Supreme Court same-sex marriage

SUPREME COURT ALLOWS GAY MARRIAGES TO COMMENCE

 

 

By Miriam Raftery

October 7, 2014 (Washington D.C.) – Wedding bells will soon be ringing for same-sex couples in many more states, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied hearings on all appeals pending.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney James Esseks called the decision “a watershed moment for the entire country.”

The high court refused to hear appeals of same-sex marriage rulings in five states where appellate courts ruled that bans on same-sex marriages are unconstitutional.  However,the decision is expected to expand same-sex marriage rights to a total of 11 states that are all under jurisdiction of the federal appeals courts that ruled same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional.  Add those to the number of states where same-sex marriage already is legal, including California, and the U.S. will likely soon have 30 states—a majority--where same-sex marriage is protected.


Error message

Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.

POLITICAL REFLECTIONS COLUMN: MARRYING YOUR GAY FIRST COUSIN?

By Mark Gabrish Conlan

April 7, 2013 (San Diego)--On March 26 and 27, the U.S. Supreme Court heard two major cases over whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

On March 26 they heard arguments on whether Proposition 8, which California voters passed in November 2008 to short-circuit the ruling of the California Supreme Court that the state’s constitution did not allow it to deny marriage to same-sex couples, is unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The next day they heard the case of Edith Windsor, who legally married her long-term partner, Thea Spyer, in Canada in 2007, then got socked with a federal estate tax bill of $367,000 because the federal government didn’t recognize her marriage under the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” (DoMA) passed by Congress in 1996.

The two cases rest on somewhat different legal issues, and it’s quite possible the court could throw out Proposition 8 and uphold DoMA — or vice versa — but the underlying issues are the same.


Error message

Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.