Articles Posted in Civil Rights

In the first in a two-part series of columns about the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on the origins of DOMA; the reason DOMA did not have any practical implications until 2004; and why, even now, Section Two of DOMA has had no real effect. In Part Two of the series, Grossman will go on to consider Section Three of DOMA, which has had serious real-life implications, for it says that same-sex marriages cannot be recognized for any federal purpose.

Justia columnist and U.C. Davis law professor Vikram David Amar completes his two-part series of columns on two key decisions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His last column focused on the Circuit’s Obamacare ruling; this one focuses on the Circuit’s ruling on an issue relating to affirmative action. Amar describes two different lines of Supreme Court precedent that offer different ways of analyzing affirmative action cases, and considers the possibility that the Court will take the opportunity—by reviewing this or another lower-court decision—to clean up apparent tensions between these two lines of High Court cases.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman covers the bigamy case that may soon arise from the reality TV show Sister Wives. As Grossman explains, the family at issue consists of a man, his four wives (one via legal marriage, and three via “spiritual marriage”) and his sixteen children and stepchildren. The family fled from Utah to Nevada to evade possible bigamy charges from Utah authorities. Grossman contrasts the bigamy laws of the two states, and considers whether the Supreme Court precedent of Lawrence v. Texas—the 2003 case where the Supreme Court held that the constitutional right of privacy includes a right of adults to enter into consensual, intimate relationships without interference from the state—protects bigamists.

Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram Amar begins a two-part series on two important recent rulings by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, both of which may end up before the Supreme Court. In this first column, Amar comments on the Sixth Circuit ruling that upheld Obamacare—citing a number of factors that make the decision noteworthy. These factors include a conservative judge's vote to uphold Obamacare; that same judge's use of broad reasoning in doing so; the fact that the dissenter was a district court judge; the decision's timing; and the arguments the two judges in the majority could have made, but declined to make, in support of the statute.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on the New York same-sex marriage law that was passed last Friday, June 24. She explains the details of the statute, and explains the legal context for, and ramifications of, this development -- both in New York State and nationally. Grossman also analyzes the exemptions that the law grants to religious institutions with respect to same-sex marriage, and notes that the provision of the new law that states that if part of the law is invalidated, the whole law is invalidated, makes challenges to the law especially perilous.