|
| Michael Knaapen, left, and his husband John Becker, right, embrace outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, June 26, 2013, after the court cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California by holding that defenders of California's gay marriage ban did not have the right to appeal lower court rulings striking down the ban. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- In a historic day for gay rights, the Supreme Court gave the
nation's legally married gay couples equal federal footing with all
other married Americans on Wednesday and also cleared the way for
same-sex marriages to resume in California.
In
deciding its first cases on the issue, the high court did not issue the
sweeping declaration sought by gay rights advocates that would have
allowed same-sex couples to marry anywhere in the country. But in two
rulings, both by bare 5-4 majorities, the justices gave gay marriage
supporters encouragement in confronting the nationwide patchwork of laws
that outlaw such unions in roughly three dozen states.
Gay-rights
supporters cheered and hugged outside the court. Opponents said they
mourned the rulings and vowed to keep up their fight.
In
the first of the narrow rulings in its final session of the term, the
court wiped away part of a federal anti-gay marriage law, the Defense of
Marriage Act, that has kept legally married same-sex couples from
receiving tax, health and pension benefits that are otherwise available
to married couples.
Justice Anthony Kennedy,
joined by the four liberal justices, said the purpose of the law was to
impose a disadvantage and "a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex
marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the states."
President
Barack Obama praised the court's ruling against the federal marriage
act, labeling the law "discrimination enshrined in law."
"It
treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and
lesser class of people," Obama said in a statement. "The Supreme Court
has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it."
House
Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he was disappointed in the outcome
of the federal marriage case and hoped states continue to define
marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Boehner, as speaker, had
stepped in as the main defender of the law before the court after the
Obama administration declined to defend it.
The
other case, dealing with California's constitutional ban on same-sex
marriage, was resolved by an unusual lineup of justices in a technical
legal fashion that said nothing about gay marriage. But the effect was
to leave in place a trial court's declaration that California's
Proposition 8 ban was unconstitutional. Gov. Jerry Brown quickly ordered
that marriage licenses be issued to gay couples as soon as a federal
appeals court lifts its hold on the lower court ruling. That will take
least 25 days, the appeals court said.
California,
where gay marriage was briefly legal in 2008, would be the 13th state,
along with the District of Columbia, to allow same-sex couples to marry
and would raise the share of the U.S. population in gay marriage states
to 30 percent. Six states have adopted same-sex marriage in the past
year, amid a rapid evolution in public opinion that now shows majority
support for the right to marry in most polls.
The
12 other states are Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont
and Washington.
The day's rulings are clear
for people who were married and live in states that allow same-sex
marriage.
They now are eligible for federal benefits.
The
picture is more complicated for same-sex couples who traveled to
another state to get married, or who have moved from a gay marriage
state since being wed.
Their eligibility
depends on the benefits they are seeking. For instance, immigration law
focuses on where people were married, not where they live. But
eligibility for Social Security survivor benefits basically depend on
where a couple is living when a spouse dies.
This
confusing array of regulations is reflected more broadly in the
disparate treatment of gay couples between states. And the court's
decision did not touch on another part of the federal marriage law that
says a state does not have to recognize a same-sex marriage performed
elsewhere.
Indeed, the outcome of the cases
had supporters of gay marriage already anticipating their next trip to
the high court, which they reason will be needed to legalize same-sex
unions in all 50 states.
The Human Rights
Campaign's president, Chad Griffin, said his goal is to legalize
same-sex marriage nationwide within five years through a combination of
ballot measures, court challenges and expansion of anti-discrimination
laws.
The rulings came 10 years to the day
after the court's Lawrence v. Texas decision that struck down state bans
on gay sex. In his dissent at the time, Justice Antonin Scalia
predicted the ruling would lead to same-sex marriage.
On
Wednesday, Scalia issued another pungent dissent in the Defense of
Marriage Act case in which he made a new prediction that the ruling
would be used to upend state restrictions on marriage. Kennedy's
majority opinion insisted the decision was limited to legally married
same-sex couples.
Scalia read aloud in a
packed courtroom that included the two couples who sued for the right to
marry in California. On the bench, Justice Elena Kagan, who voted to
strike down DOMA, watched Scalia impassively as he read.
"It
takes real cheek for today's majority to assure us, as it is going out
the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition
to same-sex marriage is not at issue here-when what has preceded that
assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority's moral judgment in
favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress' hateful moral judgment
against it. I promise you this: The only thing that will `confine' the
court's holding is its sense of what it can get away with," Scalia said.
Scalia
and Justice Samuel Alito, who also wrote a dissenting opinion, said
their view is that Constitution does not require states to allow gay and
lesbian couples to marry.
Outside the court,
some in the crowd hugged and others jumped up and down just after 10
a.m. EDT when the DOMA decision was announced. Many people were on their
cellphones monitoring Twitter, news sites and blogs for word of the
decision. And there were cheers as runners came down the steps with the
decision in hand and turned them over to reporters who quickly flipped
through the decisions.
Chants of "Thank you"
and "U-S-A" came from the crowd as plaintiffs in the cases descended the
court's marbled steps. Most of those in the crowd appeared to support
gay marriage, although there was at least one man who held a sign
promoting marriage as between a man and a woman.
In
New York City's Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn, where a riot in
1969 sparked the gay rights movement, erupted in cheers and whooping.
Mary Jo Kennedy, 58 was there with her wife Jo-Ann Shain, 60, and their daughter Aliya Shain, 25.
She came with a sign that could be flipped either way and was holding up the side that says "SCOTUS made our family legal".
They have been together 31 years and got married the day it became legal in New York.
Others were not celebrating.
"We
mourn for America's future, but we are not without hope," said Tim
Wildmon, president of American Family Association, in a statement.
Said.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council: "Time is not on
the side of those seeking to create same-sex `marriage.' As the
American people are given time to experience the actual consequences of
redefining marriage, the public debate and opposition to the
redefinition of natural marriage will undoubtedly intensify."
The
federal marriage law had been struck down by several federal courts,
and the justices chose to take up the case of 84-year-old Edith Windsor
of New York, who sued to challenge a $363,000 federal estate tax bill
after her partner of 44 years died in 2009.
Windsor,
who goes by Edie, married Thea Spyer in 2007 after doctors told them
Spyer would not live much longer. Spyer had suffered from multiple
sclerosis for many years. She left everything she had to Windsor.
Windsor
arrived at a news conference in New York after the ruling to applause
from her supporters and said she felt "joyous, just joyous."
Windsor would have paid nothing in inheritance taxes if she had been married to a man. Now she is eligible for a refund.
In
the case involving the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Justice Kennedy
was joined by the court's four liberal justices. In the California
ruling, which was not along ideological lines, Chief Justice John
Roberts' opinion was joined by Scalia and three of those liberal court
members: Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
