14-5003 #8185 Plaintiffs' Opening/Response

Appellate Case: 14-5003
Document: 01019219010
Date Filed: 03/17/2014
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Nos. 14-5003, 14-5006 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS TENTH CIRCUIT MARY BISHOP, SHARON BALDWIN, SUSAN BARTON and GAY PHILLIPS, Plaintiffs/Appellees/Cross-Appellants, vs. SALLY HOWE SMITH, in her official capacity as Court Clerk of Tulsa County, State of Oklahoma, Defendant/Appellant/Cross-Appellee. APPELLEES PRINCIPAL AND RESPONSE BRIEF APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA THE HONORABLE TERENCE C. KERN No. 04-CV-848-TCK-TLW Don G. Holladay, OBA No. 4294 James E. Warner III, OBA No. 19593 HOLLADAY & CHILTON PLLC 204 N. Robinson Ave., Suite 1550 Oklahoma City, OK 73102 (405) 236-2343 Telephone (405) 236-2349 Facsimile Joseph T. Thai, OBA No. 19377 300 Timberdell Rd. Norman, OK 73019 (405) 204-9579 Telephone thai@post.harvard.edu
ORAL ARGUMENT REQUESTED March 17, 2014
Docket Reference Number [10158185]
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TABLE OF CONTENTS PRIOR OR RELATED APPEALS ...................................................................... xvi ISSUES PRESENTED FOR REVIEW ................................................................ xvii INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 STATEMENT OF JURISDICTION ........................................................................ 3 STATEMENT OF THE CASE ................................................................................ 3 I. II. III. IV. V. VI. Oklahoma Marital Law................................................................................... 3 The Plaintiffs .................................................................................................. 6 The Oklahoma Marriage Ban ......................................................................... 8 Marital Benefits, Protections, and Status ..................................................... 11 Procedural History ........................................................................................ 13 The District Court Decision.......................................................................... 15
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT .............................................................................. 20 STANDARD OF REVIEW .................................................................................... 28 ARGUMENT .......................................................................................................... 28 I. II. Baker v. Nelson Is Not Controlling .............................................................. 28 Oklahomas Exclusion Of Same-Sex Couples From Marriage Denies Equal Protection ............................................................................... 31 A. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Discriminates On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation, Which Triggers Heightened Scrutiny Under Romer, Lawrence, And Windsor ............................................. 31
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B.
This Courts Precedents Do NotAnd After Windsor CannotLimit Review of Sexual Orientation Discrimination To Rational Basis ............................................................................... 36 The Heightened Scrutiny Applied In Romer, Lawrence, and Windsor To Sexual Orientation Discrimination Requires At Least Careful Consideration, And Most Appropriately Should Require Intermediate Scrutiny ............................................... 39 The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Also Triggers Intermediate Scrutiny As Gender Discrimination ................................................... 41 The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Triggers Strict Scrutiny As A Classification That Burdens The Fundamental Right To Marry ........ 43 The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Fails Careful Consideration Under Romer, Lawrence, and Windsor Because It Imposes Inequality Based On Moral Disapproval............................................ 44 The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Fails Any Level Of Scrutiny Because There Is Simply No Rational Connection Between Defendants Post-Hoc Justifications And The Exclusion Of Same-Sex Couples From Marriage .................................................... 49 1. 2. The Purpose Of Marriage In Oklahoma Is Not Based On Presumptive Procreative Potential .................................. 51 Excluding Same-Sex Couples From Marriage Is Not Rationally Related To Promoting Responsible Procreation Or An Optimal Child-Rearing Environment ........................................................................... 55 Wild Speculation About The Real-World Consequences Of Redefining Marriage Does Not Rescue The Oklahoma Marriage Ban From Irrationality ........ 60 State Regulatory Power Over Domestic Relations Does Not Shelter Invidious Discrimination ...................................... 63
C.
D. E. F.
G.
3.
4.
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III.
The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Denies Plaintiffs The Fundamental Right To Marry In Violation Of Due Process .............................................. 64 A. B. C. The Right To Marry Is Fundamental ................................................. 64 The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Infringes Upon The Fundamental Right To Marry............................................................. 64 The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Fails Strict Scrutiny ............................ 67
IV.
Oklahomas Refusal To Recognize The Valid Out-Of-State Marriages Of Same-Sex Couples Offends Due Process And Equal Protection ........................................................................................... 67 Plaintiffs Possess Standing ........................................................................... 72 A. B. Plaintiffs Barton and Phillips Have Standing To Challenge The Oklahoma Marriage Bans Non-Recognition Provision ............. 72 The Statutory Bans On Same-Sex Marriage And Marriage Recognition Do Not Deprive Plaintiffs Of Standing ......................... 75
V.
VI.
The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Is Not Severable ........................................... 78
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................... 80 STATEMENT REGARDING ORAL ARGUMENT ............................................ 82 CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE ...................................................................... 83 CERTIFICATE OF DIGITAL SUBMISSION ...................................................... 84 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE ............................................................................... 85
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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES CASES 1942 Chevrolet Auto., Motor No. BA193397 v. State ex rel. Cline, 136 P.2d 395 (Okla. 1943) ............................................................................. 4 Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203 (1997) ..................................................................................... 29 Atlantic Refining Co. v. Okla. Tax Commn, 360 P.2d 826 (Okla. 1959) ........................................................................... 47 Awad v. Ziriax, No. 5:10-cv-01186-M, 2013 WL 4441476 (W.D. Okla. Aug. 15, 2013) ......................................................................... 80 Baehr v. Lewin, 852 P.2d 44 (Haw. 1996) .............................................................................. 10 Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810 (1972) ......................................................................... 10, 15, 28 Bishop v. Oklahoma ex rel. Edmondson, 333 Fed. Appx. 361 (10th Cir. 2009) ................................................... passim Bishop v. United States ex rel. Holder, No. 04-cv-848-TCK-TLW, 2014 WL 116013 (N.D. Okla. Jan. 14, 2014)..................................................................... passim Bostic v. Rainey, No. 2:13-cv-395, 2014 WL 561978 (E.D. Va. Feb. 13, 2014) ............................................................ 21, 57, 67, 69 Bourke v. Beshear, No. 3:13-cv-750-H, 2014 WL 556729 (W.D. Ky. Feb. 12, 2014) ....................................................................... 21, 69 Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) ............................................................................... 38, 65
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Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 686 (1954) ..................................................................................... 43 Carey v. Population Servs. Intl, 431 U.S. 678 (1977) ..................................................................................... 67 City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432 (1985) ......................................................................... 17, 50, 59 Clark v. Jeter, 486 U.S. 456 (1988) ..................................................................................... 30 Coleman v. James, 169 P. 1064 (Okla. 1917) ............................................................................... 4 Consumer Data Industry Assn v. King, 678 F.3d 898 (10th Cir. 2012) ...................................................................... 78 Copeland v. State, 842 P.2d 754 (Okla. 1992) ............................................................................. 4 Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976) ............................................................................... 29, 38 De Leon v. Perry, No. 5:13-cv-00982-OLG, 2014 WL 715741 (W.D. Tex. Feb. 26, 2014)..................................................................... passim Dick v. Reaves, 434 P.2d 295 (Okla. 1967) ............................................................................. 5 Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Envtl. Study Group, 438 U.S. 59 (1978) ....................................................................................... 74 Elwell v. Byers, 699 F.3d 1208 (10th Cir. 2012) .................................................................... 27 Erie v. Paps AM, 529 U.S. 277 (2000) ..................................................................................... 56
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F.C.C. v. Beach Comms, Inc., 508 U.S. 307 (1993) ..................................................................................... 50 Fent v. Henry, 257 P.3d 984 (Okla. 2011) ........................................................................... 76 Finstuen v. Crutcher, 496 F.3d 1139 (10th Cir. 2007) .................................................. 47, 72, 74, 75 Gage v. General Motors Corp., 796 F.2d 345 (10th Cir. 1986) ...................................................................... 73 Garden State Equality v. Dow, 79 A.3d 1036 (N.J. 2013) ............................................................................. 22 Gill v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 699 F. Supp. 2d 374 (D. Mass. 2010)..................................................... 57, 59 Goetz v. Glickman, 149 F.3d 1131 (10th Cir. 1998) .................................................................... 26 Golinski v. U.S. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 824 F. Supp. 2d 968 (N.D. Cal. 2012) ................................................... passim Goodridge v. Dept of Pub. Health, 798 N.E.2d 941 (Mass. 2003) ............................................................. 9, 13, 59 Griego v. Oliver, No. 34,306, 2013 WL 6670704 (N.M. Dec. 19, 2013)........................................................................ 22, 41, 57 Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) ..................................................................................... 64 Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332 (1975) ..................................................................................... 29 Hunt v. Hunt, 100 P. 541 (Okla. 1909) ................................................................................. 3
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Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Social Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173 (1979) ..................................................................................... 29 In re Balas, 449 B.R. 567 (Bankr. C.D. Cal. 2011) ......................................................... 41 In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d 384 (Cal. 2008) .............................................................. 7, 41, 57, 65 Johnson v. Robinson, 415 U.S. 361 (1974) ............................................................................... 50, 60 Kerrigan v. Commr of Pub. Health, 957 A.2d 407 (Conn. 2008) .......................................................................... 41 Kitchen v. Herbert, No. 2:13-cv-217, 2013 WL 6697874 (D. Utah Dec. 20, 2013) ........................................................................ passim Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) .............................................................................. passim Liddell v. Heavner, 180 P.3d 1191 (Okla. 2008) ......................................................................... 78 Local Trans. Workers Union of America v. Keating, 93 P.3d 835 (Okla. 2003) ............................................................................. 78 Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) .................................................................................. passim Manhart v. Manhart, 725 P.2d 1234 (Okla. 1986) ......................................................................... 11 Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) ....................................................................... 68 Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U.S. 495 (1976) ..................................................................................... 50
