Posted on 12/07/2012 8:19:12 PM PST by ExxonPatrolUs
This is it – the Supreme Court marriage moment that the ACLU has been working towards for years. The Court announced today that it has granted review of the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act in Edie Windsor’s case. The Court also took review of California’s Prop 8, so the full range of marriage issues will now be before the high court. These cases are poised not just to take down DOMA and Prop 8, but to be the next building blocks for LGBT equality more broadly.
The Windsor and Perry rulings, expected in June 2013, will be a watershed moment if our side wins either one.
Here’s why these cases are so important:
Ending explicit federal discrimination. DOMA requires the federal government to discriminate against married same-sex couples by treating them as legal strangers for purposes of all federal statutes and programs. There are approximately 120,000 married same-sex couples in the U.S. today, and DOMA treats all of them as single in each of the 1,100+ places in the federal code where being married makes a difference – from eligibility for family medical leave, to social security survivor’s benefits, to access to health care for a spouse. It’s the last explicit federal declaration that gay people are inferior, which is reason enough to get rid of it. Heightened scrutiny in the balance. The Windsor ruling from the federal appeals court announced an important new protection for LGB people – “heightened scrutiny” by the courts. Under this standard, courts will presume that anti-gay discrimination by the government is unconstitutional and will require the government to have a good explanation for why it needs to treat us badly. Courts have usually applied a much less rigorous standard that often allows the government to discriminate against lesbians and gay men. While DOMA and Prop 8 should fail under any standard, if the Supreme Court adopts the heightened scrutiny standard, it would help eliminate anti-gay discrimination in many different contexts, from the workplace, to state parenting laws, to public schools across the country.
Showing the country that discrimination in marriage is wrong. Both Windsor and Perry make profound contributions to the public’s understanding of the freedom to marry. Edie’s story resonates because her relationship with Thea exemplifies what many people think marriage is all about – making a commitment to another person and sticking with it through difficult times. When two people make the commitment that’s at the heart of marriage, it’s profoundly unfair for the government to treat them as though they’re not a family. The evidence presented at the Prop 8 trial helped the country see how baseless are the many anti-gay stereotypes that are at the core of our opponents’ arguments. And having prominent conservatives like Ted Olson champion this cause gets a big chunk of America to take another look. Once they do, many realize they don’t really have a problem with same-sex couples tying the knot.
The two cases both involve marriage for gay couples, but they actually present quite distinct issues. Edie Windsor is already married – she just wants to stop the federal government from treating her marriage different from everyone else’s marriages. The plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case, on the other hand, want to get married. Their case presents the marriage issue to the Court full-on – Does California’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples violate the federal constitution? Our side could get a big win – marriage in all 50 states – or we could get a smaller win – marriage in California. Either win would be spectacular progress for our movement. I’m betting that the smaller win is more likely, but public opinion on this issue is changing so quickly that it’s becoming hard to predict what the Court will do in the end. The ACLU has filed supportive briefs in Perry all along, and we’ve been working for decades – in courts, in legislatures, in ballot campaigns, and with the public – to help get the country, and the court, ready for this moment.
As the Court moves forward, let’s take a look back at Edie’s story.
Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer’s relationship is destined to be a classic among love affairs: The two New Yorkers became a couple in 1965 and had the courage to get engaged in 1967, when marriage for same-sex couples was just a fantasy. In 1977, Thea was diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis, which gradually paralyzed her and ultimately left her unable to walk. Edie and Thea dealt together with the challenges of M.S. for the next 30-plus years.
The couple waited for years to be able to marry, and finally did so in 2007. In 2009, after 44 years together, Thea died.
Naturally Thea left her possessions, including the apartment they had shared for decades, to Edie. But while New York considered Edie and Thea married, DOMA required the federal government to treat them as legal strangers. So Edie was socked with a $363,000 federal estate tax bill that would have been $0 if she had been a straight widow. If you haven’t seen the video about Edie, take a look, it’s quite moving.
Heartbroken at the injustice, Edie challenged the constitutionality of DOMA. Two lower federal courts have struck down DOMA in her case, and now the Supreme Court will have the final word.
We’re headed for another marriage moment in just six months. Edie’s case will be a central part of that moment, and hers has all the right stuff – a compelling story, a perfect plaintiff, a top-notch legal team, and support from people across the country and around the globe. Importantly, Edie’s bravery and the strength of her love could change the reality for tens of thousands of same-sex couples.
