Independent of whether this is a good decision, I thought that the Supreme Court's mandate was to decide whether a law violates the Constitution and little more. Doesn't this sort of judicial activism weaken the separation of powers, or is there a legitimate argument to be made that this law violated a constitutional right of gay couples? If there is, it doesn't seem that the court quotes it.
“The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage 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.”
You need a basic understanding of Constitutional law to understand the decision/opinion. (Note: this is not intended to be an insult by any means, EP is a very complicated subtopic within Constitutional law, which is a complicated area of the law on its own)
Essentially, when a law targets a certain group then Equal Protection is triggered, this requires the Courts to apply a standard/scrutiny. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause) Specifically, read up the section on "Tiered scrutiny". In this instance DOMA would require a "legitimate purpose" to target this group (like mid-level scrutiny), it is not that the SCOTUS could not find a legitimate purpose to over turn the law (as I believe you interpret), but that the law was overturned because the legislature did not have a legitimate purpose in creating the law (other than disparage and injure the targeted group, according to the majority opinion).
Doesn't this sort of judicial activism weaken the separation of powers
The idea of Judicial Activism is a red herring, when any court rules against ones own personal bias/interest. For example, Brown v. Board and Brown v. Board II are typically called judicial activism, but generally only by those who prefer Jim Crow laws. Moreover, this is precisely what the Court was meant to do, review a law and determine whether the legislature enacted a law that violates the Constitution, if this is "judicial activism" then what is SCOTUS for and how would they be a check on the legislature?
"The Act’s demonstrated purpose is to ensure that if any State decides to recognize same-sex marriages, those unions will be treated as second-class marriages for purposes of federal law. This raises a most serious question under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.
...
DOMA seeks to injure the very class New York seeks to protect. By doing so it violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government. See U. S. Const., Amdt. 5; Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497 (1954). The Constitution’s guarantee of equality “must at the very least mean that a bare con-gressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot” justify disparate treatment of that group. Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U. S. 528, 534–535 (1973).
...
The power the Constitution grants it also restrains. And though Congress has great authority to design laws to fit its own conception of sound national policy, it cannot deny the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
...
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."
I thought that the Supreme Court's mandate was to decide whether a law violates the Constitution and little more.
This is... I don't even know where to begin on how fundamentally wrong this is.
The Supreme Court is established by Article III of the Constitution. It's the end of the line for any legal question that falls under the jurisdiction outlined by Article III, which consists of far, far, far more than "whether a law violates the Constitution and little more".
As for this opinion, the Court explains very clearly the Constitutional issue: DOMA violates the Fifth Amendment. DOMA also has federalism issues, and so in theory a Tenth Amendment problem, but that's not actually necessary in order to strike it down.
How does the fifth apply? Nobody involved were changed with a crime, nor did they strictly speaking lose any rights, as they could at any time marry a person of the opposite gender (and hetero-sexual people can't marry anybody of the same sex either).
I would have assumed that the 14th amendment would have applied.
The Fifth Amendment includes a guarantee that "No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".
"Due process of law" is the key here; the government cannot simply say "well, we don't like this person, so we're just going to decree arbitrarily that he doesn't get the same rights as other people".
What it actually means will vary depending on what the government is trying to do; in a criminal case, for example, due process includes all the procedures and safeguards to make sure you get a fair trial before you can be thrown in prison.
Of course, DOMA is more or less literally the federal government saying "we don't like these people, so we're just going to decree arbitrarily that they don't get the same rights as other people".
The Fifth Amendment is the relevant one here because the first batch of amendments -- the Bill of Rights -- are traditionally interpreted as only restraining what the federal government can do; they do not, it is generally believed, constrain the states. The Fourteenth Amendment added equal-protection and due-process requirements for the states, so when a state does something that treats people unequally the Fourteenth Amendment is what the resulting lawsuit usually turns on.
It also appears that a large part of their ruling bases on the argument that DOMA is unconstitutional, because some states have gone to the effort of providing legal protections.
In other words, DOMA was quite possibly constitutional right up until any state passed laws explicitly granting protections and rights to same-sex marriages. At that point however, it was in direct conflict with state laws and in an area where state laws prevail.
The Constitution doesn't GRANT the Feds any power to decide who is married or not. They have to respect whatever status the STATES designate. So to unilaterally deny one type of marriage versus another that is sanctioned by a state is illegal.
What's really funny is that all these arguments were used buy the "Bible Belt" to KEEP slavery, owning people, on the books for just about as long as we have been discussing gay rights. The Feds could not end slaves as property without an amendment. Various states banned slavery, but the Feds ruled that slaves Owned in one state had to be respected as property rights during travel or if they escaped, even in states where slavery was illegal.
Of course many states treated interracial marriages the same way as gay marriage, well into the 1900's.. Until they were forcibly stopped during the Civil Rights movement. They all know the law and precedent, they don't like it so they want to ignore it.
Independent of whether this is a good decision, I thought that the Supreme Court's mandate was to decide whether a law violates the Constitution and little more.
No, its to resolve all cases and controversies in law and equity arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States (or, at least, that's the role of the federal judiciary; the Supreme Court's role is procedurally limited to a certain subset of those cases and controversies that are either in its original jurisdiction or properly before it on appeal.) See, generally, Article III of the US Constitution.
Also, here, all the Supreme Court did is find the statute in violation of the Constitution, so even under your narrow view of its role its action seems perfectly within what it is assigned to do.
"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 marriage 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."