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McIlravy v. Kerr-Mcgee Coal Corp., 240 F.3d 1031 (10th Cir. 2000) .............................................................. 27, 73 Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) ..................................................................................... 11 Mitchell v. City of Moore, 218 F.3d 1190 (10th Cir. 2000) .................................................................... 27 Mudd v. Perry, 235 P. 479 (Okla. 1925) ........................................................................... 4, 51 National Gay Task Force v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Oklahoma City, 729 F.2d 1270 (10th Cir. 1984) ........................................................ 23, 37, 38 New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U.S. 345 (1921) ....................................................................................... 2 North v. McMahan, 110 P. 1115 (Okla. 1910) ............................................................................. 47 Obergefell v. Wymyslo, No. 1:13-cv-501, 2013 WL 6726688 (S.D. Ohio Dec. 23, 2013) ..................................................................... passim Oklahoma Corr. Profl Assn, Inc. v. Jackson, 280 P.3d 959 (Okla. 2012) ........................................................................... 79 Oklahoma Telecasters Assn v. Crisp, 699 F.2d 490 (10th Cir. 1983) ...................................................................... 29 Park Lake Res. L.L.C. v. U.S. Dept of Agric., 378 F.3d 1132 (10th Cir. 2004) .................................................................... 77 Pederson v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 881 F. Supp.2d 294 (D. Conn. 2012) ............................................... 40, 41, 66 Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F. Supp. 2d 921 (N.D. Cal. 2010) .................................................... 41, 57
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Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925) ..................................................................................... 11 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) ............................................................................... 26, 66 Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) ................................................................... 40, 43, 44, 59 Price-Cornelison v. Brooks, 524 F.3d 1103 (10th Cir. 2008) .................................................. 16, 23, 36, 37 Reaves v. Reaves, 82 P. 490 (Okla. Terr. 1905)........................................................................... 4 Rich v. Secy of the Army, 735 F.2d 1220 (10th Cir. 1984) .................................................................... 37 Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477 (1989) ..................................................................................... 29 Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1995) .............................................................................. passim Ross v. Ross, 54 P.2d 611 (Okla. 1936) ....................................................................... 14, 53 Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 (1942) ..................................................................................... 64 SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Abbott Labs., Nos. 11-17357, 11-17373, 2014 WL 211807 (9th Cir. Jan. 21, 2014) ............................................................... 23, 33, 35, 39 Tanco v. Haslam, No. 3:13-cv-01159 (M.D. Tenn. March 14, 2014) ................................................................ 22, 69 Turner v. Saffley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987) ....................................................................................... 66
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United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996) ................................................................... 24, 38, 41, 42 United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013) .......................................................................... passim Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W.2d 862 (Iowa 2009) ........................................................... 31, 41, 57 Williams v. Bailey, 268 P.2d 868 (Okla. 1954) ........................................................................... 77 Wilson v. Stocker, 819 F.2d 943 (10th Cir. 1987) ...................................................................... 74 Windsor v. United States, 699 F.3d 169 (2d Cir. 2012) ....................................................... 39, 40, 41, 57 Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374 (1978) ............................................................................... 64, 67 STATUTES AND REGULATIONS 1 U.S.C. 7....................................................................................................... 14, 34 5 U.S.C. 8901....................................................................................................... 12 5 U.S.C. 8905....................................................................................................... 12 11 U.S.C. 101....................................................................................................... 12 11 U.S.C. 507....................................................................................................... 12 11 U.S.C. 523....................................................................................................... 12 28 U.S.C. 1291....................................................................................................... 3 28 U.S.C. 1331....................................................................................................... 3
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28 U.S.C. 1343....................................................................................................... 3 28 U.S.C. 1738C .................................................................................................. 14 42 U.S.C. 416....................................................................................................... 12 29 C.F.R. 825.122 ................................................................................................ 12 1975 Okla. Sess. Law ch. 39, 1 ............................................................................ 10 1996 Okla. Sess. Law ch. 131, 9 .......................................................................... 10 Okla. Gen. Stat. ch. 31, 3234 (1908) ..................................................................... 5 Okla. Gen. Stat. ch. 31, 3249 (1908) ............................................................... 3, 51 Okla. Gen. Stat. ch. 31, 3260 (1908) ............................................................... 5, 53 Okla. Stat. tit. 10, 7503-1.1 .................................................................................. 72 Okla. Stat. tit. 10A, 1-4-901 to 1-4-909 ............................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 1 .............................................................................. 3, 51, 55, 62 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 2 .................................................................................... 5, 53, 70 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 3 .......................................................................................... 5, 10 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 3.1 ........................................................................................... 10 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 5 .......................................................................................... 3, 51 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 101 ...................................................................................... 5, 53 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 111.1 ....................................................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 112 .......................................................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 112.5 ....................................................................................... 11
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Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 121 .......................................................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 134 .......................................................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 201 .......................................................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 202 .......................................................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 68, 2353.3 ..................................................................................... 12 Okla. Stat. tit. 75, 11a .......................................................................................... 78 Okla. Stat. tit. 84, 44 ............................................................................................ 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 84, 131 .......................................................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 84, 132 .......................................................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 84, 134 .......................................................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 84, 173 .......................................................................................... 11 Okla. Stat. tit. 84, 213 .......................................................................................... 11 CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS Okla. Const. art. 1, 2 ........................................................................................ 5, 53 Okla. Const. art. 2, 35 .......................................................................... 9, 31, 41, 53 OTHER AUTHORITIES Amicus Br. of 46 Employers and Organizations Representing Employers............ 71 Amicus Br. of American Psychological Association ....................................... 57, 58 Amicus Br. of American Sociological Association .......................................... 57, 58
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Amicus Br. of Constitutional Law Scholars ........................................................... 41 Amicus Br. of Historians of Marriage .............................................................. 54, 61 Amicus Br. of Howard University School of Law Civil Rights Clinic .................. 66 Amicus Br. of Massachusetts et al. .................................................................. 64, 68 Amicus Br. of Outserve-SLDN and the American Military Partner Association ........................................................ 71 Amicus Br. of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays ..................... 71 Bill Information for HB 2259 (2003-2004), www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=HB2259&Session=0400 ........... 8 Brief for the United States on the Merits Questions, United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013) (No. 12-307), 2013 WL 683048 .......................................................................................... 41 Brief on the Merits for Respondent the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives, United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013) (No. 12-307), 2013 WL 267026 ............................. 34 Danny M. Adkison & Lisa McNair Palmer, The Oklahoma State Constitution: A Reference Guide (2001) ...................... 8 Gary J. Gates, LGBT Parenting in the United States (Feb. 2013), available at http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/ uploads/LGBT-Parenting.pdf ....................................................................... 71 Internal Rev. Serv., Rev. Rul. 2013-17......................................................................................... 12 Jane S. Schacter, Courts and the Politics of Backlash: Marriage Equality Litigation, Then and Now, 82 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1153 (2009) ....................................... 9, 10
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Marie Price, Republican Legislators Wary of Same-Sex Ruling, Tulsa World, Feb. 6, 2004 .................................................................................................... 9 National Cemetery Administration Directive 3210/1 (June 4, 2008) ..................... 13 Oklahoma Tax Commission, NOTICE: Oklahoma Income Tax Filing Status for Same Sex Couples (Sept. 27, 2013), available at http://www.tax.ok.gov/upmin092713.html .................................................. 12 Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of Law, 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457 (1897) ............................................ 65 Robert Spector, Oklahoma Family Law: The Handbook (2013).................................... passim U.S. State Department, U.S. Visa for Same-Sex Spouses, available at http://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/DOMA/DOMA%20FAQs.pdf .... 12
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PRIOR OR RELATED APPEALS This Court decided a prior appeal in Bishop v. Oklahoma ex rel. Edmondson, 333 Fed. Appx. 361 (10th Cir. 2009) (unpublished). These present appeals have been assigned to the same panel considering Kitchen v. Herbert, No. 13-4178.
