Photo: Eric Holder. Credit: The Aspen Institute/flickr.
The Obama administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in favor of marriage equality nationwide in a brief filed with the court Friday.
“The marriage bans challenged in these cases impermissibly exclude lesbian and gay couples from the rights, responsibilities, and status of civil marriage,” the “friend of the court” brief filed by the Justice Department states. “These facially discriminatory laws impose concrete harms on same-sex couples and send the inescapable message that same-sex couples and their children are second-class families, unworthy of the recognition and benefits that opposite-sex couples take for granted. The bans cannot be reconciled with the fundamental constitutional guarantee of ‘equal protection of the laws.’”
The brief is one of dozens filed with the high court calling for a ruling in favor of marriage equality later this year. Also on Friday, more than 300 conservatives and 211 Democratic members of Congress urged the court to strike down state bans on same-sex marriage in separate briefs filed with the court.
According to the brief, state bans on same-sex marriage “impose a more direct stigma that is all the more painful because its source is the home State and not the federal government; they exclude lesbian and gay couples from the institution of civil marriage; and they deprive the children of those couples of equal recognition of their family structure. There is no adequate justification for such a discriminatory and injurious exercise of state power.”
In January, the nation’s highest court agreed to consolidate four cases challenging same-sex marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld marriage bans in those four states. On Thursday, the Supreme Court announced oral arguments on the issue of marriage equality would be heard April 28, with a ruling expected by the end of June.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito hinted in recent remarks that the court is unlikely to overturn its 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide -- even though he personally disagrees with it.
Part of the court’s six-member conservative majority, Alito made the remarks on October 3 during an academic conference hosted by the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
In his speech, Alito referenced the Obergefell marriage equality decision while praising what he called the "bright future" of constitutional originalism -- the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted as the founders intended when they wrote it in 1787.
John Reid, the gay Republican nominee for Virginia lieutenant governor, has defended the right of his running mate, current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, to oppose same-sex marriage -- even though he personally disagrees with her on the issue.
Speaking on the conservative talk radio program The Wilkow Majority on SiriusXM, Reid said he and Earle-Sears are "willing to put aside our differences" to support policies they believe are best for Virginia. Host Andrew Wilkow then asked Reid to name an issue on which the two disagree.
"She's not for gay marriage. She's 100 percent against it," Reid said. "You know, she's from Jamaica, and her religious background tells her a very different narrative than my Episcopalian white-guy Virginia background. I understand!"
Ibrar Nadeem, an aide to Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli, bragged to Muslim supporters about the candidate's past opposition to marriage equality during a "Muslims4Jack" event in Piscataway, New Jersey on October 18.
"We want to have a ban on same-sex marriage," Nadeem said, as recorded in a video posted to X.
Nadeem went on to note that Ciattarelli had voted against legalizing marriage equality as a New Jersey state assemblyman and claimed that his preferred candidate would continue to oppose it.
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