DOMA struck down by federal appeals court

Yes!

http%3A//www.businessinsider.com/second-circuit-strikes-down-doma-2012-10



• Nice, the more precedent we have for courts finding this law bullshit the stronger the case will be for the Supreme Court.

• Wow, I hadn't heard about Edith Windsor.

• My husband is on my insurance. And the extra taxes I have to pay are MURDER. It can't get overturned fast enough.

• Holy fuck! And by a Republican appointee...

  http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/18/1040901/breaking-federal-appeals-court-strikes-down-doma-in-opinion-by-republican-appointed-judge/

• YES! THANK YOU!

• NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court in Manhattan has become the second in the nation to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling Thursday. The decision upholds a lower court judge who ruled that the 1996 law that defines marriage as involving a man and a woman was unconstitutional. The three-judge panel says the law violates equal protection. A federal appeals court in Boston earlier this year also found it unconstitutional. The issue is expected to be decided by the Supreme Court.

• House Republican leaders have spent nearly all of the $1.5 million to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. They wasted all that money on their fucking bigotry.

• Shame it wasn't unanimous, still..... EXCELLENT!

• I just watched a really stunning documentary on Edith Windsor and her wife on the documentary channel. Her wife's name was Thea Syder I believe. It's a great love story.

• I'm happy and then I'm not. I am sick of giving married couples any breaks. If anyone needs breaks it's people who have to go it alone. Not double income families. I want a single person break.

• I'm sorry I don't fully understand yet, but isn't this huge? Why only 10 posts?

• Isn't this about the tenth time DOMA has been struck down?

• Huge. The 2nd Circuit is nothing to sneeze at.

• The 2nd Circuit has produced 3 Supreme Court Justices: Thurgood Marshall Sonia Sotomayor John Harlan

• I normally agree, R13. But the Supreme Court sneezes in a funny way.

• Prop 8 has been struck down numerous times. DOMA has been struck down numerous times. Yet both are still standing. Now it's just meh. Get back to me when somebody ACTUALLY TAKES IT DOWN.

• good

• R16? In order for to go down, the appeals have to make it all the way to SCOTUS, where THEY have to rule it is unconstitutional. Same with Prop 8. It is headed to SCOTUS as well.

• Thank you to Judge Dennis Jacobs who wrote for the majority. Judge Chester Straub, dissented, arguing that the federal definition of marriage should be left to the political process. Ignorant of U.S. history. Votes like a Fundie.

• Excellent news!

• ACTIVIST JUDGES!!!ACTIVIST JUDGES!!!LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH!!! AAAAACCCCKKKKK!!!!!

• This is where the whine from Paul Ryan will come into play. "These aren't elected judges!"

• I have my own views of the homos regardless of discrimination and petty legalities.

  Antonin Scalia homophobe and bigot

• This reads like a news story from the Netherlands in 1979. In spite of the fact it is moving forward, it really frames how badly the USA has fallen behind the rest of the civilized world in Gay equality.

• The Second Circuit is a pretty big deal. The judges on that circuit are highly respected. Still, the only decision that will matter is from the U.S. Supreme Court. And that decision will likely come in the late spring or early summer next year. My prediction: by a 5-4 decision they will strike down both DOMA and Prop 8. The effect of the decisions will be to allow same-sex marriage in every state because there will be no avenue left open to justify the unequal treatment. Even if the Supreme Court does not directly answer the question of whether some states may still discriminate, subsequent lower court cases will make short work of any attempts to continue to deny equal access to marriage rights. There is simply no way that the Court will permit marriage-lite, i.e., marriage in some states but not others and rights applied to some couples but not all. That would be an absurd result.

• Finally starting to reverse the damage Bill Clinton did to Americas Gay community. See why Obama won the nomination over Hillary now?

• sa

• R25 who do you see as the 5th vote - Kennedy or Roberts?

• I'll say it again for morons like R26 who are so ignorant of civics that we should be grateful that he can't easily breed: DOMA passed with veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress. Clinton couldn't have stopped it. And Joe Biden voted for DOMA, idiot. Did that stop you from voting for Obama?

• This is true, R29. However, I wish Clinton hadn't run radio ads touting his signing of DOMA as proof of his support for the traditional family.

• Just another of the many reasons to keep Obama in the White House: there could be one or more vacancies on the Supremes before or during the time this is decided.

• amen

• The unconstitutionality of DOMA is a no-brainer. I think it will be at least 6-3 with Kennedy (who wrote the two most important pro-gay opinions) and Roberts voting with the liberals. It may even be unanimous. Prop 8 is a more complex analysis. I think it will be 6-3 in our favor. As Ted Olsen's participation shows in the Prop 8 case shows, ending discrimination against gay people is not inconsistent with an overall conservative ideology based on real conservatie principles rather than religion.

• r33, you seem very naive about Scalia. No way would he vote to make it unanimous.

• To answer R28's question, I would see Kennedy as the crucial fifth vote for the reason stated by R33 -- he has already authored the two most important gay rights cases to date. Indeed, Judge Reinhardt's decision overturning Prop 8 was written directly to appeal to Kennedy because it mirrored arguments from Kennedy's prior opinions. However, I depart from R33's assertion that DOMA could be unanimous. Although Scalia in his dissent in Lawrence said that the Court was paving the way for marriage equality, I have absolutely no faith that he would follow the logical conclusion and vote with the majority on the basis of stare decisis. He showed his hand in that speech that he recently gave about the original intent of the Framers. His rationale is that because there was no same sex marriage in 1789 there is not going to be any same sex marriage today. And that toady, Justice Thomas, will be happy to fall in line. Alito might also. Roberts is a more difficult vote to predict, but his decision in upholding the President's health care law had more to do with the preserving the reputation of the Court as an institution than him veering over to the left.

  R25

• My understanding is that the Supreme Court typically takes cases where there is a split across the Circuits. Has any federal appeals court upheld DOMA?

• This thread was started without much of a ripple:

  http://www.datalounge.com/cgi-bin/iowa/ajax.html#page:showThread,12013246

  anonymous

• To answer R36's question, a split in the Circuits is one of the most important reasons for the Supreme Court to hear a case. But, there are other reasons as well. For example, under the Supreme Court's rules, it would consider granting certiorari where a circuit court "has decided an important question of federal law that has not been, but should be, settled by this Court . . . ."

  R25

• @SethMacFarlane: Nice to see DOMA has been dealt a heavy blow. End that shit so we can get on with the century.

• Saturday bump