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ISSUES PRESENTED FOR REVIEW In November 2004, Oklahoma voters approved a ballot measure (the Oklahoma Marriage Ban) amending the state constitution to bar same-sex couples from marrying and to bar state recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages. The questions presented are: 1. Whether the Oklahoma Marriage Ban imposes inequality in violation of the Fourteenth Amendments guarantee of equal protection. 2. Whether the Oklahoma Marriage Ban denies the fundamental right to marry in violation of the Fourteenth Amendments guarantee of due process. 3. Whether Plaintiffs Susan Barton and Gay Phillips have standing to bring suit against Defendant to challenge the non-recognition provision of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban.
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INTRODUCTION This is a profoundly important case, but at its heart, it is neither a complicated nor a difficult one. Plaintiffs Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin have lived in Oklahoma throughout their lives, and like countless other committed, loving couples in the state, wish to have their union solemnized in marriage. Plaintiffs Susan Barton and Gay Phillips have lived in Oklahoma for over fifty years, and like numerous other devoted couples married out of state, wish to have their marriage recognized and protected under Oklahoma law. But Oklahoma law denies both couples the dignity and status of immense import that marriage confers, United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675, 2692 (2013), solely because the partner with whom they have united their lives is of the same sex. Based on deeply heldbut constitutionally impermissiblemoral
disapproval, Oklahomas total exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage works far-reaching and real injury on thousands of same-sex couples and their children in the state. Id. at 2688, 2692. As Windsor put it, denying marriage to same-sex couples writes inequality across countless areas of law that confer substantial benefits and obligations based on marital status, and harms as well as humiliates a growing number of children raised by same-sex couples who are legally classified as strangers by their state. Id. at 2694. At the same time, excluding same-sex couples from marriage does nothing to channel opposite-sex
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couples into marriages, promote the stability of such marriages for those couples or their children, or advance any other post-hoc justifications offered on appeal. On the central questions regarding the freedom and equality to marry, a page of history is worth a volume of logic. New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U.S. 345, 349 (1921). More than a century after the Civil War, sixteen states including Oklahomastill refused to extend the fundamental right to marry to interracial couples. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 6 n.5 (1967). It remains the case that times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact only serve to oppress. Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 579 (2003). Today, like Oklahoma, two-thirds of other states exercise their regulatory power over domestic relations to sanction and recognize marriage between virtually any adult coupleold or young, fertile or infertile, committed or notexcept between a minority of citizens who wish to form a family with another adult of the same sex. Yet unanimously after Windsor, courts across the country, including the District Court below in Oklahoma, are arriving at the emerging recognition that laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment. Loving, 388 U.S. at 2. After considering all of the arguments and applicable law, this Court should as well.
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STATEMENT OF JURISDICTION The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1331 and 1343(a)(3). It entered judgment on January 14, 2014. Defendant Sally Howe Smith, Court Clerk for Tulsa County, filed a notice of appeal on January 16, 2014. Plaintiffs Susan Barton and Gay Phillips filed a cross-notice of appeal on January 24, 2014. The jurisdiction of this Court rests on 28 U.S.C. 1291. STATEMENT OF THE CASE I. Oklahoma Marital Law Historically, with a few notable exceptions, marriage in Oklahoma has been an inclusive civil institution. 1. Since statehood in 1907, Oklahoma has defined marriage to be a
personal relationship arising out of a civil contract, which simply requires the consent of the parties legally competent of contracting and entering into it. Okla. Gen. Stat. ch. 31, 3249 (1908); see Hunt v. Hunt, 100 P. 541, 543 (Okla. 1909). That definition remains unchanged. See Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 1; see Robert Spector, Oklahoma Family Law: The Handbook 1 (2013). 2. Legally competent couples have always been able to marry in Oklahoma without difficulty. Couples may obtain a marriage license from the clerk of a district court, as well as a marriage certificate to be filled out by the person solemnizing the union, see Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 5, but because marriage arises from
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a civil contract based on the consent of the parties, no legal forms or religious solemnities are required. Coleman v. James, 169 P. 1064, 1066 (Okla. 1917); see Spector, supra, at 6 (Oklahoma has always held the statutes regulating the form of ceremonial marriages are directory and not mandatory.). In fact, having
recognized common law marriages since before statehood, see Reaves v. Reaves, 82 P. 490 (Okla. Terr. 1905), Oklahoma has never required more than that the minds of the parties meet in a common consent thereto, in which case the marriage immediately arises. Mudd v. Perry, 235 P. 479, 479 (Okla. 1925)
(syllabus by the court),1 superseded on other grounds as recognized in Copeland v. State, 842 P.2d 754, 757-59 (Okla. 1992). 3. Marriage in Oklahoma has been open to almost all adults. The list of those not legally competent to marry has not been long. Like other states, Oklahoma has excluded adults (age 18 or over) who (1) lack the mental capacity to enter into a marriage contract, (2) are related too closely by blood, or (3) are already married. See Ross v. Ross, 54 P.2d 611 (Okla. 1936) (mental capacity); Okla. Const. art. 1, 2 (polygamy); Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 2 (consanguinity); Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 3 (age).
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1
The syllabus prepared by the Oklahoma Supreme Court is precedential as the law adopted by the court. 1942 Chevrolet Auto., Motor No. BA193397 v. State ex rel. Cline, 136 P.2d 395, 397 (Okla. 1943).
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No Oklahoma law or judicial decision, from statehood to the present day, has conditioned marriage on the intent or capability to beget children or raise them. And in mirror image to the ability of the vast majority of Oklahomans to enter into marriage virtually at will, Oklahoma has provided for no-fault divorce based on incompatibility since 1953, the second state to do so at the time. Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 101; see Spector, supra, at 30. 4. Only two classes of otherwise legally competent Oklahoma adults have been barred from marrying: any person of African descent . . . to any person not of African descent, Okla. Gen. Stat. ch. 31, 3260 (1908), and couples of the same sex. Unlike the anti-miscegenation law, which existed since statehood,
Oklahoma did not adopt specific provisions barring same-sex marriage or marriage recognition until 1975, 1996, and 2004, in response to judicial decisions around the country addressing the constitutionality of same-sex marriage for the first time in this Nations history. See p. 10 & n.3, infra.2 The invalidity of the miscegenation prohibition was acknowledged by the Oklahoma Supreme Court after Loving, see Dick v. Reaves, 434 P.2d 295 (Okla. 1967), and the validity of the same-sex marriage prohibition is the subject of this litigation.
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2
As Defendant notes (Aplt. Principal Br. at 5), Oklahoma law since statehood has referred to the parties to a marriage contract as husband and wife, Okla. Gen. Stat. ch. 31, 3234 (1908), but that nomenclature is unremarkable given that only recently has a new perspective, a new insight emerged challenging the historical assumption that marriage is only between a man and a woman. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2689.
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II.
The Plaintiffs 1. Plaintiffs Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin have lived as a family in
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, in a committed, continuous relationship for over fifteen years. Both have deep Oklahoma roots. Ms. Bishop is a sixth-generation
Oklahoman whose great-great-great grandparents settled in the territory before statehood, and Ms. Baldwin is a fourth-generation Oklahoman whose greatgrandparents and grandmother came to the state in a covered wagon. Both were raised and educated in Oklahoma, and both have worked since the 1990s for the states second-largest newspaper, the Tulsa World, where they are editors. (Aplt. App. 106-108). In 2000, to solemnize their permanent relationship, Ms. Bishop and Ms. Baldwin exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony. (Aplt. App. 107).
Nevertheless, because of their conviction that marriage is an institution to be respected, and that it is the only status that will signify the equality of their relationship with those of married couples, Ms. Bishop and Ms. Baldwin have deeply desire[d] to wed. (Aplt. App. 108). In 2009, they sought a marriage license from the Court Clerk for Tulsa County. They were legally competent to marry in every respect but one. The Court Clerk refused to grant Ms. Bishop and Ms. Baldwin a marriage license based on the state constitutions ban on same-sex marriage. (Aplt. App. 47, 107-109).
