Supreme Court strikes down DOMA

Today the Supreme Court issued a divided 5-4 opinion in the highly controversial Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)  case, U.S. v. Windsor, 570 U.S. ____ (2013).  The majority, led by Justice Kennedy, struck down DOMA, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, holding that it violated due process and equal protection rights.

The case went up to the Supreme Court after Windsor, a resident of New York legally married to another woman, appealed the IRS’ refusal to grant the estate tax exemption for married couples after her wife passed away.  DOMA excluded “a same-sex partner from the definition of ‘spouse’ as that term is used in federal statutes.”  Windsor challenged DOMA’s constitutionality.  Both the U.S. District Court and Court of Appeals ruled the provision unconstitutional.

The effect that DOMA’s definitional provision had was a wide-reaching interference with the States’ power to regulate domestic relations.  According to the Court, same-sex married couples were singled out and “humiliated” under DOMA; they were deprived of healthcare benefits and “forced to follow a complicated procedure” when filing joint taxes.  Furthermore, ethics laws, such as 18 USC §208(a) which prohibits federal executive and agency officials from “participat[ing] personally and substantially” in matters in which a spouse is financially interested, did not apply to same-sex spouses under DOMA.

The majority, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, stated that “. . . the principal purpose and the necessary effect of this law are to demean those persons who are in a lawful same-sex marriage.  This requires the Court to hold, as it now does, that DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.”

Roberts dissented.  Scalia filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas joined, and Roberts joined as to Part I.  Alito also filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas joined as to Parts II and III.

You can read the opinion in its entirety here.