Paul Watson, Campus Carrier News Editor
The U.S. Supreme Court has had a busy week, as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has been brought before the Court for re-examination.
Under DOMA, homosexual couples do not receive the same legal and financial benefits that heterosexual couples receive. According to CNN, “Under DOMA, Social Security, pension and bankruptcy benefits, along with family medical leave protections and other federal provisions, do not apply to gay and lesbian couples legally married in states that recognize such unions.”
The battle began when 83-year-old Edith Windsor’s lesbian spouse died in 2009. Even though the couple was legally married in New York, the federal government did not recognize their same-sex marriage in legal terms. Therefore, Windsor was then given an estate tax bill that a heterosexual widow would not have to pay under DOMA.
“I brought my case against the government because I couldn’t believe that our government would charge me $350,000 because I was married to a woman and not to a man,” Windsor said in an interview with CNN.
The Supreme Court is currently divided on the matter in terms of whether DOMA is discriminatory and encroaches on states’ rights to enforce marriage laws. On one side are justices like Justice Sonia Sotomayor who asked, “What gives the federal government the right to define marriage?” On the other side sit justices like Chief Justice John Roberts, who questioned whether or not it would be invasive of states’ rights to pass a law providing full federal benefits to any legally married homosexual couple.
The Supreme Court also argued over California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage. The main argument revolved around whether the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection prevents states from refusing marriage to a defined class of people. This argument shows the argument of the entire trial: whether the Court should strike down laws across the country, or leave the current laws in place and let state legislatures and state courts decide for themselves how to define marriage.
Bekah Ingram, junior and Co-President of LISTEN, Berry’s LGBT support group, said she is optimistic about this case.
“I fully support marriage equality,” she said. “It is the defining civil rights movement of our generation.”
Ingram said she has not seen much change toward the LGBT community in LISTEN’s six months of operation.
“When we sent out a campus-wide anonymous survey [regarding LISTEN on campus], we received some derogatory comments,” she said. “There have been incidents of bullying towards our members. The environment [for the LGBT community] has not changed much; we still have a lot of work to do.”
Beyond Berry, there is a trend of positivity toward homosexual marriage. A recent Gallup poll showed that 53 percent of Americans were in favor of same-sex marriage, up 13 percentage points from 40 percent in 2007.
Experts have predicted that the case will not come to a conclusion for at least three months.