A watershed moment for gay marriage

And now, it’s on to the U.S. Supreme Court for gay marriage.

A federal appeals court set the stage for a high court ruling that could come as soon as next year. The appeals court ruled last week that the federal Defense of Marriage Act discriminates against same-sex couples by denying benefits to them that heterosexual couples receive through marriage.

The appeals court in Boston got this decision right. The court ruled narrowly on the question of whether federal benefits are due same-sex couples, but it’s a watershed moment nonetheless. It was the first time an appellate court had invalidated a part of the act.

The ruling upheld one by a district court in Boston that found that the act violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution by denying benefits to one class of married couples. The benefits include the ability to file joint tax returns and collect survivor benefits from Social Security. Gay couples have as much right to those benefits as do heterosexual couples.

Judge Michael Boudin, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, wrote last week that Congress was attempting “to put a thumb on the scales and influence a state’s decision as to how to shape its own marriage laws.”

The ruling rights the wrong that prevents 100,000 same-sex couples now legally married from receiving benefits. Boudin argued that Congress did not have sufficient justification for the act. Denying the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples does not promote heterosexual marriage or child-rearing in “stable” heterosexual households.

In other words, disapproving of gay marriage on moral grounds alone does not justify discrimination. And the act was essentially a federal intrusion on what has typically been the domain of states: marriage. In that sense, this was a decision that conservatives might be able to embrace.

The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton. President Barack Obama campaigned against the law in 2008 and said last year the government would not defend it.

The law isn’t needed. We’d agree with Jennifer C. Pizer, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, who noted in a New York Times article that just because someone has a traditional idea of what a marriage should be doesn’t mean that he or she can discriminate against gay couples.wildfired

“Many people of good will have grown up with the belief that homosexuality is dangerous,” she said. “The court is saying that the fact that certain congressmen and justices may have a fondness for the 1950s doesn’t change the fact that under the rule of law everyone has to be treated equally.”

Let’s hope the Supreme Court sees it that way, too.

— Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.