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2. Plaintiffs Susan Barton and Gay Phillips have lived in Oklahoma for over fifty years, and have been living as a family in a continuous, committed relationship for half of their lives. (Aplt. App. 144). They reside in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, and run a companyBarton, Phillips and Associates, Inc.that provides training and assistance nationwide to organizations that serve runaway and homeless teens. Dr. Phillips has a doctorate in sociology, and Ms. Barton is an adjunct professor at Tulsa Community College, where, among other subjects, she teaches a course on Building Relationships. (Aplt. App. 144-145). In 2001, after Vermont became the first state to recognize civil unions for same-sex couples, Ms. Barton and Dr. Phillips traveled there to commit to each other in a civil union. (Aplt. App. 144). In 2005, after a series of judicial
decisions in Canadian provinces extended the right to marry to same-sex couples, Ms. Barton and Dr. Phillips traveled to British Columbia and wed under Canadian law. (Id.) Then, in 2008, after the California Supreme Court invalidated its state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couplesand thereby extended the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage to samesex couples, In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d 384, 399 (Cal. 2008)Ms. Barton and Dr. Phillips traveled to California and married under that states law. (Aplt. App. 144). All this they did to strive for the same legal and social status as other married couples in Oklahoma. Nevertheless, upon their return to Oklahoma, Ms.
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Barton and Dr. Phillips immediately became legal strangers to each other in their home state. (Aplt. App. 145). III. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban 1. In Oklahoma, the state constitution may be amended by constitutional convention, initiative petition, or legislative proposal. See Danny M. Adkison & Lisa McNair Palmer, The Oklahoma State Constitution: A Reference Guide 298-99 (2001). If a legislative proposal to amend the Oklahoma Constitution passes by majority vote in both the State House and the State Senate, it is submitted to the voters as a state question at the next general election. See id. at 298. 2. On November 2, 2004, Oklahoma voters approved State Question 711 by a margin of 1,075,216 to 347,303 votes. See Bishop v. United States ex rel.
Holder, No. 04-cv-848-TCK-TLW, 2014 WL 116013, at *1 n.1 (N.D. Okla. Jan. 14, 2014). That legislative proposal had passed the Oklahoma House 92 to 4 and the Oklahoma Senate 38 to 7. See Bill Information for HB 2259 (2003-2004), www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=HB2259&Session=0400 (last visited March 15, 2014). State Question 711 amended the Oklahoma Constitution to add the following provisions: Marriage DefinedConstruction of law and ConstitutionRecognition of out-of-state marriagesPenalty
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A.
Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman. Neither this Constitution nor any other provision of law shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups. A marriage between persons of the same gender performed in another state shall not be recognized as valid and binding in this state as of the date of the marriage. Any person knowingly issuing a marriage license in violation of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
B.
C.
Okla. Const. art. 2, 35 (Oklahoma Marriage Ban). The definitional provision (referred to below as Part A) limits marriage in Oklahoma to opposite-sex unions, and the non-recognition provision (referred to below as Part B) prohibits recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages. 3. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban was part of a wave of state constitutional amendmentstwenty-six totaladopted in the wake of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courts decision in Goodridge v. Dept of Pub. Health, 798 N.E.2d 941 (Mass. 2003). See Marie Price, Republican Legislators Wary of SameSex Ruling, Tulsa World, Feb. 6, 2004; Jane S. Schacter, Courts and the Politics of Backlash: Marriage Equality Litigation, Then and Now, 82 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1153, 1188-89 (2009). The first judicial decision in the United States to hold that civil marriage could not be denied to same-sex couples, Goodridge based its ruling on the guarantees of due process and equal protection afforded to all individuals under the Massachusetts Constitution. 798 N.E.2d. at 948, 961.
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Oklahoma, like many other states, already had statutory provisions barring same-sex marriage.3 But as the Oklahoma Senate explained in a press release upon passage of the legislation to place the Oklahoma Marriage Ban on the ballot, proponents of the measure believed it necessary to provide constitutional protections to traditional marriage to combat efforts by liberals and activist judges seeking to redefine marriage by allowing same-sex unions. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *23 (quoting Senate Passes Marriage Protection Amendment, Oklahoma State Senate (April 15, 2004), available at www.oksenate.gov/news/ press_releases/press_releases_2004/pr20040415.html); accord Aplt. Principal Br. at 35.
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3
First, Section 3(A) of Title 43 of the Oklahoma Statutes already provided that [a]ny unmarried person who is at least eighteen (18) years of age and not otherwise disqualified is capable of contracting and consenting to marriage with a person of the opposite sex. Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 3(A) (emphasis added). The italicized language was added in 1975 following Baker v. Nelson, 191 N.W.2d 185 (Minn. 1971), appeal dismissed, 409 U.S. 810 (1972), the first (unsuccessful) lawsuit in the United States by a same-sex couple seeking access to the right to marry. See 1975 Okla. Sess. Law ch. 39, 1. Second, Section 3.1 of Title 43 also provided that [a] marriage between persons of the same gender performed in another state shall not be recognized as valid and binding in this state as of the date of the marriage. Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 3.1 (emphasis added). Enacted in 1996, this provision was part of a wave of federal and state laws (the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), 110 Stat. 2419, and state mini-DOMAs) responding to the Hawaii Supreme Courts decision in Baehr v. Lewin that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples was sex-based discrimination subject to strict scrutiny under the state constitution. See 852 P.2d 44, 67 (Haw. 1996); 1996 Okla. Sess. Law ch. 131, 9; Schacter, supra, at 1185-86.
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IV.
Marital Benefits, Protections, And Status The impact of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban on same-sex couples is stark and
often extreme. The benefits, protections, and status that marriage confers under state and federal law span nearly every stage and aspect of life. 1. As the foundation of the States regulation of domestic relations,
marriage gives rise to a host of rights and responsibilities, including mutual obligations of respect, fidelity, and financial support; 4 ownership of marital property,5 and the presumption that property acquired during marriage is such property; 6 inheritance and intestacy protections for a spouse 7 or child of the deceased;8 parental rights9 and protections against their termination;10 alimony11 and child support; 12 and child custody 13 and visitation rights. 14 These and
countless other legal benefits and protections extend automatically in Oklahoma to married couples and their children, whom the State has not made a stranger to its laws. Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 635 (1995).
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4 5
See Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 201, 202. See id. 121. 6 See Manhart v. Manhart, 725 P.2d 1234, 1240 (Okla. 1986). 7 See Okla. State. tit. 84, 44, 213. 8 See id. 131, 132, 134, 173, 213. 9 See Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923). 10 See Okla. Stat. tit. 10A, 1-4-901 to 1-4-909. 11 See Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 121, 134. 12 See id. 112. 13 See id. 112.5 14 See id. 111.1.
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2. As the Supreme Court observed in Windsor, over 1,000 federal laws and numerous federal regulations turn on marital status. See id. at 2690, 2694. Among the federal benefits unavailable to same-sex couples in Oklahomawhether or not validly married elsewhereare Social Security benefits for a surviving spouse,15 and family medical leave to care of a sick spouse.16 Both may be claimed only by those recognized as married in their state of residence. Federal benefits denied to same-sex couples who wish to marry but cannot because of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban include joint filing of federal tax returns;17 health insurance benefits for the spouse of a federal employee;18 consideration as a spouse for immigration purposes;
19
protection of spousal domestic support obligations under the
Bankruptcy Code; 20 and burial as a spouse alongside a servicemember in a
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15 16
See 42 U.S.C. 416(h)(1)(A)(i). See 29 C.F.R. 825.122(b). 17 See Internal Rev. Serv., Rev. Rul. 2013-17, at 12-13, available at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rr-13-17.pdf. Furthermore, for same-sex couples married out of state, the Oklahoma Tax Commission refuses to accept their joint federal filing status for state filing purposes, even though the governing state statute provides that the federal filing status should control. See Okla. Stat. tit. 68, 2353.3; NOTICE: Oklahoma Income Tax Filing Status for Same Sex Couples, Oklahoma Tax Commission (Sept. 27, 2013), available at http://www.tax.ok.gov/upmin092713.html. 18 See 5 U.S.C. 8901(5), 8905. 19 See U.S. Visa for Same-Sex Spouses, U.S. State Dept, available at http://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/DOMA/DOMA%20FAQs.pdf. 20 See 11 U.S.C. 101(14A), 507(a)(1)(A), 523(a)(5), 523(a)(15).
