DOMA LAWYER: The Defense Of Marriage Act Is Valid Because The Government Recognized Marriages Of Freed Slaves
Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court's liberal-leaning justices, suggested that
Clement responded by naming various examples of the federal government intervening in the definition of marriage.
Clement brought up the fact that Congress insisted on polygamy prohibitions in four state constitutions. He also brought up the recognition of post-Civil War recognition of freed slave marriages.
"There is a reason that, in the wake of the Civil War and in Reconstruction, Congress specifically wanted to provide benefits for spouses of freed slaves who fought for the Union," Clement said. "In order to do it, it essentially had to create state law marriages, because in the Confederacy, the slaves couldn't get married.
"So they developed their own State — essentially, a Federal, sort of, condition to define who was married under those laws. So where there was the need in the past to get involved, the Federal Government has got involved."
Kagan also suggested that she thought Congress may have discriminated when it passed the law in 1996.
"When Congress targets a group that is not everybody's favorite group in the world, we look at those cases with some — even if they're not suspect — with some rigor to say, do we really think that Congress was doing this for uniformity reasons, or do we think that Congress' judgment was infected by dislike, by fear, by animus, and so forth?" Kagan said.
- I spent $2,000 for 7 nights in a 179-square-foot room on one of the world's largest cruise ships. Take a look inside my cabin.
- Saudi Arabia wants China to help fund its struggling $500 billion Neom megaproject. Investors may not be too excited.
- Colon cancer rates are rising in young people. If you have two symptoms you should get a colonoscopy, a GI oncologist says.
- FSSAI in process of collecting pan-India samples of Nestle's Cerelac baby cereals: CEO
- Narcissistic top management leads to poor employee retention, shows research
- Audi to hike vehicle prices by up to 2% from June
- Kotak Mahindra Bank shares tank 13%; mcap erodes by ₹37,721 crore post RBI action
- Rupee falls 6 paise to 83.39 against US dollar in early trade