DOMA & its demise

I am a very happy man today. Not withstanding the ruling, that codified the norm of the day, I have a few opinions of the court today


I disagree with Justice Scalia (as always) in the statement that

And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation.

It is the very nature of the Constitution to invalidate a democratically palatable/adoptable legislation.

While I agree with the dissenting Justices, that the court did not technically have a legal standing to hear the case since the plantiff & the government technically did not present different cases. Both agreed with each other & no potential legal injury was possible by Amicus, that providing the differing view on the case.

we cannot “pass upon the constitutionality of legislation in a friendly, non-adversary, proceeding”; absent a “‘real, earnest and vital controversy between individuals,’” we have neither any work to do nor any power to do it.

But I disagree that the US does not suffer a legal injury from not repealing DOMA. It does. The founding principle of this nation the "We the people". So, some of its citizens are standing with the legal injury, it is the job of the US government and in turn the solicitor general to seek legal justice within the bounds of the Constitution, if the legislation believes otherwise. I assume that the dissenting justices believe the US government has a legal injury only with a loss of treasury. Nothing can be farther from truth nor the legal definition of the government.

Whatever injury the United States has suffered will surelynot be redressed by the action that it, as a litigant, asks usto take. The final sentence of the Solicitor General’s brief on the merits reads: “For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the court of appeals should be affirmed.” Brief for United States (merits) 54 (emphasis added). That will not cure the Government’s injury, but carve it into stone.

I also agree with the dissenting Justices that the President of the United States, Mr Obama should have not enforced the law as enacted by Congress citing it unconstitutional (which he has stated orally as well as judicially) and thus faced the congress.

This suit saw the light of day only because the President enforced the Act(and thus gave Windsor standing to sue) even though he believed it unconstitutional. He could have equally chosen(more appropriately, some would say) neither to enforce nor to defend the statute he believed to be unconstitutional

Also, I agree with over all view of the dissenting Justices that the case should have been tested in the court of public opinion through legislative means, instead of a court of law