Supreme Court Grants Two Rulings In Favor Of Gay Marriage

 The justices struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a 1996 law passed by Congress that barred recognition of same-sex marriages and thereby denied more than 1,100 benefits to married gay and lesbian couples. They also ruled that the plaintiffs in the case of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, did not have the legal standing to bring that lawsuit. That should allow weddings in the Golden State to resume in July.

California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued a statement immediately following the ruling directing the California Department of Public Health to “advise the state’s counties that they must begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in California as soon as the Ninth Circuit confirms the stay is limited.”

California’s Attorney General Kamala D. Harris backed the Governor and said the state “can and should” instruct county officials that they “must resume issuing marriage licenses to and recording the marriages of same-sex” couples.

“We are ecstatic, it is a civil rights issue, specifically for the Latino community it definitely reflects the growing sentiment in the community that regardless of who you love or where you’re from that this country is affirming our rights,” said Jesse Melgar, spokesperson for HONOR PAC, an organization that advocates for the political empowerment of Hispanic LGBT communities.

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the legality of same sex marriage goes hand in hand with the shifting attitudes in the Latino community about same sex marriage.

In 2012, for the first time, Latinos said they favored same-sex marriage than opposed it, by a 52 percent to 34 percent margin, according to Pew Hispanic Center. This is a drastic change from 2006, when nearly one-third of Latinos favored same sex-sex marriage and more than half opposed it.

“It’s a huge day,” said Pedro Julio Serrano of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “We are closer to equality under the law that our constitution promises.”

“This was discrimination enshrined in law,” he said. “We are a people who declared that we are all created equal – and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”