Baker v. Nelson
Encyclopedia
Richard John Baker v. Gerald R. Nelson was a case in which the Minnesota Supreme Court
ruled that Minnesota law limited marriage to different-sex couples and that this limitation did not violate the United States Constitution
. The plaintiffs appealed, and on October 10, 1972 the United States Supreme Court dismissed the appeal "for want of a substantial federal question." Because the case came to the federal Supreme Court through mandatory appellate review (not certiorari
), the summary dismissal constituted a decision on the merits and established Baker v. Nelson as a precedent,Project, Developments in the Law: The Constitution and the Family, 93 Harv. L. Rev. 1156, 1274 (1980) (discussing Baker's posture as precedent); see, e.g. Pamela R. Winnick, Comment, The Precedential Weight of a Dismissal by the Supreme Court for Want of a Substantial Federal Question: Some Implications of Hicks v. Miranda, 76 Colum. L. Rev. 508, 511 (1976) ("a dismissal by the Supreme Court is an adjudication on the merits. . . a lower federal court must consider itself bound by the dismissal when a similar challenge comes before it") though the extent of its precedential effect has been subject to debate.
gay student activists, Richard Baker
and James Michael McConnell, applied for a marriage license in Minneapolis. The clerk of the Hennepin County District Court
, Gerald Nelson, denied the request on the sole ground that the two were of the same sex. The couple filed suit in district court to force Nelson to issue the license.
The couple first contended that Minnesota's marriage statutes contained no explicit requirement that applicants be of different sexes. If the court were to construe the statutes to require different-sex couples, however, Baker claimed such a reading would violate several provisions of the U.S. Constitution:
The trial court dismissed the couple's claims and ordered the clerk not to issue the license.
, where they renewed all of their claims. In a brief opinion issued on October 15, 1971, the state's highest court affirmed the trial court's dismissal.
The Court first dealt with the statutory interpretation. Based on the common usage of the term "marriage" and gender-specific references elsewhere in the same chapter, the Court held that the statutes prohibited marriage between persons of the same sex.
This familiar restriction, the Court reasoned, did not offend the Due Process Clause
because procreation
and child rearing
were central to the constitutional protection given to marriage
.
The Court was not persuaded that an equal-protection
violation was present either. Childless heterosexual marriages presented no more than a theoretical imperfection, which doesn't violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The couple's reliance on the recent U.S. Supreme Court
decision in Loving v. Virginia
(striking down an anti-miscegenation law
) also failed: "in commonsense and in a constitutional sense, there is a clear distinction between a marital restriction based merely upon race and one based upon the fundamental difference in sex."
The Court acknowledged that Justice Goldberg's
concurrence in Griswold v. Connecticut
(criminalizing contraceptives
violated the right to marital privacy) found support for marital privacy partly in the Ninth Amendment. But, the Court distinguished Griswold and found no authority for the Ninth Amendment being binding on the states
.
The Court dismissed without discussion the claims under the First and Eighth Amendments.
. There, they claimed the Minnesota marriage statutes implicated three rights: they abridged their fundamental right to marry under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
; discriminated based on gender, contrary to the Equal Protection Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment; and deprived them of privacy rights flowing from the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution
. On October 10, 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a one-sentence order dismissing the case "for want of a substantial federal question."
In most cases presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court's refusal to hear the case
is not an endorsement of the decision below. However, since this case came to the Court through mandatory appellate review, the summary dismissal is a decision on the merits of the case. As binding precedent, the Baker decision prevents lower courts from coming to a contrary conclusion when presented with the precise issue the Court necessarily adjudicated in dismissing the case.
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rejected claims by Nebraska
citizen organizations that the state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage offended the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, among other provisions. While Baker did not appear in the court's Fourteenth Amendment analysis, the court's opinion did note in its concluding passage:
(emphasis added in the Bruning opinion, citations omitted.)
women who married in Massachusetts
claimed that Florida's marriage statutes and the federal Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA) violated the due process and equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment (and implicitly the Fifth Amendment
), among other claims. The judge dismissed the claims against the U.S. Attorney General
, in part, because Baker controlled; "The Supreme Court has not explicitly or implicitly overturned its holding in Baker or provided the lower courts, including this Court, with any reason to believe that the holding is invalid today."
