In a major victory for gay rights, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a provision of a federal law denying federal benefits to married gay couples and cleared the way for the resumption of same-intercourse marriage in California.
Associated Press reports that the justices issued two 5-4 rulings in their final session of the term. One decision wiped away part of a federal anti-gay marriage law that has kept legally married same-intercourse couples from receiving tax, health and pension benefits.
The other was a technical ruling that said nothing at all about same-intercourse marriage, but left in place a trial court's declaration that California's Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. That outcome probably will allow state officials to order the resumption of same-intercourse weddings in the nation's most populous state in about a month.
In neither case did the court make a sweeping statement, either in favor of or against same-intercourse marriage. And in a sign that neither victory was complete for gay rights, the high court said nothing about the validity of gay marriage bans in California and roughly three dozen other states. A separate provision of the federal marriage law that allows a state to not recognize a same-intercourse union from elsewhere remains in place.
President Barack Obama praised the court's ruling on the federal marriage act, which he labeled "discrimination enshrined in law."
"It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people," Obama said in a statement. "The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it."
The Punch