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veterans cemetery.21 3. Of course, as numerous, diverse, and valuable as the above legal benefits and protections are, they do not embrace the total injury suffered by same-sex couples from their inability to marry or have their marriages recognized in Oklahoma. As a matter of state law, Plaintiffs and other committed same-sex couples in Oklahoma cannot attain a status for their relationship that universally represents at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. Goodridge, 798 N.E.2d at 954. V. Procedural History 1. Plaintiffs filed suit in late 2004, following the adoption of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban. Both couples sought a declaration that the definitional provision of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiffs Barton and Phillips also sought a declaration that the non-recognition provision violates those same guarantees. Plaintiffs subsequently requested a permanent injunction enjoining enforcement of both provisions. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *4-5.22
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21
See National Cemetery Administration Directive 3210/1, p. 37 (June 4, 2008), available at http://www.dva.wa.gov/PDF%20files/3210-1_Directive.pdf. 22 Plaintiffs also challenged Sections 2 and 3 of DOMA on federal due process and equal protection grounds. In its ruling, the District Court held that Plaintiffs challenge to Section 3 of DOMA, which defined marriage for purposes of federal
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2. The original defendants, the Oklahoma Attorney General and Oklahoma Governor, moved to dismiss on sovereign immunity grounds. The District Court denied the motion, holding that suit was proper under the doctrine of Ex parte Young. See id. This Court reversed. On appeal, the Oklahoma officials
challenged only the failure to dismiss based on sovereign immunity. However, this Court examined Article III standing sua sponte. In its opinion, this Court
concluded that the plaintiffs failed to name a defendant having a causal connection to their alleged injury that is redressable by a favorable court decision. Bishop v. Oklahoma ex rel. Edmondson, 333 Fed. Appx. 361, 364 (10th Cir. 2009) (unpublished). It reasoned that the named Oklahoma officials had no specific duty to enforce the Oklahoma Marriage Ban. Id. at 365. Rather, this Court observed, the recognition of marriages [in Oklahoma] is within the administration of the judiciary, and particularly, the district court clerk is judicial personnel
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law to mean only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, 1 U.S.C. 7, was rendered moot by the Supreme Courts invalidation of that provision in Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2675. See Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *4, 913. As for Plaintiffs challenge to Section 2, which provides that no state shall be required to give effect to out-of-state same-sex marriages, 28 U.S.C. 1738C, the District Court ruled that Plaintiffs Barton and Phillips, who challenged that provision, lack standing because Section 2 is an entirely permissive federal law that does not cause the couples injury of Oklahomas non-recognition of their California marriage. See Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *7. Because Plaintiffs do not cross-appeal either of these rulings, this brief will not further discuss the procedural history or rulings relating to DOMA.
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and is an arm of the court. Id. (quoting Speight v. Presley, 203 P.3d 173, 177 (Okla. 2008)). 3. On remand, pursuant to this Courts opinion, Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, replacing the above defendants with Sally Howe Smith (Defendant), in her official capacity as Court Clerk for Tulsa County. 116013, at *3. Bishop, 2014 WL
The parties subsequently filed cross-motions for summary
judgment. The Supreme Court then decided Windsor. Following Windsor, the District Court decided the parties motions on January 14, 2014. VI. The District Court Decision 1. The District Court held that the Oklahoma Marriage Bans restriction of marriage to the union of one man and one woman violates the Fourteenth Amendments guarantee of equal protection. a. As a preliminary matter, the District Court concluded that the Supreme Courts summary dismissal in Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810 (1972), is no longer binding precedent. In Baker, the Supreme Court summarily dismissed an appeal from the Minnesota Supreme Courts ruling that the states restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples did not violate the Due Process or Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court joined every federal court to have addressed the precedential status of Baker after Windsor in recognizing that the relevant constitutional landscape has evolved significantly
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since 1972.
The questions summarily dismissed in Baker, the District Court
concluded, are now substantial. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *16. b. Turning to Plaintiffs equal protection challenge, the District Court found the Oklahoma Marriage Bans disparate impact on same-sex couples to be both stark (the total exclusion of every same-sex couple in Oklahoma from receiving a marriage license, and no other couple) and intentional (a classic, class-based equal protection case in which a line was purposefully drawn between two groups of Oklahoma citizens). Id. at *21, 23. In determining the level of scrutiny, the District Court disagreed with Plaintiffs pre-Windsor argument that the Oklahoma Marriage Ban constitutes gender discrimination and therefore requires intermediate scrutiny. Instead, the District Court concluded that the intentional discrimination at issue is best described as sexual-orientation discrimination, and should receive rational basis review under this Courts decision in Price-Cornelison v. Brooks, 524 F.3d 1103 (10th Cir. 2008). Id. at *24-25. Allowing for the deferential nature of rational basis review, the District Court nonetheless concluded after a thorough examination of conceivable and asserted justifications for the Oklahoma Marriage Ban that [r]ationality has its limits, and this well exceeds it. Id. at *30. The District Court first considered the state interest in promoting morality. The District Court found as a matter of law that this interest, though not
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advanced by Defendant in litigation, was a prominent justification offered to the public prior to passage of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban. Id. at *26. The District Court recognized that moral disapproval can stem from deeply held religious convictions, but noted that moral disapproval of homosexuals as a class, or of same-sex marriage as a practice, is not a permissible justification under Lawrence. Id. at *27. The District Court next addressed two related justifications for the Oklahoma Marriage Ban advanced by Defendant: encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing, and steering naturally procreative relationships into marriage. Id. at *28. Accepting only for purposes of analysis that Oklahoma has a legitimate interest in procreation within marriages and reduc[ing] the number of children born out of wedlock, the District Court found the marriage ban unrelated to these interests for a number of reasons. Among them, the District Court observed that there is no rational link between excluding same-sex couples from marriage and the asserted goals, as [m]arriage is incentivized for naturally procreative couples to precisely the same extent regardless of whether same-sex couples (or other non-procreative couples) are included. Id. at *29. Furthermore, relying on City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432 (1985), the District Court reasoned that, because the state does not exclude the infertile, the elderly, and those who simply do not wish to ever procreate from marriage
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despite its naturally procreative justification, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban is so grossly underinclusive that it is irrational and arbitrary. Bishop, 2014 WL
116013, at *30. If anything, the District Court noted, given that 1,280 same-sex households in Oklahoma reported having children as of the 2010 U.S. Census, the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage hinders rather than promotes the goal of reducing children born out of wedlock. Id. at *29. The District Court then considered Defendants argument that the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage promotes the optimal child-rearing environment. Id. at *30 (quotations and capitalizations omitted). The District Court assumed (again only for the sake of analysis) that the ideal environment for raising children consists of opposite-sex, married, biological parents, and that promoting this ideal constitutes a legitimate state interest. Id. at *31 (quotations omitted). Yet, the District Court noted, [e]xclusion from marriage does not make it more likely that a same-sex couple desiring children, or already raising children together, will change course and marry an opposite-sex partner (thereby providing the ideal child-rearing environment). Id. Nor does the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage do anything to promote stability in heterosexual parenting. Id. (quotations omitted). Indeed, considering the impact of the
Oklahoma Marriage Ban on Oklahoma children, the District Court underscored that [i]t is more likely that any potential or existing child will be raised by the
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same-sex couple without any state-provided benefits and without being able to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community. Id. (quoting Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694). Finally, the District Court addressed Defendants argument that
fundamentally redefining marriage to include same-sex couples could have a severe and negative impact on the institution as a whole. Id. at *32 (quotations omitted). Considering that the State has already opened the courthouse doors to opposite-sex couples to marry without any moral, procreative, parenting, or fidelity requirements, the District Court concluded that the Oklahoma Marriage Bans [e]xclusion of just one class of citizens from receiving a marriage license based upon the perceived threat they pose to the marriage institution is, at bottom, an arbitrary exclusion based upon the majoritys disapproval of the defined class, and insulting to same-sex couples, who are human beings capable of forming loving, committed, and enduring relationships. Id. 2. Because the District Court struck down the Oklahoma Marriage Ban on equal protection grounds, it did not reach Plaintiffs claim that the exclusion also deprives them of the fundamental right to marry in violation of due process. But the District Court did observe that if the Oklahoma Marriage Ban does burden a fundamental right, it certainly would not withstand any degree of heightened scrutiny. Id. at *24 n.33.
