Marriage Equality Victories
Last week, Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriages nation-wide. Lawmakers in the mostly Catholic country spent nearly 16 hours debating the issue, before deciding to grant all of the protections, rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex couples.
Back in the United States, the DC Court of Appeals ruled against foes of DC marriage equality who had wanted to put an initiative on the ballot to invalidate same-sex marriages entered into in the District. The Court ruled unanimously that the proposed initiative would in fact impermissibly permit discrimination against gays and lesbians in the District.
On the national front, a judge of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts declared unconstitutional the denial of federal rights and benefits to lawfully married Massachusetts couples under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Judge Joseph Tauro said in his ruling on one of the cases that Congress undertook the classification of marriage solely as the union of a man and a woman "for the one purpose that lies entirely outside of legislative bounds, to disadvantage a group of which it disapproves. And such a classification, the Constitution clearly will not permit." Tauro's rulings are likely to be appealed by the Department of Justice to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Supreme Court Upholds University's Non-discrimination Policy
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a Christian law student group that sought official recognition by a public university, but refused to abide by the school's non-discrimination policy. The case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, was brought against the University of California, Hastings College of Law, which has a longstanding non-discrimination policy that must be adopted by all student groups in order to receive school recognition, which includes access to school funds.
HRC/JULY21,2010
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