American Foundation for Equal Rights

Marriage News Blog

Key Quotes from the Decisions

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in AFER’s case against California’s Proposition 8 that restores marriage equality to California. In a decision authored by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., the Supreme Court has dismissed AFER’s case against Prop. 8, Hollingsworth v. Perry, because the Proponents of Prop. 8 lack standing. Find out more >

Hollingsworth v. Perry (Prop. 8)

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“For there to be such a case or controversy, it is not enough that the party invoking the power of the court have a keen interest in the issue. That party must also have ‘standing,’ which requires, among other things, that it have suffered a concrete and particularized injury. Because we find that petitioners do not have standing, we have no authority to decide this case on the merits, and neither did the Ninth Circuit.”  Op. at 2.

 

“In other words, for a federal court to have authority under the Constitution to settle a dispute, the party before it must seek a remedy for a personal and tangible harm. ‘The presence of a disagreement, however sharp and acrimonious it may be, is insufficient by itself to meet Art. III’s requirements.’”  Op. at 6.

 

“Here, however, petitioners had no ‘direct stake’ in the outcome of their appeal. Their only interest in having the District Court order reversed was to vindicate the constitutional validity of a generally applicable California law.  We have repeatedly held that such a ‘generalized grievance,’ no matter how sincere, is insufficient to confer standing. A litigant ‘raising only a generally available grievance about government—claiming only harm to his and every citizen’s interest in proper application of the Constitution and laws, and seeking relief that no more directly and tangibly benefits him than it does the public at large—does not state an Article III case or controversy.’”  Op. at 7.

 

“We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here.  Because petitioners have not satisfied their burden to demonstrate standing to appeal the judgment of the Dis­trict Court, the Ninth Circuit was without jurisdiction to consider the appeal. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.”  Op. at 17.

United States v. Windsor (DOMA)

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Slowly at first and then in rapid course, the laws of New York came to acknowledge the urgency of this issue for same-sex couples who wanted to affirm their commitment to one another before their children, their family, their friends, and their community.”  Op. at 14.

 

“State laws defining and regulating marriage, of course, must respect the constitutional rights of persons, see , e.g., Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967); but, subject to those guarantees, ‘regulation of domestic relations’ is ‘an area that has long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the States.’ . . .  The definition of marriage is the foundation of the State’s broader authority to regulate the subject of domestic relations with respect to the ‘[p]rotection of offspring, property interests, and the enforcement of marital responsibilities.’”  Op. at 16-17.

 

“Here the State’s decision to give this class of persons the right to marry conferred upon them a dignity and status of immense import.”  Op. at 18.

 

After discussing state’s traditional role in defining marriage:  “‘[D]iscriminations of an unusual character especially suggest careful consideration to determine whether they are obnoxious to the constitutional provision.’ Romer v. Evans, 517 U. S. 620, 633 (1996).”  Op. at 19.

 

“The Federal Government uses this state-defined class for the opposite purpose—to impose restrictions and disabilities. That result requires this Court now to address whether the resulting injury and indignity is a deprivation of an essential part of the liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment. What the State of New York treats as alike the federal law deems unlike by a law designed to injure the same class the State seeks to protect.”  Op. at 19.

 

“DOMA seeks to injure the very class New York seeks to protect. By doing so it violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government. The Constitution’s guarantee of equality ‘must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot’ justify disparate treatment of that group.”  Op. at 20.

 

“In determining whether a law is motivated by improper animus or purpose, discriminations of an unusual character especially require careful consideration. DOMA cannot survive under these principles.”  Op. at 20.

 

“The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States.”  Op. at 21.

 

“DOMA’s operation in practice confirms this purpose. When New York adopted a law to permit same-sex marriage, it sought to eliminate inequality; but DOMA frustrates that objective through a system-wide enactment with no identified connection to any particular area of federal law. DOMA writes inequality into the entire United States Code.”  Op. at 22. 

 

“DOMA’s principal effect is to identify a subset of state­-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal. The prin­cipal purpose is to impose inequality, not for other reasons like governmental efficiency. Responsibilities, as well as rights, enhance the dignity and integrity of the person. And DOMA contrives to deprive some couples married under the laws of their State, but not other couples, of both rights and responsibilities. By creating two contra­dictory marriage regimes within the same State, DOMA forces same-sex couples to live as married for the purpose of state law but unmarried for the purpose of federal law, thus diminishing the stability and predictability of basic personal relations the State has found it proper to acknowledge and protect. By this dynamic DOMA under­mines both the public and private significance of state-­sanctioned same-sex marriages; for it tells those couples and all the world, that their otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of federal recognition. This places same-sex couples in an unstable position of being in a second-tier marriage. The differentiation demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects, see Lawrence, 539 U. S. 558, and whose relationship the State has sought to dignify. And it humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.”  Op. at 22-23.

 

“The class to which DOMA directs its restrictions and restraints are those persons who are joined in same-sex marriages made lawful by the State. DOMA singles out a class of persons deemed by a State entitled to recognition and protection to enhance their own liberty. It imposes a disability on the class by refusing to acknowledge a status the State finds to be dignified and proper. DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others.”  Op. at 25.

 

“The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others.”  Op. at 25-26.