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3. The District Court also determined that Plaintiffs Barton and Phillips lack standing to challenge the non-recognition provision of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban. The District Court acknowledged that this Court had implicitly directed Plaintiffs to sue the court clerk in place of the Governor and Attorney General. Id. at *3. Nevertheless, the District Court found that an affidavit filed by Defendant in support of her cross-motion for summary judgment, in which she contradicted the admission in her answer that she is the official responsible for enforcement of the laws challenged by Plaintiffs First Amended Complaint (Aplt. App. 46), constituted an unconverted denial of any connection to the injury by the sued state official. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *14. 4. The District Court permanently enjoined enforcement of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban against same-sex couples seeking a marriage license, but stayed its order pending the final disposition of any appeal to this Court. Id. at *33. SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT As the Supreme Court acknowledged last term in Windsor, states traditionally enjoy broad authority to define and regulate marriage. But Windsor also underscored that the exercise of such authority is subject to constitutional guarantees. 133 S. Ct. at 2692. Citing Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court observed that [s]tate laws defining and regulating marriage, of course, must respect the constitutional rights of persons. Id. at 2691. And [a] citation to
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Loving, the District Court recognized, is a disclaimer of enormous proportion. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *18. Indeed, Windsor itself capped a landmark trilogy of Supreme Court decisions, which together make clear two governing principles. First, imposing a broad and undifferentiated disability on gays and lesbians as a class, Romer, 517 U.S. at 632, in disapproval of their most intimate and personal choices, Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 574 (quotations omitted), offends the Fourteenth Amendments guarantees of liberty and equality. Second, when the disability is the denial of the dignity and status of marriage, the constitutional injury is exacerbatedrather than exemptedas the perpetuation of a historical tradition of discrimination. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2692. Consequently, though Windsor did not directly confront the questions presented today, the clear language and inexorable logic of the Romer-LawrenceWindsor trilogy has guided every federal court that has confronted them after Windsor to hold that state bans on marriage and marriage recognition for same-sex couples violate the Fourteenth Amendment.23 The District Courts invalidation of
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23
See De Leon v. Perry, No. 5:13-cv-00982-OLG, 2014 WL 715741 (W.D. Tex. Feb. 26, 2014) (finding Texas bans violate due process and equal protection); Bostic v. Rainey, No. 2:13-cv-395, 2014 WL 561978 (E.D. Va. Feb. 13, 2014) (finding Virginia bans violate due process and equal protection); Bourke v. Beshear, No. 3:13-cv-750-H, 2014 WL 556729 (W.D. Ky. Feb. 12, 2014) (finding Kentucky bans violate equal protection); Bishop, 2014 WL 116013 (finding Oklahoma ban violates equal protection); Obergefell v. Wymyslo, No. 1:13-cv-501,
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Oklahomas ban on same-sex marriage joins this emerging awareness that the Constitution demands no less. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 572. That ruling should be upheld for the following reasons. 1. Oklahomas exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage denies equal protection. a. The District Court concluded that the Oklahoma Marriage Bans
discrimination against same-sex couples is best described as sexual orientation discrimination. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *25. That conclusion is correct. The record surrounding passage of the measure and its disparate impact on a single class of Oklahomansthose who love and desire to marry someone of the same sexestablishes that the avowed purpose and practical effect of the ban is to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma on the basis of sexual orientation. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693. b. It is now clear that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation triggers heightened scrutiny. By words and deeds, the Supreme Court in the
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2013 WL 6726688 (S.D. Ohio Dec. 23, 2013) (finding Ohio bans violate equal protection); Kitchen v. Herbert, No. 2:13-cv-217, 2013 WL 6697874 (D. Utah Dec. 20, 2013) (finding Utah bans violate due process and equal protection); cf. Griego v. Oliver, No. 34,306, 2013 WL 6670704 (N.M. Dec. 19, 2013) (finding New Mexico bans violate state equal protection); Garden State Equality v. Dow, 79 A.3d 1036 (N.J. 2013) (denying stay of lower court injunction extending marriage to same-sex couples on state equal protection grounds); see also Tanco v. Haslam, No. 3:13-cv-01159 (M.D. Tenn. March 14, 2014) (memorandum) (preliminarily enjoining state bans as likely unconstitutional)."
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Romer-Lawrence-Windsor trilogy subjected laws singling out gays and lesbians for unequal treatmentthereby exemplifying [d]iscriminations of an unusual characterto careful consideration to determine whether they were based on improper animus or purpose. Id. at 2692, 2693 (quoting Romer, 517 U.S. at 633 (additional quotations omitted)). In none of these cases did the Supreme Court entertain any conceivable post-hoc justification that might salvage an otherwise illegitimate enactment, as is the hallmark of traditional rational basis review. See Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2706 (Scalia, J., dissenting) ([T]he Court certainly does not apply anything that resembles that deferential framework.); accord SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Abbott Labs., Nos. 11-17357, 11-17373, 2014 WL 211807, at *5-9 (9th Cir. Jan. 21, 2014). Well before Romer, Lawrence, and Windsor, this Court rejected the view that a classification based on the choice of sexual partners is suspect, and accordingly applied something less than a strict scrutiny test. National Gay Task Force v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Oklahoma City, 729 F.2d 1270, 1273 (10th Cir. 1984) (emphasis added). That decision did not mandate rational basis review or foreclose some other form of heightened scrutiny for sexual orientation classifications. However, in subsequent cases, including Price-Cornelison, 524 F.3d at 1113-14, this Court misread National Gay Task Force and its progeny as
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circuit precedent adopting rational basis review. Regardless, Romer, Lawrence, and Windsor constitute superseding precedents. c. The Supreme Court has yet to define the contours of the heightened scrutiny applied in the Romer-Lawrence-Windsor trilogy beyond at least careful consideration of actual purpose to smoke out improper ones. In fact, intermediate scrutiny should be the appropriate level of review. In all critical respects
including a long history of severe discrimination against gays and lesbians that persists todayclassifications on the basis of sexual orientation warrant the same level of skepticism, and demand the same level of justification, as discrimination on the basis of gender. Cf. United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996). d. In addition to triggering heightened scrutiny as a sexual orientation
classification, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban also triggers intermediate scrutiny as a gender classification, and strict scrutiny as a classification that burdens Plaintiffs exercise of the fundamental right to marry. e. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban fails both heightened and strict scrutiny because its purpose and effect is to entrench marriage inequality against same-sex couples based on moral disapproval. Surveying the history surrounding the
enactment of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, the District Court determined as a matter of law that moral disapproval of same-sex marriage was promoted as reason for legislators and voters to support the adoption of the ballot measure. But
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as the District Court properly recognized, although the Oklahoma Marriage Ban rationally promotes the States interest in upholding one particular moral definition of marriage, this is not a permissible justification. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *28; see Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 577. f. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban fails even rational basis review because excluding same-sex couples from marriage does not promote the post-hoc justifications offered in this litigation. On appeal, Defendant asserts that the
Oklahoma Marriage Ban was adopted to affirm a longstanding public purpose of channeling the presumptive procreative potential of man-woman relationships into committed unions for the benefit of children and society. Aplt. Principal Br. at 15. Defendants peculiar and impoverished characterization of the public purpose of marriage in Oklahoma diminishes and demeans the profound significance of marriage to millions of Oklahomans who do not exchange lifelong vows of commitment merely to avoid begetting unintended children out of wedlock. Aplt. Principal Br. at 47. But in any case, it is irrationalindeed, fantasticalto claim that allowing committed same-sex couples to marry, and thereby attain for themselves and their children all the dignity, benefits, and protections of marriage, would somehow discourage opposite-sex couples from marrying before having children or from raising their children in a loving family.
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2. Oklahomas denial of the fundamental right to marry to same-sex couples offends due process. a. There is no disputing that the right to marry is fundamental. Defendant contends that Plaintiffs seek recognition of a new right to same-sex marriage, Aplt. Principal Br. at 37-41, but this argument repeats the Bowers v. Hardwick failure to appreciate the extent of the liberty at stake. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 567. Plaintiffs seek to exercise the same basic and cherished right enjoyed by the vast majority of other loving and committed adults. As is sometimes painfully obvious in hindsight, the historical exclusion of a class from the enjoyment of a right signifies not that the right falls short of that class, but that our society has yet to realize the full promise of that right. Cf. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) (Harlan, J., dissenting) (Our Constitution . . . neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.). b. Because the Oklahoma Marriage Ban burdens Plaintiffs exercise of the fundamental right to marry, it triggers strict scrutiny, demanding narrow tailoring to advance a compelling state interest. See Goetz v. Glickman, 149 F.3d 1131, 1140 (10th Cir. 1998). But the ban cannot pass even rational basis review, much less strict scrutiny, given its essential irrationality. 3. The Oklahoma Marriage Bans non-recognition provision violates the Fourteenth Amendments guarantees of due process and equal protection. Like
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DOMA, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban offends due process by stripping married same-sex couples entering Oklahoma of a dignity and status of immense import conferred by another state when they exercised their fundamental right to marry. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2692. Furthermore, like DOMA, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban offends equal protection by identify[ing] a subset of state-sanctioned marriages and mak[ing] them unequal to those accorded the dignity, benefits, and protections of state recognition. Id. at 2694. Oklahoma cannot justify the harm and havoc wrought by such non-recognition under any level of scrutiny. 4. Plaintiffs Barton and Phillips have standing to sue Defendant to challenge the non-recognition provision of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban. The District Court acknowledged that this Court previously had implicitly directed Plaintiffs to sue the court clerk in place of the Governor and Attorney General. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *3; see Bishop, 333 Fed. Appx. at 365. This Courts ruling is law of the case, and moreover is correct. See McIlravy v. Kerr-McGee Coal Corp., 240 F.3d 1031, 1034 (10th Cir. 2000). 5. Defendants argument that Plaintiffs lack causation and redressability because they only challenge the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, but not earlier statutory prohibitions, is meritless. As a matter of Oklahoma law, the state constitutional provisions replaced the preceding statutes as the exclusive provisions governing same-sex marriage.
