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In a 5-4 ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law preventing the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage. The majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, said that the law was tantamount to the “deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.”
There is a striking aspect to Kennedy’s surprisingly passionate opinion: He focuses directly on the children of same-sex couples. DOMA, he writes, “humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.”
In a sense, this turns on its head one of the main bogeymen used by activists opposed to marriage equality: that gay marriage will somehow harm children and disrupt families. To the contrary, Kennedy argues that striking down DOMA will give dignity to same-sex families and help end the suffering of children caused by the current the law.
Just ahead of the decision, the American Spectator’s John Guardiano toed the conservative line, arguing in a post that same-sex marriage is “part and parcel of an overaching effort to undermine and deprecate traditional marriage and the traditional family.” (He noted the rise in single-parent homes and the problems caused by fatherlessness, and yet also admitted that rising divorce rates preceded any whiff of a marriage equality movement.)
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Justice Kennedy: DOMA Had to Go Because It "Humiliates Tens of Thousands of Children"
