Obama pushes for marriage equality
2013-03-01 18:18
Washington - The Obama administration wants the Supreme
Court to overturn California's ban on gay marriages, outlining a broad legal
argument that could ultimately be applied to other state prohibitions across
the country.
The administration's friend-of-the-court brief, filed on Thursday
evening, unequivocally calls on the justices to strike down California's
Proposition 8 ballot measure, although it stops short of the soaring rhetoric
on marriage equality President Barack Obama expressed in his inaugural address
in January.
Still, it marks the first time a US president has urged
the high court to expand the right of gays and lesbians to wed.
The brief is not legally binding, though the government's
opinion could carry weight with the Supreme Court when it hears oral arguments
on Proposition 8 in late March.
California is one of eight states that give gay couples
all the benefits of marriage through civil unions or domestic partnership but
don't allow them to wed.
The brief argues that in granting same-sex couples those
rights, California has already acknowledged that gay relationships bear the
same hallmarks as straight ones.
"They establish homes and lives together, support
each other financially, share the joys and burdens of raising children, and
provide care through illness and comfort at the moment of death," the
administration wrote.
The brief marks the president's most expansive view of
gay marriage and signals that he is moving away from his previous assertion
that states should determine their own marriage laws.
Obama, a former constitutional law professor, signed off
on the administration's legal argument last week following lengthy discussions
with Attorney General Eric Holder and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.
In a statement following the filing, Holder said
"the government seeks to vindicate the defining constitutional ideal of
equal treatment under the law."
Legalising gay marriages
Obama's position, if adopted by the court, would likely
result in gay marriage becoming legal in the seven other states: Delaware,
Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island.
In the longer term, the administration urges the justices
to subject laws that discriminate on sexual orientation to more rigorous
review, as is the case for claims that laws discriminate on the basis of race,
sex and other factors.
The Supreme Court has never given gay Americans the
special protection it has afforded women and minorities. If it endorses such an
approach in the gay marriage cases, same-sex marriage bans around the country
could be imperilled.
Despite the potentially wide-ranging implications of the
administration's brief, it still falls short of what gay rights advocates and
the attorneys who will argue against Proposition 8 had hoped for. Those parties
had pressed the president to urge the Supreme Court to not only overturn
California's ban, but also declare all gay marriage bans unconstitutional.
Still, marriage equality advocates publicly welcomed the
president's legal positioning.
"Obama again asserted a bold claim of full equality
for gay Americans, this time in a legal brief," said Richard Socarides, an
attorney and advocate.
"If its full weight and reasoning are accepted by
the Supreme Court, all anti-gay marriage state constitutional amendments will
fall, and quickly."
The National Organisation for Marriage, a leading
supporter of the California ban, rejected Obama's arguments.
Spokesperson Thomas Peters said he expects the Supreme
Court to uphold the votes of more than 7 million Californians to protect
marriage, spokesperson Thomas Peters said.
Inaugural speech
The president raised expectations that he would back a
broad brief during his inaugural address on 21 January. He said the nation's
journey "is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated
like anyone else under the law."
"For if we are truly created equal, than surely the
love we commit to one another must be equal as well," he added.
Obama has a complicated history on gay marriage. As a
presidential candidate in 2008, he opposed the California ban but didn't
endorse gay marriage. He later said his personal views on gay marriage were
"evolving”.
When he ran for re-election last year, Obama announced
his personal support for same-sex marriage but said marriage was an issue that
states, not the federal government, should decide.
Public opinion has shifted in recent years.
In May 2008, Gallup found that 56% of Americans felt
same-sex marriages should not be recognised by the law as valid. By last
November, 53% felt they should be legally recognised.
The Supreme Court has several options to decide the case
that would be narrower than what the administration is asking. The justices
also could uphold the California provision, as opponents of gay marriage are
urging.
One day after the Supreme Court hears the California
case, the justices will hear arguments on provisions of the federal Defence of
Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the
purpose of deciding who can receive a range of federal benefits.
The administration abandoned its defence of the act in
2011, but the measure will continue to be federal law unless it is struck down
or repealed.
In a brief filed last week, the government said Section 3
of the act "violates the fundamental constitutional guarantee of equal
protection" because it denies legally married same-sex couples many
federal benefits that are available only to legally married heterosexual
couples.
- SAPA
