More on Lewis vs. Harris
Oct 26th, 2006 by Viviane
Leonard Link (Prof. Arthur Leonard):
“Nowhere does Justice Albin mention the important point, recently established by two federal appeals courts, that same-sex couples who have entered into civil unions or domestic partnerships do not have standing to contest the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, since they are not “married” in the eyes of their state and thus could not claim to have been deprived by the federal government of the rights provided to persons who are “married.”
Half A Loaf: The New Jersey Ruling On Gay Marriage (Doug Ireland):
“No one has specifically polled attitudes toward homosexuality since the Foley scandal broke. But if there is a new backlash, the New Jersey court decision, coming just 13 days before the midterm elections, may well unintentionally have helped deliver November victories to the most vigorous opponents of gay rights—without even having given gays a second state free of second-class citizenship for their loving couples. One step forward, two steps back?”
Neighbor’s Same-Sex Ruling May Affect New York Debate (New York Law Journal)
“The key difference in the Lewis decision is New Jersey’s approach to equal-protection analysis. In New York, the analysis resembled the federal structure, in which the burden is on the party challenging the government action by demonstrating that the legislature had no rational basis for creating the law, real or even hypothetical. In New Jersey, the government had to establish that the law in fact did have a rational basis.”