The U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states on Friday, June 26, 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodges , a 103 page decision which we read so you don't have to.  You should, but seriously, most of you probably won't.  Many people will just read that headline and know that there has been an important change in the status of legal relationships in the U.S.  Both the majority and dissents agree on one thing, this is a significant and far-reaching decision. For full coverage of the decision itself and the legal impact, visit SCOTUS blog . For now we're posting the tl;dr version of the majority and dissenting opinions: Here is what each opinion seems to say about the author's view of marriage: Robert's Dissent:    Marriage is an institution. Scalia's Dissent:     Marriage limits your expression. Thomas's Dissent:  Marriage has nothing to do with liberty. Alito's Dissent:       Marriage is for procreation. Kenn...

In the first of a pair of same-sex marriage rights cases decided today, the Supreme Court of the United States declared portions of DOMA (the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act") unconstitutional.  Although there were some concerns about jurisdiction in this case due to the executive branches failure to defend DOMA vigorously the court determined there was jurisdiction and that DOMA is unconstitutional under the equal liberty of persons protected by the Fifth Amendment. Known as the DOMA case, everything you need to know about United States v. Windsor  is summarized below: Prior to reaching SCOTUS here is what happened: Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, two women, met in New York City in 1963 and began a long-term relationship. Windsor and Spyer registered as domestic partners when New York City gave that right to same-sex couples in 1993. In 2007, Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, then residents of New York, were married in Ontorio Canada. Under the laws of the State o...

Whether or not everyone approves, it is a fact of life that the "traditional nuclear family" is becoming less the norm. In the practice of family law we are encountering more and more unique family structures; some brought on by the advance of technology (like artificial insemination or surrogate parenthood), some brought on by divorce and re-marriage creating step or second families, and some brought on by the changing laws around gay marriage and adoption. There are situations in the law in which the Courts have already dealt with the issue of whether a non-biological parent could be a "Parent" as well. For instance, in Massachusetts there is a Grandparent Visitation Statute that provides for visitation for grandparents with their grandchildren if they have been significantly involved in the children's lives. Although this standard is strictly applied by the Courts, a win on a grandparent visitation case is essentially a recognition that a child's gra...

As described in a recent article on CNN Living ( Serious legal hurdles for gay divorce ), just because gay and lesbians can get married doesn't mean they can get divorced. Gay and Lesbian couples who marry in one of the few states that allow gay marriage may not be able to get divorced if they move to another state. Currently only Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the District of Columbia issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. As the CNN article describes, the Texas Attorney General is appealing a ruling by a Texas Judge allowing a lesbian couple (who had been married in Massachusetts) to get a divorce in Texas. An attorney who represents a gay couple awaiting the Texas decision noted "Ironically, if the attorney general [of Texas] is so against gay marriage, why is he trying to hard to keep these two men together?" Regardless of the ruling in that case, getting divorced in other states isn't the only hurtle facing gay and lesbian ...

According to a Boston Globe article , Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filed a request with the U.S. District Court last Thursday, February 19, 2010, to rule on the constitutionality of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The reasoning behind the A.G.'s request is that DOMA forces Massachusetts to discriminate against same-sex spouses in order to maintain certain federal funding for programs like Medicaid and Veteran's burials. These are only two examples of how DOMA affects same-sex spouses. Despite Massachusetts law granting same-sex couples the right to marry, there are Federal benefits that traditional spouses enjoy which same-sex couples do not because of DOMA. Many of these differences are related to tax benefits for spouses. For example, spouses can transfer property between each other without certain tax consequences where non-spouses cannot. This can be a particularly difficult issue in same-sex divorces as it relates to retirement accounts. ...

A recent tongue-in-cheek blog post by fellow attorney and blawger, Gabriel Cheong, describes his support for the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act. The 2010 California Marriage Protection Act, a proposed amendment available at http://rescuemarriage.org/2009/08/22/2010-california-protection-of-marriage-act/ , takes Proposition 8 one step further by banning divorce in the state of California. Support of the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act demonstrates the hypocrisy of attacking gay marriage for being detrimental to the sanctity of marriage when the state allows divorce. Divorce, after all, is the ultimate attack on the sanctity of marriage. Although this is the classic slippery slope argument, the method can hardly be questioned by those who claim gay marriage will lead to people wanting to marry their pets. This leads to the question: What does it really mean to protect the sanctity of marriage? Sanctity is defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary as 1. the holiness...