In two opinions issued Wednesday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law that defines marriage heterosexually for federal tax purposes, while declining to rule on the constitutionality of state laws that define marriage that way.
The ruling leaves intact Florida's own constitutional provisions defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, but it allows Florida same-sex couples married in other states to receive federal marriage benefits.
DOMAs unusual deviation from the usual tradition of recognizing and accepting state definitions of marriage here operates to deprive same-sex couples of the benefits and responsibilities that come with the federal recognition of their marriages, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote on behalf of a sharply divided court in United States v. Windsor, the first of the rulings published. 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.
The high court's four other liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan joined Kennedy in striking down the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as violating 14th Amendment equal rights protections. But they emphasized that [t]his opinion and its holding are confined to ... lawful marriages -- i.e., marriages licensed by state governments.
This reluctance to touch on the constitutional merits of traditional marriage laws was confirmed by the court's ruling in the second same-sex marriage case before it: Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenged California Proposition 8, the 2008 state referendum that enshrined into California's Constitution the traditional definition of marriage.
Five justices, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, dismissed the case on the grounds that the party defending the law had no standing to appeal a 2012 trial court ruling overturning it. Relying on centuries of precedent, Roberts joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan said ordinary citizens do not have a right to defend state laws in federal court; that was the sole prerogative of government officials, who have declined to defend Proposition 8.
The ruling leaves alone every state's current marriage laws, including Florida's. In 2008, Floridians overwhelmingly voted to amend the state Constitution to define marriage in the traditional manner.
[T]o defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions, he wrote, referring to the words used by the majority to characterize defenders of traditional marriage. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.
Scalia suggested that the majority was purposefully laying the groundwork for an eventual overturning of all laws that don't define marriage according to liberal ideology.
Reach Eric Giunta at egiunta@sunshinestatenews.com or at 954-235-9116.
