FRC: Understanding Windsor
Still don’t understand all the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 United States v. Windsor decision? You aren’t alone.
Fortunately, Family Research Council has put together a brief report outlining the Windsor ruling–which struck part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The report points out:
“Dissenting justices criticized the majority for its attack upon the motives behind the law. Chief Justice Roberts said that the facts are ‘hardly enough to support a conclusion that the ‘principal purpose’ of the 342 Representatives and 85 Senators who voted for it, and the President [Bill Clinton] who signed it, was a bare desire to harm’ … Justice Scalia likewise … explained that to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions.”
The report also addresses looming questions for state and federal agencies in the wake of the ruling.