. They jointly filed for bankruptcy protection
. Kandu claimed, among other things, that the portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that precluded the bankruptcy court
from allowing a joint proceeding violated due-process and equal-protection principles under the Fifth Amendment. The court concluded that Baker did not control. Among the distinguishing features the court noted were the dissimilarity between state laws governing marriage licenses in Baker and the federal DOMA and bankruptcy code in this case as well as the possibility that the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas
(striking down Texas'
sodomy statute
) marked a shift in the Court's "analysis of same-sex conduct."
, a state constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, Judge Walker made no mention of Baker, referring only to his previous Order.
treat the analogous portion of the U.S. Constitution. In these circumstances, precedents like Baker may control state constitutional analysis.
In state courts, judges also come to somewhat differing conclusions as to Baker's reach.
upheld the dismissal of a case brought by several same-sex couples who challenged Indiana's marriage statutes. On appeal, the couples claimed that the statutes violated several provisions of the Indiana Constitution
, principally the Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause (Article 1 § 23). The majority opinion (Barnes, J.) concluded its description of Baker with:
(the state's highest court) rejected claims by same-sex couples that the state's marriage laws were offensive to the state constitution's Due Process and Equal Protection clauses. New York courts treat the state's Equal Protection Clause interchangeably with its federal counterpart.
In In Re Marriage of J.B. and H.B., 326 S.W.3d 654 (2010) the Texas 5th Circuit considered a challenge to Texas's Proposition 2. While the Court observed that "it reaffirm[ed] the states' preeminent role in the area of family law" and accorded "Baker appropriate weight in [its] analysis of the equal-protection issue", it distinguished Baker from the instant case before it, observing that "the Baker appellants argued that the Constitution compelled Minnesota to grant them a marriage license and treat them as a married couple from then on", while the appellee in this case had complained "Texas law relegates him to a declaration of voidness, when a party to an opposite-sex marriage in otherwise similar circumstances would be entitled to a divorce."
Benson v. Alverson, Hennepin County
In Benson v. Alverson, Judge Mary DuFresne rejected state constitutional challenges against Minnesota's marriage laws partly on the basis that Baker is binding precedent with respect to the due process and equal protection claims, stating that "[s]ame-sex marriage will not exist in this State unless and until the Minnesota Supreme Court overrules its own decision in Baker, or the State Legislature repeals the state DOMA." However, the court rejected the argument that Baker was dispositive on the religious freedom claim.
Minnesota Supreme Court
The Minnesota Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Minnesota and consists of seven members. The court was first assembled as a three-judge panel in 1849 when Minnesota was still a territory. The first members were lawyers from outside of the region who were appointed by...
ruled that Minnesota law limited marriage to different-sex couples and that this limitation did not violate the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
. The plaintiffs appealed, and on October 10, 1972 the United States Supreme Court dismissed the appeal "for want of a substantial federal question." Because the case came to the federal Supreme Court through mandatory appellate review (not certiorari
Certiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
), the summary dismissal constituted a decision on the merits and established Baker v. Nelson as a precedent,Project, Developments in the Law: The Constitution and the Family, 93 Harv. L. Rev. 1156, 1274 (1980) (discussing Baker's posture as precedent); see, e.g. Pamela R. Winnick, Comment, The Precedential Weight of a Dismissal by the Supreme Court for Want of a Substantial Federal Question: Some Implications of Hicks v. Miranda, 76 Colum. L. Rev. 508, 511 (1976) ("a dismissal by the Supreme Court is an adjudication on the merits. . . a lower federal court must consider itself bound by the dismissal when a similar challenge comes before it") though the extent of its precedential effect has been subject to debate.
