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Supreme Court Cases Against Homosexuals

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In the United States, LGBT rights have been expanded by landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Between 1996 and 2015, the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws, Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), allowed protected class recognition based on homosexuality and made same-sex marriage legal on a federal level. Justice Kennedy played a pivotal role in expanding the rights of gays and lesbians over the years through specific legal rationale that insists upon protection of LGBT rights. On the other hand, Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinions oppose expanded constitutional protections for gays and lesbians. In order to understand the evolution of LGBT rights, it is crucial to analyze the opinions from Romer v. Evans, Lawrence v. Texas, …show more content…

When the couple returned to New York, the state recognized the marriage, but when Spyer died and left her estate to Windsor, she could not receive a federal tax exemption. She payed the taxes and sued the government in 2013. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defines marriage as “a union between one man and one woman” and did not consider Windsor to be a “surviving spouse”. Later, the Attorney General notified Congress that the Department of Justice would no longer defend DOMA’s constitutionality, but would continue to enforce it. The House of Representatives allowed the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) to defend Section 3 of DOMA. This case’s main issue is whether it is constitutional for DOMA to deprive same-sex couples, who are legally married under state laws, to receive federal benefits. The Court held that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional because the Act’s central purpose was to classify same-sex marriages as a separate class, which raises the issue under the Fifth …show more content…

It is first established in his opinion found in Romer that it is important to recognize that the Court and Constitution “neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,” which was established in Plessy v. Ferguson. Justice Kennedy finds issue with the Colorado state statute because it directly discriminates against a person’s sexual orientation, but does not protect the LGBT class. Additionally, the statute reaches public accommodations which “[did] not limit antidiscrimination laws to groups that have so far been given the protection of heightened equal protection scrutiny”. Kennedy argues that this proves that this groups of citizens is denied equal protection because the statute is general enough to impact a large variety of laws, which violates the Fourteenth Amendment since it favors heterosexual citizens over

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