US Federal Appeals Ct/DOMA/5/31/12

[irisblue]

would someone explain this to me. i realize it will get kicked to the SCOTUS as soon as the house reps can get it there.....does this mean Ms Wonderful & i are 2 giant steps closer to filing joint tax forms? and her getting my soc security bennies/pension? *fingers crossed, hoping*

[Zorra]

1. Don't know, but maybe this will help a bit:

Precedent

In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a legal case that a court or other judicial body may apply when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Black's Law Dictionary defines "precedent" as a "rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases."[1]

In other words, precedent can be defined as "an already decided decision which furnishes the basis for later cases involving similar facts and issues."

One law professor has described mandatory precedent as follows:

Given a determination as to the governing jurisdiction, a court is "bound" to follow a precedent of that jurisdiction only if it is directly in point. In the strongest sense, "directly in point" means that: (1) the question resolved in the precedent case is the same as the question to be resolved in the pending case, (2) resolution of that question was necessary to the disposition of the precedent case; (3) the significant facts of the precedent case are also presented in the pending case, and (4) no additional facts appear in the pending case that might be treated as significant.[2]

[stevenleser]

2. It's enormous news for several reasons

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/31/court-rules-defense-marriage-unconstitutional?newsfeed=true

1. The President has already signaled that he does not want to enforce parts of DOMA on Constitutional grounds. This reinforces his stance. This is simultaneously good for his re-election bid and good for the LGBT community.

2. With a second Federal appeals court holding DOMA to be Unconstitutional, there will be a lot of pressure on the SCOTUS to follow suit. There is no guarantee that one or more of the SCOTUS conservatives will do the right thing, but if many of the federal appeals courts agree that DOMA is Unconstitutional, it will be hard for the SCOTUS conservatives to justify voting against that. Again, they are conservatives, and conservatives over the past 30 years have shown that they really dont care about how they appear, but it is at least reason to have some optimism.

[irisblue]

3. marriage equality & ohio

has a constutional amendment against marriage equality. so i'm correct in understanding that it will NOT change our status here, and even if we were married in iowa say, the feds wouldn't let us joint taxes & share insurance just yet. rats.
not time to change tax status at work yet...