Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Cases: What Happened? What they Mean?

From the American Center of Law and Justice: a helpful breakdown of the Supreme Court’s decisions this week on “same-sex marriage” and California’s Prop 8:

Earlier this morning [Wednesday] the Supreme Court of the United States struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act and held that the supporters of Proposition 8 in California did not have standing to defend Prop 8 in federal court. 

You can read the DOMA ruling here.

You can read the Prop 8 ruling here.

Essentially, the DOMA ruling means that the federal government must provide the same benefits to same-sex spouses as opposite-sex spouses, if the same-sex marriage has been lawfully performed.  In other words, if a gay couple is married in a state that recognizes gay marriage, then the federal government will recognize that marriage on the same basis as a traditional marriage.

The Prop 8 ruling is far more complex, but the bottom line is that it likely clears the way for same-sex marriage in California.  It does not, however, have any real implications for marriages outside of California …

To Keep Reading Click on: ACLJ

Image: U.S. Supreme Court Building; courtesy of: Philosophicalswag; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license