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6. The definition and non-recognition provisions of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban are mutually reinforcing in effectuating a total exclusion of same-sex couples from the institution of marriage in Oklahoma. Neither is severable from the other. STANDARD OF REVIEW This Court reviews the grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same legal standard as the District Court. See Mitchell v. City of Moore, 218 F.3d 1190, 1197 (10th Cir. 2000). In doing so, this Court may affirm on any grounds adequately supported by the record, even grounds not relied on by the district court. Elwell v. Byers, 699 F.3d 1208, 1213 (10th Cir. 2012). ARGUMENT24 I. Baker v. Nelson Is Not Controlling. Defendant relies on a summary dismissal by the Supreme Court in 1972, Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810 (1972), to argue that the questions before this Court today are foreclosed by that limited disposition as insubstantial. Principal Br. at 20-23. This reliance is misplaced. First, as the Supreme Court itself has cautioned, summary affirmances have considerably less precedential value than an opinion on the merits. Illinois State
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 24 "Much of the argument that follows applies to both Plaintiffs response in No. 14-
See Aplt.
5003 and Plaintiffs cross-appeal in No. 14-5006. For the sake of economy, Plaintiffs will not separate or repeat arguments applicable to both. The only arguments solely applicable to Plaintiffs Barton and Phillips cross-appeal are Part IV (the merits of their challenge to the non-recognition provision of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban) and Part V.A (their standing to bring that challenge)."
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Bd. of Elections v. Social Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 180-81 (1979). Accordingly, no more may be read into [a summary affirmance] than was essential to sustain that judgment, id., and, when doctrinal developments indicate otherwise, lower courts should not adhere to the view that if the Court has branded a question as unsubstantial, it remains so. Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 345 (1975); see Oklahoma Telecasters Assn v. Crisp, 699 F.2d 490, 495 (10th Cir. 1983) (summary affirmances are only binding until doctrinal developments or direct decisions by the Supreme Court indicate otherwise) (emphasis added), revd on other grounds, Capital Cities Cable, Inc. v. Crisp, 467 U.S. 691 (1984).25 Second, time has not stood still since 1972, and neither has the Supreme Courts governing equal protection and due process jurisprudence. Among other milestones, the Supreme Court (1) established a heightened, intermediate level of equal protection scrutiny for classifications that discriminate on the basis of gender, see Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 197 (1976), or that discriminate against
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25
Defendant quotes Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484 (1989), for the proposition that a summary affirmanceno matter how questionable in light of subsequent developmentsis binding on lower courts until expressly overruled by the Supreme Court. Aplt. Principal Br. at 21-22. However, Rodriguez de Quijas was referring not to summary affirmances, but to cases decided on the Supreme Courts plenary docket by full opinion after oral argument. See Rodriguez de Quijas , 490 U.S. at 484 (overruling Wilko v. Swan, 346 U.S. 427 (1953)). It is therefore irrelevant to the exception articulated in Hicks. Defendants reliance on Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203 (1997), is inapt for the same reason. See id. at 325 (overruling Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U.S. 402 (1985)).
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nonmarital children, see Clark v. Jeter, 486 U.S. 456, 461 (1988); (2) held, again as a matter of equal protection, that a state law imposing a broad and undifferentiated disability on gays and lesbians demanded careful
consideration, and failed that heightened scrutiny because the law was based on animus, Romer, 517 U.S. at 632; (3) held that due process protects the most intimate and personal choices a person may make, whether homosexual or heterosexual, and that moral disapproval is not a legitimate state interest that can justify government intrusion into those choices, Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 578; and (4) ruled that a federal law denying same-sex couples the equal dignity of marriage for themselves and their children violates basic due process and equal protection principles. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693. Third, as discussed below, these doctrinal developments not only make the questions presented substantial, they make the answers clear. That is why,
notwithstanding Baker, every federal court decision after Windsor has both reached the merits and ruled that state bans on same-sex marriage and marriage recognition offend the Fourteenth Amendment. See pp. 21-22 n.23, supra.
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II.
Oklahomas Exclusion Of Same-Sex Couples From Marriage Denies Equal Protection. A. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Discriminates On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation, Which Triggers Heightened Scrutiny Under Romer, Lawrence, And Windsor.
1. By defining marriage to consist only of the union of one man and one woman, Okla. Const. art. 2, 35(A), the Oklahoma Marriage Ban excludes samesex couples like Plaintiffs from one of the most personally meaningful, socially significant, and legally consequential relationships recognized by the State. This exclusion, in the District Courts words, gives rise to a classic, class-based equal protection case in which a line was purposefully drawn between two groups of Oklahoma citizens. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *23. The District Court further described the line drawn as sexual orientation discrimination. Id. at *25. It is. Plaintiffs and other same-sex couples in Oklahoma satisfy every criteria for obtaining a marriage license but onesingled out by the banthat turns on their core sexual identity. As the Supreme Court of Iowa concluded with respect to a similar state law, the relationships being excluded from marriage are so closely correlated with being homosexual as to make it apparent the law is targeted at gays and lesbians as a class. Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W.2d 862, 885 (Iowa 2009) (quoting Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 583 (OConnor, J., concurring)). Defendant contends that the line drawn is a couple-based procreativerelated distinction rather than a sexual orientation classification, Aplt. Principal
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Br. at 45, but this contention cannot be taken seriously. The line is certainly couple-based (taking two to marry), but devoid of any procreative-related distinction. That distinction pervades Defendants brief as a justification for the Oklahoma Marriage Bans discrimination against gays and lesbians, but it is conspicuously absent from the text of the measure, which permits any union of one man and one woman regardless of whether the couple has the intent or the capability to procreate. 2. Read together, Romer, Lawrence, and Windsor point the way toward heightened scrutiny of laws imposing a broad and undifferentiated disability against gays and lesbians, Romer, 517 U.S. at 632; burdening their most intimate and personal choices, Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 574; or denying them equal dignity in marriage. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693. Because these laws exemplify [d]iscriminations of an usual character, Windsor makes clear that they at least require careful consideration to determine whether they are motivated by an improper animus or purpose that would violate[] basic due process and equal protection principles. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693 (emphasis added; quotations omitted). Windsor did not give its scrutiny an explicit label. But as the Ninth Circuit recently recognizedin the first court of appeals decision after Windsor to consider the level of review for sexual orientation discriminationthe Supreme
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Court by its words and its deeds performed a searching inquiry that was unquestionably higher than rational basis review. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 2014 WL 211807, at *5-9. The Supreme Court laid the foundation of this scrutiny in Romer, where it reviewed a state constitutional amendment that repealed and barred state protections againstand only againstsexual orientation discrimination. The
Supreme Court initially considered whether the provision bore a rational relationship to some legitimate end. Romer, 517 U.S. at 631. But because this sweeping amendment classifies homosexuals in order to make them unequal to everyone else, the Supreme Court found that it defies and confounds conventional equal protection analysis. Id. at 632, 633, 635; see id. at 640 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (observing that the majority was not utilizing normal rational basis review). Instead, applying careful consideration to determine the actual purpose of this discrimination, the Supreme Court found it inexplicable by anything but animus toward the class it affects, and therefore obnoxious to the guarantee of equal protection. Id. at 632, 633. Building on Romer, the Supreme Court in Lawrence took the same careful, focused approach to determining whether a state law that criminalized the private intimate sexual conduct of same-sex couplesbut not opposite-sex couples infringed on their liberty in violation of due process. The Supreme Court again
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closely examined whether the actual purpose of the law could justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual, and invalidated the law on the ground that moral disapproval of the intimate choices of same-sex couples was not a legitimate state interest. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 577, 578 (quotations omitted); see id. at 586 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (describing the majority as apply[ing] an unheard-of form of rational-basis review that will have farreaching implications beyond this case). And last term in Windsor, the Supreme Court most clearly and vigorously applied this heightened form of scrutiny to DOMA, which defined marriage for purposes of federal lawlike the Oklahoma Marriage Ban for purposes of state lawto mean only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife. 1 U.S.C. 7. There, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group defended DOMA by advancing several post-hoc rationalizations similar to those offered by Defendant in this litigation, including (1) proceed[ing] with caution when faced with the unknown consequences of an unprecedented redefinition of marriage; (2) providing a stable structure to raise unintended and unplanned offspring; (3) encouraging the rearing of children by their biological parents; and (4) promoting childrearing by both a mother and a father. See Brief on the Merits for Respondent the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives at 41-48, United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013) (No.
