In looking ahead to our class schedule, one may notice that the Group II position paper topics center around the Supreme Court and its role in the country throughout American history. One of the mentioned cases in the prompt concerning strict vs. loose construction is United States v. Windsor, a fairly recent case (2013) that was significant in many ways.
In short, the US v. Windsor case involved two women, Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, whose same-sex marriage was recognized by the state of New York (which had legalized same-sex marriage at that point) up until the death of Spyer. When Windsor attempted to obtain federal tax benefits for the death of her spouse, the IRS denied it to her on the basis that her same-sex marriage was unrecognized by the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
This case was taken to the Supreme Court, where a Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group from the House of Representatives (United States) argued that Section 3 of DOMA was constitutional because the "lesbian, gay, and transgender (LGBTQ) community is not a protected class."Windsor, with backing from the Obama administration, argued that Section 3 was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifth Amendment and denied Windsor's equal protection under the laws.
The ruling on this case was made on June 26, 2013, with a 5-4 vote in favor of the unconstitutionality of the DOMA clause in question. The majority opinion expressed that it deprived citizens of their liberties, and that the federal government had no right to treat legal same-sex marriages differently than legal heterosexual marriages.
Since this decision, many measures have been enacted that secure the equal rights of homosexual citizens of the United States. Homosexual marriages were recognized by the IRS and were given full tax benefits, even in states that did not recognize the legality of the union. In February 2014, the Judicial Department instructed all officials to give equal rights to those in legal same-sex marriages (for example, the right for spouses not to testify against one another in a court of law was protected for these individuals). The final rule amending the definition of marriage after the Windsor decision, made by the Department of Labor, extends FMLA job protections to those in a same-sex marriage. This act will be made official tomorrow, March 27, 2015.
Both in the context of our future assignments and in the role of the Supreme Court in the past, I find this case very interesting and pertinent to our lives as students and as citizens. The decision was truly a "victory for American democracy," as Obama stated shortly after the ruling.
Sources
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/12-307
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Windsor#Judicial_interpretation
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