[We’ll update with Prop8 opinion as it comes in. Just did.]
Okay folks: buy Pregabalin online australia The Defense of Marriage Act has been found unconstitutional, says the Supreme Court in a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Kennedy and joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
Kennedy, writing in the majority:
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.
And slidingly Prop8 goes down, but in the more narrow of the possible ways it could have: the petitioners (i.e. those attempting to defend it, notably not the State of CA) didn’t have standing to appeal the district court order. In the words of the majority opinion:
We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here.
More places to go for further details:
- The SCOTUSblog was where most of us on Twitter got the news first. A great first stop.
- SCOTUS opinion on DOMA
- SCOTUS opinion on Prop8
- United for Marriage is a coalition of a zillion LGBT and allied civil rights orgs (really: a zillion), and has a page listing all the local rallies coast-to-coast.
What are you thinking/feeling? What are you telling your kids? Are you going to the rally in your town?
[PHOTO: POLLY PAGENHART mod. of SCOTUS stock photo]
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