Facts and trial
On May 18, 1970, two University of MinnesotaUniversity of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
gay student activists, Richard Baker
Jack Baker (activist)
Jack Baker is an American LGBT activist in the state of Minnesota. He and his partner, James Michael McConnell, were the first American gay couple to seek a marriage license and the first gay couple to establish a legal relationship via adult adoption.-Student activism:On May 18, 1969, , the...
and James Michael McConnell, applied for a marriage license in Minneapolis. The clerk of the Hennepin County District Court
Hennepin County Government Center
The Hennepin County Government Center is the courthouse and primary county government administration building for Hennepin County in the State of Minnesota. It is located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, the county seat of Hennepin County...
, Gerald Nelson, denied the request on the sole ground that the two were of the same sex. The couple filed suit in district court to force Nelson to issue the license.
The couple first contended that Minnesota's marriage statutes contained no explicit requirement that applicants be of different sexes. If the court were to construe the statutes to require different-sex couples, however, Baker claimed such a reading would violate several provisions of the U.S. Constitution:
- First AmendmentFirst Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
(freedom of speech and of association), - Eighth AmendmentEighth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment's Cruel and Unusual...
(cruel and unusual punishment), - Ninth AmendmentNinth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, addresses rights of the people that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.-Text:-Adoption:When the U.S...
(unenumerated right to privacy), and - Fourteenth AmendmentFourteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
(fundamental right to marry under the Due Process Clause and sex discrimination contrary to the Equal Protection Clause).
The trial court dismissed the couple's claims and ordered the clerk not to issue the license.
Appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court
The couple appealed the district court's decision to the Minnesota Supreme CourtMinnesota Supreme Court
The Minnesota Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Minnesota and consists of seven members. The court was first assembled as a three-judge panel in 1849 when Minnesota was still a territory. The first members were lawyers from outside of the region who were appointed by...
, where they renewed all of their claims. In a brief opinion issued on October 15, 1971, the state's highest court affirmed the trial court's dismissal.
The Court first dealt with the statutory interpretation. Based on the common usage of the term "marriage" and gender-specific references elsewhere in the same chapter, the Court held that the statutes prohibited marriage between persons of the same sex.
This familiar restriction, the Court reasoned, did not offend the Due Process Clause
Substantive due process
Substantive due process is one of the theories of law through which courts enforce limits on legislative and executive powers and authority...
because procreation
Human reproduction
Human reproduction is any form of sexual reproduction resulting in the conception of a child, typically involving sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. During intercourse, the interaction between the male and female reproductive systems results in fertilization of the woman's ovum by the...
and child rearing
Parenting
Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood...
were central to the constitutional protection given to marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
.
The Court was not persuaded that an equal-protection
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...
violation was present either. Childless heterosexual marriages presented no more than a theoretical imperfection, which doesn't violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The couple's reliance on the recent U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
decision in Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia, , was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v...
(striking down an anti-miscegenation law
Anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws that enforced racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races...
) also failed: "in commonsense and in a constitutional sense, there is a clear distinction between a marital restriction based merely upon race and one based upon the fundamental difference in sex."
The Court acknowledged that Justice Goldberg's
Arthur Goldberg
Arthur Joseph Goldberg was an American statesman and jurist who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Supreme Court Justice and Ambassador to the United Nations.-Early life:...
concurrence in Griswold v. Connecticut
Griswold v. Connecticut
Griswold v. Connecticut, , was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives...
(criminalizing contraceptives
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
violated the right to marital privacy) found support for marital privacy partly in the Ninth Amendment. But, the Court distinguished Griswold and found no authority for the Ninth Amendment being binding on the states
Incorporation (Bill of Rights)
The incorporation of the Bill of Rights is the process by which American courts have applied portions of the U.S. Bill of Rights to the states. Prior to the 1890s, the Bill of Rights was held only to apply to the federal government...
.
The Court dismissed without discussion the claims under the First and Eighth Amendments.
Decision in the U.S. Supreme Court
Baker and McConnell appealed the Minnesota court's decision to the U.S. Supreme CourtSupreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
. There, they claimed the Minnesota marriage statutes implicated three rights: they abridged their fundamental right to marry under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
; discriminated based on gender, contrary to the Equal Protection Clause
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...
of the Fourteenth Amendment; and deprived them of privacy rights flowing from the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, addresses rights of the people that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.-Text:-Adoption:When the U.S...
