Long road to victory for same-sex marriages

THE US Supreme Court this week handed down two opinions about same-sex marriage.

In United States vs Windsor, the court ruled that a portion of the Defence of Marriage Act was unconstitutional.

It was enacted on September 21 1996 and allowed individual states to refuse to recognise same-sex marriages. Section 3 of the act was ruled unconstitutional this week by the US Supreme Court.

Before the ruling, the act (and various other statutes) had effectively barred same-sex married couples from being recognised as spouses for purposes of federal laws or receiving marriage benefits.

Initially introduced by the Republicans in May 1996, the act was passed in both houses of Congress by large majorities and signed into law by then-president Bill Clinton in September 1996.

By defining “spouse” and its related terms for federal purposes to signify a heterosexual couple in a recognised marriage, Section 3 codified the lack of recognition of same-sex marriages for all federal purposes, including insurance benefits for government employees, social security survivors’ benefits, immigration, bankruptcy and the filing of joint tax returns, as well as excluding same-sex spouses from the scope of laws protecting the families of federal officers, laws evaluating financial aid eligibility and federal ethics laws applicable to opposite-sex spouses.

Despite signing the law in 1996, Clinton — along with other key legislators — later called for the act’s repeal.

The administration of President Barack Obama formally announced in 2011 that it had concluded that Section 3 was unconstitutional and, although it would continue to enforce the law while it existed, it would no longer defend it in court.

This week Section 3 of the act was declared unconstitutional, citing the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Hollingsworth vs Perry ruled on Proposition 8, a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment passed in the November 2008 state elections. The measure added a new provision, Section 7.5 of the Declaration of Rights, to the California constitution, which provides that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognised in California”.

This week’s supreme court ruling meant that the proponents of Proposition 8 did not have legal standing to appeal a US District Court’s ruling that the proposition was unconstitutional.

The state government had refused to defend the law. However, same-sex marriage in California will not resume until the district court removes a stay of effect that it had issued, pending appeals, which prevents its ruling from reversing the amendment to the state constitution.