Appeal on gay marriage ban fails
on Oct 10, 2006 at 3:49 pm
The Supreme Court on Monday turned aside its first case attempting to raise constitutional challenges to state and federal laws that limit marriage to couples of opposite sex. The Court denied review of, and thus left intact, a NInth Circuit Court ruling last May that found an Orange County, Calif., gay couple had no right to sue (no “standing”) to challenge the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The Circuit Court ruled that federal courts should not rule on the challenge to state marriage laws in California, leaving that in the first instance to state courts.
The case thus was not a clear-cut test of the constitutionality of any law dealing with marriage. In fact, the Court’s denial of an appeal by the couple was virtually a foregone conclusion, because most of the key parties that had been sued simply declined to file responses to the petition in Smelt, et al., v. Orange County (docket 06-5742). Among those declining to respond were the federal government, which had entered the case to defend the constitutionality of the federal act. The petition for review sought to raise 23 questions; its conclusion read this way: “The Supreme law of the nation is the U.S. Constitution, not the Bible. This case concerns equal rights, due process rights, not religious rites. The petition for certiorari should be granted.”
The case involved Arthur Bruno Smelt and Christopher David Hammer, a gay couple who had formed a domestic partnership under California law and sought a right to marry. They share a home in Mission Viejo, Calif. In their pauper’s petition to the Supreme Court, each man said he was permanently disabled and had limited income. California law limits marriage to opposite-sex couples, and the federal law on marriage confines federal benefits and statutes to opposite-sex couples.
