US Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Same-Sex Cases

The United States Supreme Court justices have agreed to decide a major civil rights question: whether same-sex couples have a right to marry everywhere in America under the Constitution. The court will take up gay-rights cases that ask it to overturn bans in four states and declare for the entire nation that people may marry the partners of their choice, regardless of gender. The cases will be argued in April, and a decision is expected by late June.

The court chose not to decide this issue in 2013, even as it struck down part of a federal anti-gay marriage law that paved the way for a wave of lower court rulings across the country in favor of same-sex marriage rights. At that time, just 12 states and the District of Columbia permitted gay and lesbian couples to wed. That number has jumped to 36, almost all because of lower court rulings.

The appeals before the court come from gay and lesbian plaintiffs in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. The federal appeals court that oversees those four states uphold their same-sex marriage bans in November, reversing pro-gay rights rulings of federal judges in all four states. It was the first, and so far only, appellate court to rule against same-sex marriage since the high court’s 2013 decision.

On the other side, advocates for traditional marriage want the court to let the political process play out, rather than have judges order states to allow same-sex couples to marry. In October, five states asked the court to step in to preserve their bans on same-sex marriage. The justices declined without an explanation and subsequently refused to block lower court rulings from taking effect in other states while appeals were pending. Now there are just 14 states in which same-sex couples cannot wed.

The court’s decision to get involved is another marker of the rapid change that has redefined societal norms in the space of a generation. The court will be weighing in on major gay rights issues for the fourth time in 27 years. The court will be weighing in on major gay rights issues for the fourth time in27 years. In the first of those, in 1986, the court upheld Georgia’s anti-sodomy law in a devastating defeat for gay rights advocates. But the three subsequent rulings, all written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, were major victories for gay men and lesbians. In its most recent case in 2013, the court struck down part of a federal anti-gay marriage law in a decision that has paved the way for a wave of lower court rulings across the country in favor of same-sex marriage rights.

The court is extending the time it usually allots for argument from an hour to two-and-a-half hours. The justices will consider two related questions. The first is whether the Constitution requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The other is whether states must recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

Should gay marriage be legal? Some Pros

As of May 10, 2012, gay marriage has been legalized in the following eight states: Massachusetts (May 17, 2004), Connecticut (Nov. 23, 3008), Iowa (Apr. 24, 2009), Vermont (Sept. 1. 2009), New Hampshire (Jan. 1, 2010), New York (June 24, 2011), Washington (passed Feb. 14, 2012; effective Jan. 1, 2013) Maryland (passed Mar. 1, 2012; effective Jan. 1, 2013) and the District of Columbia (Mar 3, 2010). 31 states have constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.

Proponents argue that same-sex couples should have access to the same marriage benefits and public acknowledgment enjoyed by heterosexual couples and that prohibiting gay marriage is unconstitutional discrimination. Opponents argue that altering the traditional definition of marriage as between a man and a woman will further weaken a threatened institution. I have gathered together some pros to the question of if gay marriage should be legal:

1) Two people of the same sex who love each other should be allowed to publicly celebrate their commitment and receive the same benefits of marriage as opposite sex couples.

2) There is no such thing as traditional marriage prevalence of modern and ancient examples of family arrangements.

3) Gay marriage is protected by the Constitution's commitments to liberty and equality. The US Supreme Court declared in 1974's Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur that the "freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause."

4) Denying same-sex couples the right to marry stigmatizes gay and lesbian families as inferior and sends that message that it is acceptable to discriminate against them.

5) Gay marriages can bring financial gain to state and local governments. Revenue from gay marriage comes from marriage licenses, higher income taxes and decreases in costs for state benefit programs.

6) Gay marriage will make it easier for same-sex couples to adopt children.

7) Marriage provides both physical and psychological health benefits and recent research suggests that refusing to allow same-sex couples to marry has resulted in harmful psychological effects. The American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association and others wrote in a Sep. 2007 amicus brief, "...allowing same-sex couples to marry would give them access to the social support that already facilitates and strengthens heterosexual marriages, with all of the psychological and physical health benefits associated with that support."

8) Allowing same-sex couples to marry will give them access to basic rights such as hospital visitation during an illness, taxation and inheritance rights, access to family health coverage, and protection in the event of the relationship ending.

9) Marriage in the US is a secular and dynamic institution that has gone under several major transformations. Interracial marriage was illegal in many US states until a 1967 Supreme Court decision. 

