SCOTUS Deals a Knockout Blow to Prop 8 and DOMA

Marriage equality supporters on Wednesday (S)

The Supreme Court of the United States (also known as SCOTUS) ruled on the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) as well as California’s Proposition 8 on the 26th June 2013. Both laws were deemed unconstitutional. However, it’s important to look at what this actually means, so without further ado I am here to explain what each of these laws were, how they came to be, how they were overturned, and what this changes for American same-sex married couples.

DOMA was signed in to law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, and defined marriage as being only the legal union between one man and one woman. In federal law, this now meant that same-sex couples were unable to receive the same benefits as “traditional” marriages (including, but certainly not limited to, insurance benefits for government employees, the filing of joint tax returns, immigration, and excluding same-sex spouses from laws evaluating financial aid eligibility, federal ethics laws, and laws protecting families of federal officers). Essentially, even if same-sex marriage is legal in a state, a same-sex couple is legally married in that state but legally unmarried in the United States as a whole.

The big "equals" is now a symbol for marriage equality,
and was created by the Human Rights Campaign

The case of United States v. Windsor was a legal challenge to determine whether a particular portion of DOMA – Section 3, which was related to denying federal benefits to same-sex couples – was constitutional. In a 5-4 ruling, SCOTUS found that this deprived legally married couples of equal protection under the law and that it violated the 5th Amendment (which protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure) by taking away legally married same-sex couples’ liberty without actually following the due process of law. As there is no federal ruling on what the requirements are for a “legal marriage”, the law here is “state law” rather than federal law.

In less legal jargon? If a State says that a couple are legally married, the Federal Government cannot pass any laws to say that they are not married in order to stop certain couples from receiving the same benefits as others. Essentially SCOTUS has said that if the Federal Governent gives federal benefits to legal marriages in a state, it has to recognise all legal marriages in that state. Depending on how the state rules on marriage this could mean that same-sex couples still do not receive federal benefits – repealing DOMA does not change state laws that define “marriage” as only between opposite-sex couples.

The ruling stems from a desire to keep the marriage and other domestic relations as the responsibility of the state in question to regulate – DOMA meant that the Federal Government had an influence when defining marriage.

Proposition 8, on the other hand, was not a federal law. It was a Californian ballot measure first signed into law as Proposition 22 in 2000, and it ruled that marriage should remain between opposite-sex couples. In May of 2008 the California Supreme Court decided that the state Constitution provided its citizens with a fundamental “right to marry” and all existing restrictions on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional.

However, in November of the same year Proposition 8 (which was essentially the same as Proposition 22) was narrowly passed with a 52% majority vote. A couple then went to the Federal court to sue, on the grounds that Proposition 8 was incompatible with the US constitution, and in August 2010 it was deemed unconstitutional by the Federal District Court. It was ruled that California could not pass a law that deprived California citizens of their current rights without justification. However, this ruling did not (unfortunately for marriage equality supporters) make any ruling about the legality of same-sex marriage bans in general – it was specific to Proposition 8.

After this ruling the State of California was allowed to appeal against the ruling, but the opportunity was declined by both Governor Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris. Instead, the original sponsors of Proposition 8 filed an appeal for the State of California. This is the appeal that was being ruled on alongside DOMA.

A 2008 protest against Proposition 8 (S)

This is where it gets a bit complicated, and different to the DOMA ruling. This case actually won on a technicality – as a party must demonstrate a considerable connection to or harm from a law or challenged action before they can be a party in a case (this is known as “standing”). The Court ruled that once Proposition 8 passed, its sponsors had “no personal stake in defending its enforcement that is distinguishable from the general interest of every individual in California.” They also noted that they had never before “upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to,” and they refused to in this case as well.

They ruled that the sponsors lacked standing to appeal, so they reinstated the decision of August 2010 which found that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional. However, since the case was overruled by a technicality (a technicality that occurs very early in a federal case, mind) the actual important point that the plaintiffs were making – that Proposition 8 contradicts guarantees of equal protection given in the Constitution – was not discussed. Because of this, there can be no ruling that state marriage equality bans are unconstitutional as a whole, which would have been a huge leap forward for the marriage equality movement in the United States.

Aside from that little shortcoming, what have these rulings on Proposition 8 and DOMA actually done? Well, the removal of Proposition 8 now means that same-sex couples in California can get legally married (congratulations, California!). As for DOMA: its repeal means that same-sex legally married couples can now be recognised as “spouses” when it comes to federal laws, or receiving federal marriage benefits. This means that they are now held on exactly the same legal standing as opposite-sex couples. In addition to that, same-sex married couples who move to a state which does not recognise their marriage as legal are still legally married in federal law, and can still receive all federal benefits even when state benefits are being denied to them.

All in all, it was a momentous ruling in favour of marriage equality. 

Read the Huffington Post article (which goes into greater detail about the process of the case itself, rather than the results, as well as the arguments and counter-arguments made by some) here.