. On October 10, 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a one-sentence order dismissing the case "for want of a substantial federal question."
In most cases presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court's refusal to hear the case
Certiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
is not an endorsement of the decision below. However, since this case came to the Court through mandatory appellate review, the summary dismissal is a decision on the merits of the case. As binding precedent, the Baker decision prevents lower courts from coming to a contrary conclusion when presented with the precise issue the Court necessarily adjudicated in dismissing the case.
Application of the Baker precedent
When dealing with precedents like Baker, lower courts may have to guess at the meaning of these unexplained decisions. The Supreme Court has laid out rules, however, to guide lower courts in narrowly applying these summary dispositions:- The facts in the potentially binding case must not bear any legally significant differences to the case under consideration.
- The binding precedent encompasses only the issues presented to the Court, not the reasoning found in the lower court's decision.
- Of the issues presented, only those necessarily decided by the Court in dismissing the case control.
- Subsequent developments by the Court on the relevant doctrines may cast doubt on the continuing validity of a summary judgment.
Baker in federal courts
In applying the guidelines for summary dispositions, federal judges have come to differing conclusions on where and how Baker controls.Citizens for Equal Protection v. Bruning, U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit (2006)
In Citizens for Equal Protection v. BruningCitizens for Equal Protection v. Bruning
Citizens for Equal Protection v. Bruning, 455 F.3d 859 , was a federal lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska and decided on appeal by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit challenging the federal constitutionality of Nebraska Initiative...
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rejected claims by Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
citizen organizations that the state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage offended the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, among other provisions. While Baker did not appear in the court's Fourteenth Amendment analysis, the court's opinion did note in its concluding passage:
- Indeed, in Baker v. Nelson, when faced with a Fourteenth Amendment challenge to a decision by the Supreme Court of Minnesota denying a marriage license to a same-sex couple, the United States Supreme Court dismissed "for want of a substantial federal question." There is good reason for this restraint.
(emphasis added in the Bruning opinion, citations omitted.)
Wilson v. Ake, U.S. District Court (2005)
Two FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
women who married in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
claimed that Florida's marriage statutes and the federal Defense of Marriage Act
Defense of Marriage Act
The Defense of Marriage Act is a United States federal law whereby the federal government defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman. Under the law, no U.S. state may be required to recognize as a marriage a same-sex relationship considered a marriage in another state...
(DOMA) violated the due process and equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment (and implicitly the Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
), among other claims. The judge dismissed the claims against the U.S. Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
, in part, because Baker controlled; "The Supreme Court has not explicitly or implicitly overturned its holding in Baker or provided the lower courts, including this Court, with any reason to believe that the holding is invalid today."
In re Kandu, U.S. Bankruptcy Court (2004)
Lee and Ann Kandu, Washington residents, were married in British ColumbiaBritish Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. They jointly filed for bankruptcy protection
Bankruptcy in the United States
Bankruptcy in the United States is governed under the United States Constitution which authorizes Congress to enact "uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States." Congress has exercised this authority several times since 1801, most recently by adopting the Bankruptcy...
. Kandu claimed, among other things, that the portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that precluded the bankruptcy court
United States bankruptcy court
United States bankruptcy courts are courts created under Article I of the United States Constitution. They function as units of the district courts and have subject-matter jurisdiction over bankruptcy cases. The federal district courts have original and exclusive jurisdiction over all cases arising...
from allowing a joint proceeding violated due-process and equal-protection principles under the Fifth Amendment. The court concluded that Baker did not control. Among the distinguishing features the court noted were the dissimilarity between state laws governing marriage licenses in Baker and the federal DOMA and bankruptcy code in this case as well as the possibility that the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court case. In the 6-3 ruling, the Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by proxy, invalidated sodomy laws in the thirteen other states where they remained in existence, thereby making same-sex sexual activity legal in...
(striking down Texas'
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
sodomy statute
Sodomy law
A sodomy law is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes. The precise sexual acts meant by the term sodomy are rarely spelled out in the law, but are typically understood by courts to include any sexual act deemed unnatural. It also has a range of similar euphemisms...
