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Air Date: June 26, 2013
Host: Jim Schneider
Guests: Brad Dacus and Peter LaBarbera
Brad Dacus is the president of the Pacific Justice Institute which is involved in defending religous freedom, parental rights and other civil liberties.
Peter LaBarbera is president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.
In two separate 5-4 decisions today, the U.S. Supreme Court voted against marriage.
Today’s ruling in Windor vs. The United States struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (D.O.M.A.). Jusice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion and was joined by Ginsberg Bryer, Sotomayor and Kagan.
Today’s decision in this case in no way invalidates the right of states to define marriage as being only between one man and one woman. Instead, the decision concentrates solely on federal benefits as applied to legally married homosexual couples. In other words, if a homosexual couple is legally married in a state that recognizes homosexual marriage and then moves to one that doesn’t recognize homosexual marriage, the couple can still obtain federal taxpayer funded benefits in that new state.
Also struck down was “Prop 8” (Hollingsworth vs. Perry). Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion in this case and was joined by Scalia, Ginsberg, Bryer and Kagan.
In this case the court ruled that propositions must be defended by the attorney general or the governor. Soon after this decison came down, California Governor Jerry Brown ordered all county clerks to begin conducting homosexual marriages.
Find out where we might be headed in terms of the political and social implicatons of these decisions when you review this important Crosstalk discussion.
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