10) Legalizing gay marriage will not harm heterosexual marriages or "family values." A study published on Apr 13, 2009 in Social Science Quarterly found that laws permitting same-sex marriage have no adverse effect on marriage, divorce, and abortion rates, or the percent of children born out of wedlock.

11) Massachusetts, which became the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2004, had the lowest divorce rate in the country in 2008. Its divorce rate declined 21% between 2003 and 2008. Alaska, the first state to alter its constitution to prohibit gay marriage in 1998, saw a 17.2% increase in its divorce rate. The seven states with the highest divorce rates between 2003 and 2008 all had constitutional prohibitions to gay marriage.

12) If marriage is about reproduction, then infertile couples would not be allowed to marry. Ability or desire to create offspring has never been a qualification for marriage. George Washington, often referred to as "the Father of Our Country," did not have children with his wife Martha Custis, and neither did four other married US presidents.

13) Same-sex marriage is a civil right. The 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia confirmed that marriage is 'one of the basic civil rights of man," and same-sex marriages should receive the same protections given to interracial marriages by that ruling.

California Same-Sex Marriage Victory

Gay marriage campaigners were celebrating a major victory on Tuesday, February 7, 2012, after a federal appeals court ruled California's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. The long-awaited ruling could pave the way for a US Supreme Court decision on the voter-approved measure known as Proposition 8. In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of the ninth US circuit court of appeals in San Francisco agreed with a lower court judge who in 2010 declared the ban to be a violation of the civil rights of gay and lesbian people.

"Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples," wrote Stephen Reinhardt, one of the court's most liberal judges, in Tuesday's ruling.

In its ruling, the appeals panel stressed that its decision applies only to California, which allowed gay marriage before Proposition 8, even although it has jurisdiction in nine western states. Campaigners and supporters of equal marriage rights described the ruling as monumental and said it put California on a growing list of states that have ended barriers to marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to Marry said: "Today's powerful court ruling striking down the infamous Prop 8 affirms basic American values, and helps tear down a discriminatory barrier to marriage that benefits no one while making it harder for people to take care of their loved ones. The ninth circuit rightly held that a state simply may not take a group of people and shove them outside the law, least of all when it comes to something as important as the commitment and security of marriage."

California voters passed Proposition 8 in 2008, but it was ruled unconstitutional by federal judge Vaughn Walker in 2010. The ban has remained in place since then, because the ninth circuit court put a stay on the Walker ruling pending appeals. Same-sex couples will not be able to marry in the state until at least after February 28, the deadline for Proposition 8's backers to appeal to a larger panel of the 9th circuit court. If they lose and then appeal to the supreme court, or appeal to the supreme court directly, there will be further delays.

In November, 2011, the California court gave the ballot measure backers the go-ahead, ruling that the state's citizens' initiative process grants sponsors the right to defend such measures in court even if state officials refuse to do so. The case was further complicated when lawyers for the coalition of conservative religious groups behind the ballot measure tried to have the trial ruling struck down after it emerged that Walker, the judge who struck down the ban 18 months ago, was in a long-term relationship with another man. On Tuesday, the panel also said there was no evidence that Walker was biased and should have disclosed before he issued his decision that he was gay. Walker ruled after the first federal trial to examine if the U.S. Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. An estimated 18,000 same-sex couples in California wed during the four-month hiatus before Proposition 8 took effect. The passage of the ban followed the most expensive campaign on a social issue in U.S. history.

It was unclear when gay marriages might resume in California. Lawyers for Proposition 8 sponsors and for the two couples who successfully sued to overturn the ban have said they would consider appealing to a larger panel of the court and then the U.S. Supreme Court if they did not receive a favorable ruling. California voters passed Proposition 8 with 52 percent of the vote in November 2008, five months after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage by striking down a pair of laws that had limited marriage to a man and a woman. The ballot measure inserted the one man-one woman provision into the California Constitution, thereby overruling the court's decision. It was the first such ban to take away marriage rights from same-sex couples after they had already secured them.

The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and the Law, a think tank based at the University of California, Los Angeles, has estimated that 18,000 couples married during the four-month window before Proposition 8 took effect. The California Supreme Court upheld those marriages but ruled that voters had properly enacted the law. With same-sex marriages unlikely to resume in California any time soon, Love Honor Cherish, a gay rights group based in Los Angeles, plans to start gathering signatures for a November ballot initiative asking voters to repeal Proposition 8.