) marked a shift in the Court's "analysis of same-sex conduct."
Perry v. Schwarzenegger, United States District Court for the Northern District of California (2010)
Citing Plaintiffs' argument in court filings that intervening Supreme Court cases relating to marriage and to LGBT rights distinguished Perry from Baker, District Judge Vaughn Walker denied Defendant-Intervenors' Motion for Summary Judgment. In his ruling striking down Proposition 8California Proposition 8 (2008)
Proposition 8 was a ballot proposition and constitutional amendment passed in the November 2008 state elections...
, a state constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, Judge Walker made no mention of Baker, referring only to his previous Order.
Baker in state courts
In state courts, the relevance of a precedent like Baker partly depends on what claims the litigants make. If the litigants claim protection of the U.S Constitution, a U.S. Supreme Court precedent may control the outcome of those claims. If the claims arise under state constitutional provisions, federal precedents need not control. There are some state courts, however, that treat provisions of their constitution in the same way as the federal courtsUnited States federal courts
The United States federal courts make up the judiciary branch of federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government.-Categories:...
treat the analogous portion of the U.S. Constitution. In these circumstances, precedents like Baker may control state constitutional analysis.
In state courts, judges also come to somewhat differing conclusions as to Baker's reach.
Morrison v. Sandler, Indiana Court of Appeals (2005)
The Indiana Court of AppealsIndiana Court of Appeals
The Indiana Court of Appeals is the intermediate-level appellate court for the state of Indiana. It is the successor to the Indiana Appellate Court.-History:...
upheld the dismissal of a case brought by several same-sex couples who challenged Indiana's marriage statutes. On appeal, the couples claimed that the statutes violated several provisions of the Indiana Constitution
Constitution of Indiana
There have been two Constitutions of the State of Indiana. The first constitution was created when the Territory of Indiana sent forty-three delegates to a constitutional convention on June 10, 1816 to establish a constitution for the proposed State of Indiana after the United States Congress had...
, principally the Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause (Article 1 § 23). The majority opinion (Barnes, J.) concluded its description of Baker with:
- Thus, the Supreme Court, five years after it decided Loving, determined that that case did not support an argument by same-sex couples that precluding them from marrying violated the Fourteenth Amendment. In light of this precedent, the Plaintiffs have not made a Fourteenth Amendment argument in this case.
Hernandez v. Robles, New York Court of Appeals (2004)
The New York Court of AppealsNew York Court of Appeals
The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the U.S. state of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six associate judges who are appointed by the Governor to 14-year terms...
(the state's highest court) rejected claims by same-sex couples that the state's marriage laws were offensive to the state constitution's Due Process and Equal Protection clauses. New York courts treat the state's Equal Protection Clause interchangeably with its federal counterpart.
Plurality Opinion (Smith, R.S., J.)
(citations omitted.) |
Separate Opinion (Graffeo, J., concurring), footnote 4 ends a survey of the Baker precedent with
(citations omitted.) |
In Re Marriage of J.B. and H.B., Texas 5th Circuit Court of Appeal (2010)
Main Article: In Re Marriage of J.B. and H.B.In Re Marriage of J.B. and H.B.
In the Matter of the Marriage of J.B. and H.B., 326 S.W.3d 654 is a Texas 5th Circuit Court of Appeal decision holding that Texas family courts lack jursidiction to hear divorce cases from same-sex couples married in foreign jurisdictions, and that Texas's Proposition 2 is consistent with the due...
In In Re Marriage of J.B. and H.B., 326 S.W.3d 654 (2010) the Texas 5th Circuit considered a challenge to Texas's Proposition 2. While the Court observed that "it reaffirm[ed] the states' preeminent role in the area of family law" and accorded "Baker appropriate weight in [its] analysis of the equal-protection issue", it distinguished Baker from the instant case before it, observing that "the Baker appellants argued that the Constitution compelled Minnesota to grant them a marriage license and treat them as a married couple from then on", while the appellee in this case had complained "Texas law relegates him to a declaration of voidness, when a party to an opposite-sex marriage in otherwise similar circumstances would be entitled to a divorce."