The news pundits are still digesting the details, but early reports indicate Section 3 of DOMA has been struck down by SCOTUS. 
Section 3 prohibited extension of federal marriage benefits to same-sex spouses. This opens the way for federal tax parity, immigration sponsorship, veterans benefits and so much more.
SCOTUS strikes down DOMA.
Congrats to all my fellow gay Dopers. This is a huge step in the right direction.
He beat me to posting, so here are more details: The Defense of Marriage Act (which forbids the Feds from acknowledging same-sex marriages by way of benefits/tax filing/family provisions for immigration/etc. and defines marriage as one man + one woman) has been declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision.
(One dissenter was Justice Thomas, whose own (interracial) marriage is only nationally legal courtesy of the Loving vs Virginia decision of 1967.)
Let’s hope for good news on their review of Prop 8, California’s decision to make same-sex marriage not recognized in their state.
My hunch is that they’ll decide the supporters of the proposition lack the standing to appeal, which will be good news for couples in California but won’t have any affect on the other states that have gay marriage bans in place. Still would be a victory, but not as far reaching as I’d hope. Of course, I really hope I’m wrong and that they declare all gay marriage bans unconstitutional. Guess we’ll know soon.
They allowed the DOMA case to go forward despite the Administration refusing to defend it.
My guess is they will let prop 8 case go forward too.
Reported for thread merger with this other thread.
Prop 8 struck down based on lack of standing. Only affects California but at least sets precedence.
Hell yeah!
FWIW, DOMA decision was authored by Kennedy. He also wrote the majority opinion in two other major gay rights cases Romer v Evans and in Lawrence v Texas.
Kennedy was joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer, and Ginsburg in today’s majority opinion striking down part of DOMA.
DOMA and the repeal of Glass-Steagall were two of the worst official acts of the Clinton administration. I’m glad that at least one of those has been corrected.
A great day for equality!
As a side note, does this mean that for 2013 there will be no ‘imputed income’ penalty* for domestic partners covered under their partner’s health insurance?
** applause **
Well I got that wrong!
These two rulings do seem to be conflicting on the standing issue. Curious.
I think that will go away.
Now how long until we see the lawsuits for refund of taxes paid for prior years?
So since there’s no Prop 8 thread, I have a quick question.
Prop 8 was dismissed because there was no standing for its proponents to defend the law in court (since the CA government declined to defend it on their own). As such, gay marriage is now legal in California, but not in any of the states that have not specifically passed a gay marriage law. If Gov. Brown had instructed the Attorney General to defend it, could SCOTUS have ruled more broadly?
I’m not a CPA - but I don’t see why it would go away. If you are in a state that allows gay marriage, then if you are married you presumably don’t have an imputed income for being covered under your spouses insurance.
If you are in a domestic partnership (non-marriage, hetero or homo-sexual), presumably you would be taxed on that.
Now, if striking down DOMA means full faith and credit for all marriages, then a gay couple can presumably go to a gay-marriage state and get their union legalized. At that point, they would have access to all benefits in the Federal tax code that confer on to married couples.
This is about as good a result as I could possibly have hoped for. (I never held out much hope that the Supreme Court would declare same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states.)
I heard of the decision while listening to the Diane Rehm show. Her manner of speaking certainly builds suspense.
“We … should… let… our … listeners… know… that … the… US… Supreme … Court… has… ruled… the … federal… Defense… of… Marriage … Act… [Tim: come on come on come on] unconstitutional [Tim: whoohoo! <pumps fist wildly>]”
Can someone who knows more about legal stuff say what will happen now? I know that it’s a good thing that DOMA is unconstitutional, but I don’t know what that means people can do now. One blog said something about how now people can sponsor citizenship for a same-sex foreign spouse, just like you can for an opposite-sex spouse, but I haven’t seen what the other consequences will be.
Wow this is great. I honestly thought the Supreme Court wasn’t going to do the right thing. But I am happily shocked at the ruling. And for both DOMA and Prop 8 to get struck down! Great!
But I have a question. I admit, as much as I was rooting for DOMA to go down, I’m not entirely clear on what this means. I’m pretty sure it means same sex marriages have to be recognized by whatever state they’re in right? So if someone’s gets married in Maine and they move to like, Texas, does that mean they still get all benefits of a married couple in Texas? And would that apply on the federal level too? Can they now file taxes as married?
I cannot listen to her, although I love the topics discussed usually.
Hooray homos!