Same Sex Marriage

The debate over same sex marriage rages on in America months after the Supreme Court’s landmark rulings last June (2013) in United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry, while the Court’s ruling in Windsor invalidated the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), in Hollingsworth v. Perry, marriage equality was restored in California on procedural grounds thus dismissing the lower-courts ruling, which overturned Proposition 8. On February 13, 2014, a federal judge in Virginia struck down that states ban on same sex marriage stating a Constitutional violation of equal protection. While in Indiana, on the same day, that state’s Senate held a second reading of the proposed constitutional amendment that seeks to ban same sex marriage and in Oklahoma, a federal judge ruled that a law limited to heterosexual couples violates the United States Constitution. Did the Supreme Court justices rightfully interpret the equal protection clause from the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments in their decision of finding Section Three of DOMA unconstitutional?

DOMA’s Death

In United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court invalidated Section Three of DOMA. This means that same-sex couples will now receive federal benefits like other legally married couples. When Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, the same-sex marriage issue was heating up. Controversy began in the early 1990’s. Lawsuits were popping up all over the country being filed by advocates who challenged the validity of same-sex marriage bans on state constitutional grounds. According to Joanna L. Grossman (2013), “The heat came from Hawaii, which was poised to legalize same sex marriage because of a ruling from the states highest court in 1993 that the ban merited strict scrutiny ...

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...etrieved from http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/12-307#qp

Liptak, A. (2013). To Have and To Uphold The Supreme Court & The Battle for Same-Sex Marriage. New York, NY: The New York Times/Byliner Original. procedural law legal definition of procedural law. procedural law synonyms by the Free Online Law Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/procedural+law

United States v. Windsor (2013). Bloomberg Law - Document -United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675, 186 L. Ed. 2d 808, 118 FEP Cases 1417, 57 EBC 1577 (2013), Court Opinion. Retrieved from http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/United_States_v_Windsor_No_12307_2013_BL_168683_US_June_26_2013_C/1

Washington v. Glucksberg | The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. (1997). Retrieved from http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1996/1996_96_110