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."
Same-sex marriage in the United States In the United States, same-sex marriage is legal in all states, Washington, D.C., as well as all U.S. territories except American Samoa, but not on all Native American tribal lands, since June 26, 2015, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in "Obergefell v. Hodges" that state-level bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. The court ruled that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and the refusal to recognize those marriages performed in other jurisdictions violates the Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The ruling overturned a 1972 precedent, "Baker v. Nelson". Just prior to the Supreme Court's ruling in 2015, same-sex marriage was legal in many but not all U.S. jurisdictions.