U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin Statement on the One Year Anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court Decisions on Marriage Equality and the Progress Across America Over the Last Year
Washington D.C. – On the one year anniversary of two landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions on marriage equality, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin released the following statement on the historic progress across America over the last year.
“One year ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued decisions in two historic cases that overturned discrimination against gay and lesbian American citizens simply because of who they love. Wisconsin is now one of fourteen states that have had a marriage ban struck down in federal court since the U.S. Supreme Court decisions last June. The fact is, marriage equality has won in every court across our country over the last year and each time independent judges have reaffirmed our founding belief that all Americans are created equal under the law. I believe that it is time for Governor Walker and Attorney General Van Hollen to stop standing in the way of freedom, fairness and equality for all Wisconsinites. Love is love, family is family, and discriminating against anyone’s love, against anyone’s family, is not only wrong, it is unconstitutional. The Wisconsin I know deserves better than a Governor and Attorney General defending discrimination when every court that has considered the issue has ruled that discrimination violates our constitution. It is time for us to keep our promise to pass on to the next generation a Wisconsin that is more equal, not less equal.”
Last year, on June 26, 2013, the nation’s highest court returned marriage equality to California and ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional.
In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court decisions, marriage equality has not lost in court. However, Governor Scott Walker and Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen are currently preparing an appeal of a recent court ruling that overturns the ban on marriage equality in Wisconsin.
On Wednesday, a federal appeals court in Utah reaffirmed a lower court’s ruling that Utah’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional. The decision by the 10th Circuit was the first time an appeals court has struck down a ban on marriage equality.
Federal courts have ruled in favor of marriage equality in Utah, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Oregon, and Wisconsin. Yesterday, a federal judge ruled that Indiana’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples and on the recognition of same-sex couples’ out-of-state marriages is unconstitutional, making it the 14th state where a federal court has overturned a marriage equality ban. State courts in Arkansas, New Jersey and New Mexico have also sided with marriage equality.
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