[Infographic] Supreme Court Rules DOMA Unconstitutional

In a barn-burner of a decision today, the Supreme Court found unconstitutional the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), striking down the law based on a combination of states’ rights, equal protection and due process arguments. As expected, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion for United States v. Windsor, joined by Justices Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor and Ginsburg. Justices Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Thomas dissented, with the former three each penning his own dissent.

The voiding of DOMA, which had kept the United States government from recognizing married same-sex couples, means that all legally-married couples can now receive the federal benefits allocated based on marital status, regardless of whether your spouse is of the same sex or not. The question of whether you can legally marry a person of the same sex in the first place, however, remains in the hands of the states, as the Court stopped short of declaring same-sex marriage to be a fundamental right.

The above interactive graphic shows key quotes from the justices, pulled from the March oral argument and from today’s ruling. You can scroll over each justice to open up a text box with his/her quotes. The red dot indicates the author of the majority opinion; yellow dots indicate the other justices in the majority; blue dots indicate the dissenters.

Further analysis of the Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor to come.

Post Revisions:

About victoriakwan

Victoria holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School and has recently completed a clerkship with a judge in Anchorage, Alaska. She tweets as @victoriakwan_ and posts primarily on legal issues, especially those involving the Supreme Court.

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