2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: DOMA violates Equal Protection
Larry Neumeister, for AP:
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its 2-to-1 ruling only weeks after hearing arguments on a lower court judge’s findings that the 1996 [“Defense of Marriage Act”] was unconstitutional.
This is good news. The holding was based on the intermediate scrutiny constitutional standard and declared DOMA violative of Equal Protection.
The dissent in the 2-1 decision came from Judge Chester Straub, who said “courts should not intervene where there is a robust political debate because doing so poisons the political well, imposing a destructive anti-majoritarian constitutional ruling on a vigorous debate.”
It is the duty of a court to intervene where legislation violates constitutional protections, and that is exactly what DOMA does with regard to same-sex marriage.
There is no valid argument to the contrary.
If the Supreme Court fails to strike this law down when it comes to them some time in the next year, and fails to confirm that our Constitution disallows discrimination with regard to who citizens love solely on the basis of a majoritarian religious belief, it will be the darkest legal day in my lifetime thus far.