The U.S. Supreme Court voided a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that determined which states and counties were required, based on their histories of curtailing voting rights “on account of race or color,” to obtain federal preapproval for changes to their election laws; nullified Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage; and overturned the portion of the 1996 U.S. Defense of Marriage Act that denied same-sex partners the federal rights extended to married couples. “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet,” wrote Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her Voting Rights Act dissent. “The Constitution neither requires nor forbids our society to approve of same-sex marriage, much as it neither requires nor forbids us to approve of no-fault divorce, polygamy, or the consumption of alcohol,” wrote Antonin Scalia in his DOMA dissent, which referred to the majority opinion as “legalistic argle-bargle.”
Weekly Review
Weekly Review
Weekly Review
The U.S. Supreme Court voided a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that determined which states and counties were required, based on their histories of curtailing voting rights “on account of race or color,” to obtain federal preapproval for changes to their election laws; nullified Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage; and overturned the portion of the 1996 U.S. Defense of Marriage Act that denied same-sex partners the federal rights extended to married couples. “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet,” wrote Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her Voting Rights Act dissent. “The Constitution neither requires nor forbids our society to approve of same-sex marriage, much as it neither requires nor forbids us to approve of no-fault divorce, polygamy, or the consumption of alcohol,” wrote Antonin Scalia in his DOMA dissent, which referred to the majority opinion as “legalistic argle-bargle.”