JBoD is very happy for all of our LGBT brothers and sisters today. 🙂
Equality has won. The Supreme Court of the United States declared DOMA (Defense Of Marriage Act) unconstitutional. According to Scotusblog:
DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.
In addition, SCOTUS has finally ruled on California’s Proposition 8 which restricted marriage to opposite sex couples only. Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Prop 8 in 2010 on the grounds that it violated the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the United States Constitution. Today, the Supreme Court ruled that the supporters of Prop 8 did not have the legal standing to appeal Judge Vaughn’s ruling. Vaughn’s ruling stands and marriage will resume in California soon.
There is more work to be done and more states in which we need to gain marriage equality for our LGBT brothers and sisters. However, Marriage Equality has won today. May there be many more wins in the near future.
I took this picture a couple of weeks ago and I was hoping that I would be able to use it for this.
So they are saying this is about equal protection under the law? Disappointing then to see that the Justices seem to have conveniently forgotten the 14th Amendment when ruling on this one…
That one states in 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.”
Ahhh…. and Section 5 of that same Amendment which reads “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
Translation? No individual state may define Marriage. Only Congress alone can legislate it. Would have been nice if they’d actually seen fit to unambiguously protect those rights rather than scramble to “fence sit” once again and not end a debate once and for all.
But yeah…. it’s a baby step forward.
I fully agree with you. To be honest, after what they did to the Voting Rights Act yesterday, I wasn’t sure we would get this much. It’s less than what I wanted, but still better than what I expected.
I won’t give my opinion of Scalia. I would just wind up turning the air blue.