THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

By allowing them to buy elections and adjust voting rules to suit their needs, SCOTUS turned around and threw the left a few bones by overtuning DOMA and shooting down Prop 8.

In a pair of highly anticipated decisions, the divided court effectively undercut California’s Proposition 8 and struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Though one of the decisions was written narrowly, together they provide an emphatic, if incomplete win for same-sex marriage advocates.

The same-sex marriage decisions, issued on the final day of the term that started last October, address different issues. In each, a slim 5-4 majority rallied for the position that effectively supported same-sex marriage.

The Proposition 8 case involved a challenge to the California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage. On Wednesday, the court concluded that the supporters of Proposition 8 lacked the legal standing to defend the ballot measure.

“Because we find that petitioners do not have standing, we have no authority to decide this case on the merits, and neither did the Ninth Circuit,” Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote.

The decision leaves intact a trial judge’s order blocking Proposition 8 from taking effect. At the very least, this means two same-sex couples who filed the lawsuit against the ballot measure can marry. Advocates say other same-sex couples in California should be able to take advantage of the same ruling, though that might still require further trial-level clarification.

The court’s majority, though, stopped short of declaring a constitutionally protected right to same-sex marriage nationwide. The court also declined to take up the Obama administration’s proposal, which would have extended the ruling to a handful of other states that have shared California’s policy mix of allowing civil unions while banning gay marriage...

The separate Defense of Marriage Act case involved a challenge to the 1996 federal law that prohibited same-sex couples who had been married under state laws from obtaining a host of federal benefits. A majority concluded portions of the law violated the Constitution. “DOMA divests married same-sex couples of the duties and responsibilities that are an essential part of married life,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. Kennedy joined the court’s four liberal justices in the 5-4 decision.

Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act declares that, for the purposes of providing federal benefits, marriage is “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and a spouse is only a “person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”

The definition is important because it determines eligibility for a host of federal rights, benefits and privileges.

The Government Accountability Office has identified more than 1,100 areas of federal law in which marriage matters. These range from tax and welfare benefits to employment and immigration. A same-sex military couple, for instance, is denied housing, health insurance and disability benefits, nor is the spouse eligible for burial alongside his or her spouse in a national cemetery.

“The statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the state, through its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity,” Kennedy wrote.

And the Supremes also diffused anger at the VRA decision from the previous day. The effect of the decision still applies.