A Milestone Week for Same-Sex Marriage

As noted in prior posts, this past week was a good one for those who believe in equality under the civil laws, including the right of civil law marriage.  If one is a Christofascist, the week will probably not rate as a good one.   Both the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and a U.S. District court in Indiana struck down state law bans of gay marriage.  While the usual hate merchants and snake oil merchants of the professional Christian class are shrieking and whining, the New York Times comments on these positive developments.  Here are editorial highlights:

The battle to legalize same-sex marriage saw a historic victory this week when the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver became the first federal appeals court in the nation to declare that same-sex couples have a “fundamental right” to wed.

The decision, striking down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage, extended a remarkable string of favorable federal court rulings; a similar ruling was issued on the same day by a Federal District Court in Indiana. The decision also provides a vehicle for the issue’s possible return to the Supreme Court next term.

“To claim that marriage, by definition, excludes certain couples is simply to insist that those couples may not marry because they have historically been denied the right to do so,” Judge Carlos Lucero, a Clinton appointee, wrote in a majority opinion in the Utah case, joined by Judge Jerome Holmes, a George W. Bush appointee. “One might just as easily have argued that interracial couples are by definition excluded from the institution of marriage.”

All in all, this has been a year of extraordinary progress on same-sex marriage. Almost exactly a year ago, the Supreme Court left standing a lower-court ruling overturning Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage; that case has given rise in recent weeks to two books and an HBO movie.

But the prime factor behind the explosion of lawsuits challenging state bans, as well as the many court rulings rejecting discrimination in both red and blue states, is United States v. Windsor — the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling striking down the Defense of Marriage Act’s denial of federal benefits to lawfully married same-sex couples. The 10th Circuit decision in the Utah case included many references to the Defense of Marriage Act ruling.

A recent report from Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. shows why the court should act promptly. The report documents the Obama administration’s progress in making federal benefits available to married same-sex couples in the wake of the Windsor decision.

But it also concludes that some vital Social Security and veterans benefits cannot be provided because they are tied to a couple’s “place of domicile” rather than a “place of celebration” standard. Congress is unlikely to fix that.

Only a strong decision from the Supreme Court making same-sex marriage legal nationwide can resolve this problem and end a whole array of indignities and disadvantages the current legal patchwork inflicts on gay people and their families every day.

The husband and I were at a local Pride fundraiser last night and spoke with our friend Tim Bostic of Bostic v. Rainey who said that the 4th Circuit is expected to release its ruling any time now.   Let's keep our fingers crossed that it follows the 10th Circuit example.