The Obama Administration has urged the Supreme Court to strike down marriage bans nationwide in a brief filed with the court by the Department of Justice on Friday.
From LGBTQ Nation, here are some excerpts:
"The laws they challenge exclude a long-mistreated class of human beings from a legal and social status of tremendous import. Those laws are not adequately justified by any of the advanced rationales. They are accordingly incompatible with the Constitution."
[...]
“The marriage bans challenged in these cases impermissibly exclude lesbian and gay couples from the rights, responsibilities, and status of civil marriage."
[...]
"These facially discriminatory laws impose concrete harms on same-sex couples and send the inescapable message that same-sex couples and their children are second-class families, unworthy of the recognition and benefits that opposite-sex couples take for granted. The bans cannot be reconciled with the fundamental constitutional guarantee of ‘equal protection of the laws.’"
This is a great development, and a great follow-up to Eric Holder's op-ed declaring "nothing justifies excluding same-sex couples from the institution of marriage."
Congratulations to both the President and the Attorney-General for their brilliant work for justice and equality.