A policy in the United States denied couples in same-sex relationships the same rights and privileges afforded different-sex couples was deemed unconstitutional in a landmark civil rights case in which the majority opinion wrote: "The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity.", Who was it that wrote this?
United States v. Windsor United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. ___ (2013) (Docket No. 12-307 ), is a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court held that restricting U.S. federal interpretation of "marriage" and "spouse" to apply only to opposite-sex unions, by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: "The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity."
Incorporation of the Bill of Rights Incorporation, in U.S. law, is the process by which American courts have applied portions of the U.S. Bill of Rights to the states. When it was first ratified, the Bill of Rights only protected the rights it enumerated from federal infringement, allowing states and local governments to abridge them. However, beginning in 1897 with "Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad v. City of Chicago", various portions have been held to be incorporated against state and local government through the Fourteenth Amendment.