In striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, a 5-to-4 majority of the Supreme Court overturned a law that denied federal benefits to same-sex couples. The decision does not guarantee a right to same-sex marriage, but it allows people who live in states that allow same-sex marriage to receive the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the majority opinion and joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, framed the question as one of basic fairness and human dignity. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote a dissenting opinion, as did Justice Antonin Scalia, whose opinion was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Roberts in part. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. filed another dissenting opinion, which Justice Thomas joined in part.
Opinion of the CourtJustice Kennedy writes that the Defense of Marriage Act violates the principles of federalism, which allow states to largely chart their own course. But he said that the case need not be decided on grounds of federalism.
The State’s power in defining the marital relation is of central relevance in this case quite apart from principles of federalism. 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. When the State used its historic and essential authority to define the marital relation in this way, its role and its power in making the decision enhanced the recognition, dignity, and protection of the class in their own community. DOMA, because of its reach and extent, departs from this history and tradition of reliance on state law to define marriage. View Page 22
When a state decides to grant the right to marry, Justice Kennedy wrote, it is dealing fundamentally with issues of human rights and "dignity" -- a word that appears many times in the majority opinion.
For same-sex couples who wished to be married, the State acted to give their lawful conduct a lawful status. This status is a far-reaching legal acknowledgment of the intimate relationship between two people, a relationship deemed by the State worthy of dignity in the community equal with all other marriages. It reflects both the community’s considered perspective on the historical roots of the institution of marriage and its evolving understanding of the meaning of equality. View Page 24
In closing, Justice Kennedy says that the Defense of Marriage Act must fail because it denies same-sex couples the dignity that the states intended them to have and sets them apart in a way that violates the due process and equal protection principles guaranteed under the Constitution.
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. The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its mar- riage 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, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment. This opinion and its holding are confined to those lawful marriages. View Page 29
Dissenting Opinion from Justice ScaliaJustice Scalia writes that the majority's evocation of "personhood and dignity" for same-sex couples will wreak havoc in the state legislatures as litigants line up to challenge their laws in court.
As far as this Court is concerned, no one should be fooled; it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe. By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition. Henceforth those challengers will lead with this Court’s declaration that there is “no legitimate purpose” served by such a law, and will claim that the traditional definition has “the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure” the “personhood and dignity” of same-sex couples, see ante, at 25, 26. The majority’s limiting assurance will be meaningless in the face of language like that, as the majority well knows. That is why the language is there. The result will be a judicial distortion of our society’s debate over marriage—a debate that can seem in need of our clumsy “help” only to a member of this institution. View Page 58
In the majority’s telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us. The truth is more complicated. It is hard to admit that one’s political opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than today’s Court can handle. Too bad. A reminder that disagreement over something so fundamental as marriage can still be politically legitimate would have been a fit task for what in earlier times was called the judicial temperament. We might have covered ourselves with honor today, by promising all sides of this debate that it was theirs to settle and that we would respect their resolution. We might have let the People decide. But that the majority will not do. Some will rejoice in today’s decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many. But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat. We owed both of them better. View Page 59
Dissenting Opinion from Justice AlitoJustice Alito devoted a lengthy footnote to ridiculing the trial in the other same-sex marriage case decided by the court on Wednesday, saying that Hollingsworth v. Perry at times "reached the heights of parody." Echoing the dissent by Justice Scalia, he said that these questions should be decided by the political branch of government and not by the judiciary. He wrote that the act did not violate the Fifth Amendment, and that he would have let the decision of Congress in 1996 stand.
I hope that the Court will ultimately permit the people of each State to decide this question for themselves. Unless the Court is willing to allow this to occur, the whiffs of federalism in the today’s opinion of the Court will soon be scattered to the wind. View Page 77