We could not do this work alone, many thanks to our wonderful co-counsel in Edie’s case at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
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So..... Marriage and a hose are the same thing? Really?
ONLY the limp wristed spineless progressive leftist RINOs like Romney do!
The same-sex marriage fight is indeed a serious issue and can best be fought in the states with the support of the Church. The Obama Regime is poised to eliminate the Defense of Marriage Act if it can de-normalize heterosexual monogamy. Whether to bring the fight into the presidential campaign is a tactic, I am afraid, could distract from the issue of Obama’s economic incompetence. It is the economic issue that is the silver stake into the heart of the Obama Regime. And it is the failure of Keynesian economics, which was proved a failure during the FDR Regime, that Obama revived for its same failed effect. We need to get to the bottom of why he revived this failed economic plan. That answer should kill his credibility on this issue.
On the perversion of the family issue, we need to formulate a clear message that defends monogamous heterosexual marriage. We have a huge electorate who does not know the implications of normalizing homosexual relationships and has been dumbed down by the Hollywood media. You see them clapping on shows that promote homosexuality and same sex marriage. Most American have no clue what the battle is about. The media indoctrination for same sex marriage has been irresponsible and non-stop. How we stop the propaganda campaign will be a challenge.
Basically, same-sex marriage violates the natural parent-child bond in every family, and the right of the family to protection by society and the state. It will discard the fundamental understanding that the family based upon the heterosexual marriage is the very foundation of society. Same sex-marriage will de-naturalize the family by rendering in their entirety familial relationships as ever changing expressions of law. That universal understanding for thousands of years that the family is a small society (a sovereign state) with unique rights and responsibilities independent of the state will be no longer. Instead, the family will become mere policy relationships, defined and imposed by the state. The family (this society) founded more immediately in nature—the proles (procreation or fruitfulness)—will no longer have the distinction of sexual difference, with its distinctive quality of generative power. The family must continue to be the natural and fundamental group unit of society. With a change in the definition of marriage the family will have no direct connection to nature. This leaves the parent-child relation open to increasing intervention by the state. And with the possibility of the state being influenced by foreign forces, the definition of the family could be expanded to include such barbarous practices as marriage to children and polygamy.
With the definition of marriage redefined, the state with its new found power, will undermine further the sovereign nature of the family, and the sphere of the church or religious community as well—the two spheres where divine and human rights independent of the state are located. This will come as an all out assault on hetero-sexism, or anything that seems to privilege the male-female binary or the nuclear family. It will enable the state to indoctrinate our children and deprive us of the power to intervene. The individual—men, women and children—will be reduced to be subjects of the state with no divine rights. We must understand the serious nature of this fight. There will be no peace to be had by capitulation.
The big question is can this fight be fought in the midst of a presidential campaign? Could it backfire and be used against our candidate? Remember, we are dealing with an indoctrinated public who is ignorant of the real issues and their consequences. Can smart minds formulate the argument sufficiently that they will not be painted with the wide brush of political correctness?
This fight must be be vigorously taken up by Christians who can boldly declare that marriage is a gift—something we receive with creation, not something we invent—and that only what is capable of being a marriage act is natural sex. I believe that this issue can be fought on the moral level as it presents itself to the sovereignty of the family. It should be made a human rights issue. Then, it ceases to be a Republican or a Democratic cause, and spun to justify an attack against our presidential candidate.
The obvious way God designed it. The arrogant don’t have a clue.
I understood your point I just think your analogy is demeaning to marriage.
Marriage is a lot more than that IMO.
Meanwhile, in Phoenix, a police supervisor claims two gay city officials interfered with his supervision of the police “gay outreach” officer, who has now been arrested for raping two boys.
What’s next is pushing Christianity indoors and out of sight because the Dems say we only have a right to worship in designated places. Next is limiting deductions on charitable contributions to 2% of your income - never mind we strive to tithe 10%. Next is taxing charities same as any other business. Next is telling a Christian adoption service who to give the orphans to. Next is telling Christian hospitals which patient to kill and which doctor to lock up for not following the rules.
Actually on social issues it always seems to be expansion not contraction. From handicapped rights to affirmative action to abortion and guns now LGBT. I really haven’t noticed were these rights have contracted.
After Obama care passed, I learned the supreme courts’ number. They do not have my respect . After passing the unconstitutional health care bill, none of us should have good faith in this court . If the rule is for or against our beliefs, it is still to be brought into question.
Or, we could be sheep and bah, bah, bah, all the way to slaughter.
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