Community Corner

Lake Minnetonka Residents React to Supreme Court's DOMA, Prop 8 Rulings

We want to hear your thoughts on today's U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Defense of Marriage Act. Please share your views in the comments section at the end of this post.

Editor's note: Patch has requested comment from Lake Minnetonka's state legislators and Congressman Erik Paulsen for inclusion in this post. They will be added if and when received.

Six weeks after Minnesota became the 12th state to legalize same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled twice in favor of same-sex marriage advocates Wednesday morning, stating the Defense of Marriage Act was in direct violation of the United States Constitution and ruling that California’s Proposition 8 case had been decided by lower courts, dismissing the appeal.

Lake Minnetonka Patch asked via Facebook for community members to react to the decision. Below are some of the comments:
  • Bruce Clark: Allow the benefits, but don't redefine marriage.
  • Patrick J. Cotton: Nope. I can explain why Marriage is between Man and Women. Can you explain why "the right to marry" doesn't extend to siblings, groups,offspring...?
  • Deb Drew: I think that if two people want to commit to each other for life, that is something that society should support!
  • Dan Hikes: No. The definition of marriage has been the same for thousands of years. Why the sudden need to change it?
  • Jen Hanson: I must honestly, firmly and respectfully say that Dan is ignorant. I would guess that in 1861 the same statement was made about slavery.
  • Dan Hikes: So Jen, how has the definition of slavery changed and how does that have any relation to marriage? I'm also wondering why you picked 1861 for slavery. Is that because your worldview ends with the US? Marriage used to mean the same thing worldwide for your information.
  • Karen Smith Shiels: Love has no boundaries. No one person has the right to decide who should love who. The majority of the people who oppose same sex marriage are the ones who have been brought up to think it is wrong. It is no ones business but the two who choose to to spend their life together. It isn't hurting anyone else. Who opposes? Bible believers which brings up a whole different subject.
  • Jen Hanson: Freedom to marry is a civil right as was freedom from slavery. Just because something is practiced for years does not make it right.
The historic decision on the federal DOMA paves way for couples to share in hundreds of benefits bestowed by federal tax codes to couples married in states that recognize same-sex marriage.

Meanwhile, the dismissal serves as a victory for so-called gay marriage advocates out west as it clears the way for same-sex couples to continue to marry in California, coming five years after that state passed an amendment to the state constitution not recognizing those unions

Find out what's happening in Lake Minnetonkawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Minnesota joins that list in a little more than month, Aug. 1., when the state government will recognize same-sex unions. Legislation passed the Minnesota House and Senate and was signed into law on May 12.  

Department to defend DOMA when he first took office, reversed course in 2011, asking the DOMA to stop taking on cases challenging the act.

Find out what's happening in Lake Minnetonkawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Today, the president said, he was in favor of the SCOTUS decision.

"When all Americans are treated as equal—no matter who they are or whom they love—we are all more free,” Obama stated via social media.

The Twin Cities GLBT population will celebrate the decisions –both that of the Supreme Court and this year’s legislation in Minnesota – this weekend in Minneapolis with Gay Pride weekend.

A complete schedule can be found here.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the decision for the majority, writing that “By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment.”  

He was joined in the majority by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

The Proposition 8 decision was written by Chief Justice John Roberts.

“We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “We decline to do so for the first time here.”


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