Federal gay marriage ban

Gay marriage campaigners were celebrating a major victory on Tuesday after a federal appeals court ruled California's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. The long-awaited ruling could pave the way for a US supreme court decision on the voter-approved measure known as Proposition 8. In a decision, a three-judge panel of the ninth US circuit court of appeals in San Francisco agreed with a lower court judge who in declared the ban to be a violation of the civil rights of gay and lesbian people. In its ruling, the appeals panel stressed that its decision applies only to California, which allowed gay marriage before Proposition 8, even although it has jurisdiction in nine western states. Campaigners and supporters of equal marriage rights described the ruling as monumental and said it put California on a growing list of states that have ended barriers to marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

The federal law banning gay marriage is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define the institution and therefore denies married gay couples some federal benefits, a federal judge ruled Thursday in Boston. District Judge Joseph Tauro ruled in favor of gay couples' rights in two separate challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, a law that the Obama administration has argued for repealing. The rulings apply to Massachusetts but could have broader implications if they're upheld on appeal, but it was not clear if the Obama administration would appeal. The state had argued the law denied benefits such as Medicaid to gay married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since

Plaintiffs argue that the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which bans gay marriage, is unconstitutional. The federal trial opened Thursday in Boston. May 6,

Madison — A federal judge in Madison on Friday overturned Wisconsin's gay marriage ban, striking down an amendment to the state constitution approved overwhelmingly by voters in and prompting an emergency action by the state to halt the scores of weddings that began in the state's two largest cities. In the page decision , U. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled that the prohibition on same-sex vows in the state violated the rights of gay and lesbian couples to equal protection under the federal constitution and fair treatment under the law. She did not stay her ruling but also did not immediately issue an order blocking the enforcement of the ban, sparking a heated and hasty debate on whether the ruling meant that couples could immediately marry in the courthouses of Wisconsin. Instead, Crabb asked the gay couples who had sued over the ban to say by June 16 exactly what they wanted done to enforce her ruling, with a further wait of one to two weeks for both sides in the lawsuit to file responses.