Well, sort of, in a way.
Okay, not really much at all.
What the 3 on the 1st Cir. have decided (confirmed) is that part of DOMA is unconstitutional in the way it keeps federal benefits from same-sex spouses. Or at the least, something very much like that.
The denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married does burden the choice of states like Massachusetts to regulate the rules and incidents of marriage,That by defining at a federal level a matter left up to states (defining marriage as a union of man and woman only) DOMA has deprived same-sex the rights and privileges given to opposite-sex.
This court is convinced that “there exists no fairly conceivable set of facts that could ground a rational relationship” between DOMA and a legitimate government objective. DOMA, therefore, violates core constitutional principles of equal protection.Which if some states allow same-sex marriage, then federally dictating none of those is recognizable does have some other relevant questions both legally and policy-based.
Still, it's a bit more narrow than that. To read some news stories and some parts of the ruling, it's curious (but not at all unexpected) that a separation is made between "gay couples" and "non-gay couples" even if not using that specific language. (If I want to marry my friend Nineteen Seventy Five Six, why can't we just want to provide rights of survival for each other and any adopted children? It's discriminatory to suggest we would have to have some sexual orientation or preference in order to be able to marry, isn't it?)
Although we've already multiple times gone over the somewhat spurious illogic of making this an issue of sexual orientation, other than for various rhetorical and political and other uses, since neither of two married females (in states where such is allowed or recognized by legislative action or judicial fiat) has to be homosexual, and nothing precludes a male and female couple from either one or both being homosexual. That is, a man/woman doesn't have to be gay/lesbian to get married to another man/woman in Iowa, and nor do either/both of the man and woman in a marriage as defined have to be straight. Neither does the definition of marriage even specify that at all. Although given some sexual orientations and preferences, maybe "straight" is better said as "non-gay/non-lesbian" or "non-homosexual". After all, some behaviors aren't exactly "straight" are they.
Yet again, we've gone all over that mess (admittedly quite badly and fairly incoherently) more than once, so let's talk about Section 3 of DOMA here.
- In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.
However you slice it, this case specifically here is not exactly something new; it's a continuation.
On July 8th 2010, Joseph L. Tauro ruled in two cases, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. United States Department of Health and Human Services. He granted summary judgment, that Gill showed section 3 of DOMA violating equal protection under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and Mass. showed violation of the Tenth Amendment, and not within Congress' authority under the Spending Clause.
Fast forward from 2010, past stays, amicus briefs, and things like the DOJ themselves giving up and arguing on April 4th 2102 that it couldn't defend Section 3 of DOMA at all anyway.
What the panel of the 1st Cir.did was affirm Tauro's rulings of two years ago, as pertains to specific cases, over Section 3 of DOMA and what they all think it means. Precedent and all that..
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!
The decision is hardly final though. This is destined for the US Supreme Court, affectionately called SCOTUS in some circles. The decision can't be enforced yet either. One reason is that the decision of the panel really doesn't cover anywhere other than MA, RI, ME, NH, PR, where the 1st Cir. covers. To some extent at least. Another is that this is focused on matters that aren't exactly universal on the surface, employees of the federal government, basically. And of course, it really only applies to one section of DOMA. But mainly that only SCOTUS gets to determine if laws passed by Congress "are unconstitutional".
Which speaking of applying to only one section of DOMA, this ruling did not cover a number of things.
Most importantly, this doesn't apply to either of the more political important meaningful social parts of DOMA. Not covering that states without same-sex marriage can't be forced to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. Not including anything about if same-sex couples have a right to even get married at all.
Which as we've overargued, the last is a non-existent "right" nobody currently has and likley even never has had. No right to get married, which if true, makes the same-sex part of it all a red-herring here. If Joyce can't be married to fifteen men, or be married to her brother, or in most cases be married to a male who's a minor, or so on, why should she be able to marry Kirsten? There's nothing inherently objectively right or wrong about any of it from an absolutist standpoint. (Legally, religiously, culturally, morally; those are other questions of course.) Forever, well. Let's just say the situation is developing, whatever anyone may personally think about it now.
So make what you will of this affirmation of the 2010 decisions. More cracks in the armor of DOMA, a clarification on certain state/federal matters, a furtherance of the path to establishing marriage between any two people or any number of people regardless of their biological sex as a civil right, judicial activism, social change, or other.
Whatever, the panel did not "rule DOMA unconstitutional" at all. We could say they didn't actually and they can't do so in practice. YMMV.
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