Comments
Independent of whether this is a good decision, I thought that the Supreme Court's mandate was to decide whether a law violates the Constitution and little more. Doesn't this sort of judicial activism weaken the separation of powers, or is there a legitimate argument to be made that this law violated a constitutional right of gay couples? If there is, it doesn't seem that the court quotes it.
“The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage 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.”
You need a basic understanding of Constitutional law to understand the decision/opinion. (Note: this is not intended to be an insult by any means, EP is a very complicated subtopic within Constitutional law, which is a complicated area of the law on its own)
Essentially, when a law targets a certain group then Equal Protection is triggered, this requires the Courts to apply a standard/scrutiny. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause) Specifically, read up the section on "Tiered scrutiny". In this instance DOMA would require a "legitimate purpose" to target this group (like mid-level scrutiny), it is not that the SCOTUS could not find a legitimate purpose to over turn the law (as I believe you interpret), but that the law was overturned because the legislature did not have a legitimate purpose in creating the law (other than disparage and injure the targeted group, according to the majority opinion).
The idea of Judicial Activism is a red herring, when any court rules against ones own personal bias/interest. For example, Brown v. Board and Brown v. Board II are typically called judicial activism, but generally only by those who prefer Jim Crow laws. Moreover, this is precisely what the Court was meant to do, review a law and determine whether the legislature enacted a law that violates the Constitution, if this is "judicial activism" then what is SCOTUS for and how would they be a check on the legislature?
From the ruling:
"The Act’s demonstrated purpose is to ensure that if any State decides to recognize same-sex marriages, those unions will be treated as second-class marriages for purposes of federal law. This raises a most serious question under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.
...
DOMA seeks to injure the very class New York seeks to protect. By doing so it violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government. See U. S. Const., Amdt. 5; Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497 (1954). The Constitution’s guarantee of equality “must at the very least mean that a bare con-gressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot” justify disparate treatment of that group. Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U. S. 528, 534–535 (1973).
...
The power the Constitution grants it also restrains. And though Congress has great authority to design laws to fit its own conception of sound national policy, it cannot deny the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
...
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."
I thought that the Supreme Court's mandate was to decide whether a law violates the Constitution and little more.
This is... I don't even know where to begin on how fundamentally wrong this is.
The Supreme Court is established by Article III of the Constitution. It's the end of the line for any legal question that falls under the jurisdiction outlined by Article III, which consists of far, far, far more than "whether a law violates the Constitution and little more".
As for this opinion, the Court explains very clearly the Constitutional issue: DOMA violates the Fifth Amendment. DOMA also has federalism issues, and so in theory a Tenth Amendment problem, but that's not actually necessary in order to strike it down.
How does the fifth apply? Nobody involved were changed with a crime, nor did they strictly speaking lose any rights, as they could at any time marry a person of the opposite gender (and hetero-sexual people can't marry anybody of the same sex either).
I would have assumed that the 14th amendment would have applied.
The Fifth Amendment includes a guarantee that "No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".
"Due process of law" is the key here; the government cannot simply say "well, we don't like this person, so we're just going to decree arbitrarily that he doesn't get the same rights as other people".
What it actually means will vary depending on what the government is trying to do; in a criminal case, for example, due process includes all the procedures and safeguards to make sure you get a fair trial before you can be thrown in prison.
Of course, DOMA is more or less literally the federal government saying "we don't like these people, so we're just going to decree arbitrarily that they don't get the same rights as other people".
The Fifth Amendment is the relevant one here because the first batch of amendments -- the Bill of Rights -- are traditionally interpreted as only restraining what the federal government can do; they do not, it is generally believed, constrain the states. The Fourteenth Amendment added equal-protection and due-process requirements for the states, so when a state does something that treats people unequally the Fourteenth Amendment is what the resulting lawsuit usually turns on.
Ok, thanks for the clarification.
From the opinion (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_g2bh.pdf)
DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 13–26.
It also appears that a large part of their ruling bases on the argument that DOMA is unconstitutional, because some states have gone to the effort of providing legal protections.
In other words, DOMA was quite possibly constitutional right up until any state passed laws explicitly granting protections and rights to same-sex marriages. At that point however, it was in direct conflict with state laws and in an area where state laws prevail.
Ok, that seems reasonable then.
The Constitution doesn't GRANT the Feds any power to decide who is married or not. They have to respect whatever status the STATES designate. So to unilaterally deny one type of marriage versus another that is sanctioned by a state is illegal.
What's really funny is that all these arguments were used buy the "Bible Belt" to KEEP slavery, owning people, on the books for just about as long as we have been discussing gay rights. The Feds could not end slaves as property without an amendment. Various states banned slavery, but the Feds ruled that slaves Owned in one state had to be respected as property rights during travel or if they escaped, even in states where slavery was illegal.
Of course many states treated interracial marriages the same way as gay marriage, well into the 1900's.. Until they were forcibly stopped during the Civil Rights movement. They all know the law and precedent, they don't like it so they want to ignore it.
No, its to resolve all cases and controversies in law and equity arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States (or, at least, that's the role of the federal judiciary; the Supreme Court's role is procedurally limited to a certain subset of those cases and controversies that are either in its original jurisdiction or properly before it on appeal.) See, generally, Article III of the US Constitution.
Also, here, all the Supreme Court did is find the statute in violation of the Constitution, so even under your narrow view of its role its action seems perfectly within what it is assigned to do.
"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 marriage 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."
Direct violation of the Fifth Amendment.