struck down was punitive and good riddance.

Keeping section 2 legal seems to be an interesting compromise. Given that so many states have chosen to implement bans on Same-Sex Marriage it seems like a natural way of keeping the balance and not using the punitive sections of DOMA to overturn state constitutions. It seems to me to be naturally a bad idea for states to have Marriage powers because it will lead to significant headaches for people working between states. That said, if states are to be free to experiment with new definitions of marriage (or to protect older ones), then it follows that significant federal flexibility is required to facilitate this. In Australia a change to the federal marriage act is all that is required to legalise same sex marriage but as I have said previously, I am not a supporter of same-sex marriage but I can support people in celebrating parts of today's SCOTUS ruling.

If there is a legal chap here, I am actually very interested to hear how federal courts can rule elements of state or federal constitutions unconstitutional? Since it has always been my understanding that courts must decide within the framework given to them. If someone could shed some light on this it would be much appreciated.

No such power is actually granted to court by the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution exercising is appelate jurisdiction can only decide -cases- and the decision must be based on fact and law. The Supreme Court was never given the power to decide whether a law in its general scope is constitutional or not and the court has no power to nullify laws. This power was usurped by Justice Marshall in Marbury v Madison and no subsequent court has taken any step to rule that Marshall was out of line (I wonder why?).

A law can be judged valid or not -ONLY- in the context of a particular case on appeals that the Court is willing to hear. The Court need not hear every case submitted to it for appeal. It must grant a writ of certiori for cases that it is willing to hear.

ruveyn

If a court only treats a constitution as another piece of legislation, then what is the point of having one?

If the Constitution is not held to be the Supreme Law of the Land which it is supposed to be, then we have a situation not unlike Britain where the Constitution is an amalgam of law, convention, custom and whatever can be gotten away with.

ruveyn

Interesting, in my country such a ruling would be impossible.

This I don't understand. The executives are swearing oaths to uphold the Constitution first and foremost. Faithfully executing the laws is a secondary responsibility, and fighting to uphold the laws in court I don't believe is explicitly specified in the Constitution. If the executive has a good faith belief that a law is unconstitutional, isn't fighting to uphold that law inconsistent with the oath taken to uphold the Constitution? How can one "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution if they are at the same time advocating in court laws that they believe are unconstitutional?

The executive branch neither makes the laws nor decides on their constitutionality. Barak Obama's opinion on whether a law is constitutional is no better than yours or mine. These things are decided in Court.

ruveyn

Not true - as I read it the decision today does not say that if the state doesn't defend the law, then no one can. The decision today indicates that only parties who can demonstrate that they themselves have been harmed may defend the law. That doesn't mean the people defending the law would necessarily have to be from the state, only that the people defending the law must demonstrate that they've been harmed - something that Prop 8's defenders failed to do.

From the official syllabus of today's decision: "One essential aspect of this requirement is that any person invoking the power of a federal court must demonstrate standing to do so. In other words, the litigant must seek a remedy for a personal and tangible harm."

Well, the courts cannot rule that the federal constitution (which is the fundamental law of the land) is unconstitutional - that would be an oxymoron. The most they could do is to declare that some amendment to the federal Constitution was made improperly - i.e. some sort of procedural violation - and I don't think this has ever happened.

However, the courts can declare parts of the constitution of an individual state to be unconstitutional if the state constitution in some way contradicts the federal constitution. The federal constitution reigns supreme in all cases, state constitutions are subordinate to the federal constitution. This is what could have happened in the Prop 8 case - in the Prop 8 case, a ballot initiative was passed by the voters in California that amended the California State Constitution, but some would contend that it ammended the California State Constitution in a way that violated the federal constitution - specifically by having California disallow gay people from being married, some would say that this violates the 14th amendment of the federal constitution which states that everyone is entitled to equal protection of the laws. The court did not rule on that point today, but it was a point of contention in the case.