In a broadly worded legal
brief on Thursday that senior government sources said had President
Barack Obama's personal input and blessing, the Justice Department
asserted gay and lesbian couples in the nation's most populous state
have the same "equal protection" right to wed and that voters there were
not empowered to ban it.
"Use of a voter
initiative to promote democratic self-governance cannot save a law like
Proposition 8 that would otherwise violate equal protection," said
the
brief. "Prejudice may not however be the basis for differential
treatment under the law."
California's 2008
Proposition 8 referendum revoked the right of same-sex couples to wed
after lawmakers and the state courts previously allowed it.
While the administration
weighed in on the situation in California, it specifically refused to
argue the constitutional right for same-sex couples to wed there should
be extended to the 41 states that currently define marriage as between
one man and one woman.
The justices will hear the case in March.
"The government seeks to
vindicate the defining constitutional ideal of equal treatment under the
law," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "Throughout history, we have
seen the unjust consequences of decisions and policies rooted in
discrimination."
"The issues before the
Supreme Court in this case and the Defense of Marriage Act case are not
just important to the tens of thousands Americans who are being denied
equal benefits and rights under our laws, but to our nation as a whole,"
Holder added.
The White House was not expected to issue a separate statement.
The California matter
and another appeal over the federal Defense of Marriage Act will produce
blockbuster rulings from the justices in coming months.
Same-sex marriage could
be a defining moment in Obama's presidency, similar to the political
impact last year when the Supreme Court upheld the health care reform
law he spearheaded.
He must decide how much
political capital to expend in coming months when expressing his views
and those of the executive branch.
Gay rights groups had
privately urged Obama and his top aides to go beyond his previous
personal rhetoric in support of the right to marry and come down "on the
side of history."
No comments:
Post a Comment