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12-307), 2013 WL 267026, at *44-48 (capitalizations omitted). The Supreme Court ignored these hypothetical justifications. Instead, for the third time in three cases involving a disability imposed solely on gays and lesbians, the Supreme Court gave careful consideration to the actual design, purpose, and effect of the law to determine whether it was based on improper animus or purpose. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693. Examining both the text and the legislative history of DOMA, the Supreme Court concluded that the laws avowed purpose and practical effect was to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma on same-sex couples, denying them and their children the manifold benefits and protections of federal law that turn on marital status, demean[ing] their relationships, and humiliat[ing] their children. Id. at 2689, 2693, 2694. DOMA consequently violated basic principles of equal
protection and due process. Id. at 2693. In short, neither Romer, Lawrence, nor Windsor performed rational-basis-asusual review, which does not look to actual purposes, but instead considers whether there is some conceivable rational purpose that could justify the enactment. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 2014 WL 211807, at *6; see Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2706 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (observing that the Court certainly does not apply anything that resembles that deferential framework); cf. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 580 (OConnor, J., concurring) (observing that we have applied a more
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searching form of rational basis review to strike down laws that exhibit a desire to harm a politically unpopular group). Rather, the trilogy makes clear that mere rational basis review is not appropriate for laws that single out gays and lesbians and subject them to unequal treatment. Because these targeted discriminations are of such unusual character, they raise suspicion of invidious discrimination, and at the very least require careful consideration to smoke out illegitimate purposes such as animus, moral disapproval, or a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693 (quotations omitted); see
Obergefell v. Wymyslo, No. 1:13-cv-501, 2013 WL 6726688, at *21 (S.D. Ohio Dec. 23, 2013) (When the primary purpose and effect of a law is to harm an identifiable group, the fact that the law may also incidentally serve some other neutral government interest cannot save it from unconstitutionality (citing Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2696)). B. This Courts Precedents Do NotAnd After Windsor Cannot Limit Review Of Sexual Orientation Discrimination To Rational Basis.
Defendant contends that rational basis review is appropriate given language from this Courts pre-Windsor opinion in Price-Cornelison v. Brooks, 524 F.3d 1103 (10th Cir. 2008). See Aplt. Principal Br. at 45. This contention is erroneous. First, as explained above, Romer, Lawrence, and Windsor make adherence to a deferential framework for reviewing targeted discrimination against gays and
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lesbians outdated and untenable.
Their consistent application of heightened
scrutinycareful consideration of actual purpose, rather than deferential review of post-hoc justificationsdisplaces any previous lower court approach to the contrary. Second, in any event, this Courts case law on the level of review for sexual orientation discrimination does not foreclose heightened scrutiny. In Price-
Cornelison, this Court noted that it had previously rejected the notion that homosexuality is a suspect classification. Id. at 1113 n.9 (citing Walmer v. Dept of Defense, 52 F.3d 851, 854 (10th Cir. 1995)). However, the genealogy of that rejection undercuts the assumption that this Court had already set the level of review at rational basis. For starters, Walmer itself relied on an earlier decision of this Court, Rich v. Secy of the Army, 735 F.2d 1220, 1229 (10th Cir. 1984), for the proposition that homosexuality is not a suspect classification. Rich in turn relied on National Gay Task Force, 729 F.2d at 1273, for the conclusion that sexual orientation classifications are not suspect. However, National Gay Task Force did no more than conclude that something less than the strict scrutiny test should be applied here, id. (emphasis added), and did so without considering any of the traditional factors utilized by the Supreme Court for determining whether a classification warrants some form of elevated scrutiny. It is a doctrinal leap from National Gay Task Forces limited holding that sexual orientation is not a
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suspect classification mandating strict scrutiny to this Courts subsequent assumption that National Gay Task Force requires rational basis review. No
opinion of this Court bridges that gap by independently examining whether or not sexual orientation classifications warrant heightened scrutiny. Third, the Supreme Courts equal protection landscape has evolved significantly since 1984. Not the least, National Gay Task Force itself rested on the comparative rationale that only four members of the Supreme Court have viewed gender as a suspect classification. Id. (citing Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973)) (emphasis added). Of course, the Supreme Court
subsequently determined that gender classifications are quasi-suspect and trigger a heightened, intermediate level of scrutiny, Craig, 429 U.S. at 197, which demands an exceedingly persuasive justification. Virginia, 518 U.S. at 531. Furthermore, as noted by the district court in Obergefell, when the Supreme Court in Lawrence overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), it eliminated a major jurisprudential foundation for pre-Lawrence decisions that relied on Bowers invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres. 2013 WL 6726688, at *13 (S.D. Ohio Dec. 23, 2013) (quotations omitted).26
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26
Quoting from Plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment, Defendant claims that Plaintiffs conceded Price-Cornelison set the standard of review in this circuit. See Aplt. Principal Br. at 45. Defendants claim seems correct only if one does not
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C.
The Heightened Scrutiny Applied In Romer, Lawrence, And Windsor To Sexual Orientation Discrimination Requires At Least Careful Consideration, And Most Appropriately Should Require Intermediate Scrutiny.
As explained above (pp. 32-36), sexual orientation classifications demand at least careful consideration to ensure that they are not rooted in improper animus or purpose. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693. But while the Romer-Lawrence-
Windsor trilogy rejected rational basis review by its words and its deeds, SmithKline Beecham Corp., 2014 WL 211807, at *6, the Supreme Court in those cases did not decide whether sexual orientation classifications should draw a stricter form of scrutiny than careful consideration because the laws under review failed that basic form of heightened scrutiny. The traditional factors considered by the Supreme Court for deciding whether a classification requires at least intermediateif not strictscrutiny because it presents an elevated risk of invidious discrimination are summarized by the Second Circuit in Windsor v. United States, 699 F.3d 169 (2d Cir. 2012), affd, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013):
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read the remainder of the footnote Defendant quotes. See Pl. Motion for Summary Judgment at 31 n.11 (Aplt. App. 91-92) (arguing that [g]iven the necessary interrelatedness between sexual orientation discrimination and sex discrimination within the context of the same-sex marriage issue, Plaintiffs submit the Tenth Circuit could be expected to reach a different result than the one in PriceCornelison, supra, and earlier holdings).
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A) whether the class has been historically subjected to discrimination; B) whether the class has a defining characteristic that frequently bears [a] relation to ability to perform or contribute to society; C) whether the class exhibits obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics that define them as a discrete group; and D) whether the class is a minority or politically powerless. Id. at 181-82 (quotations and citations omitted). Of these factors, the Supreme Court has treated the first two as the most important, Obergefell, 2013 WL 6726688, at *14, the last two as not strictly necessary, see Windsor, 699 F.3d at 181, and the presence of any as marking a classification more likely than others to reflect deep-seated prejudice rather than legislative rationality in pursuit of some legitimate objective. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 216 n.14 (1982). Considering sexual orientation classifications in light of these factors(1) a long history of severe and pervasive discrimination against gays and lesbians that is widely acknowledged in American jurisprudence, Obergefell, 2013 WL 6726688, at *14; Pederson v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 881 F. Supp. 2d 294, 317 (D. Conn. 2012); (2) no dispute that sexual orientation has no relevance to a persons ability to contribute to society, Golinski v. U.S. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 824 F. Supp. 2d 968, 986 (N.D. Cal. 2012); (3) a scientific consensus that sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic, De Leon v. Perry, No. 5:13-cv-00982OLG, 2014 WL 715741, at *13 (W.D. Tex. Feb. 26, 2014); and (4) despite some recent political successes, the fact that gays and lesbians still largely lack sufficient political strength to protect themselves from purposeful discrimination,
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Griego v. Oliver, No. 34,306, 2013 WL 6670704, at *17 (N.M. Dec. 19, 2013)a growing number of federal and state courts have concluded that sexual orientation classifications warrant heightened scrutiny.27 Applying the Supreme Courts suspect-classification framework to sexual orientation classificationswhich this Court has yet to do, see p. 37, suprathis Court should demand an exceedingly persuasive justification for the Oklahoma Marriage Bans sweeping and targeted denial of marriage to gay and lesbian Oklahomans. Virginia, 518 U.S. at 531. D. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Also Triggers Intermediate Scrutiny As Gender Discrimination.
The Oklahoma Marriage Ban defines the two parties to a marriage on the basis of gender: one man and one woman. Okla. Const. art. 2, 35(A). It thereby dictates whom every Oklahoman can marryonly someone of the opposite sex. Id. This is a gender classification stark and simple. See Kitchen v.
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27
See, e.g., Windsor, 699 F.3d at 181-85; Obergefell, 2013 WL 6726688, at *1418; Golinski, 824 F. Supp. 2d at 985-90; Pederson, 881 F. Supp. 2d at 310-33; Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F. Supp. 2d 921, 997 (N.D. Cal. 2010), affd, 671 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2012), vacated sub nom. Hollingsworth v. Perry, 133 S. Ct. 2652 (2013); In re Balas, 449 B.R. 567, 573-75 (Bankr. C.D. Cal. 2011); Griego, 2013 WL 6670704, at *12-18; Varnum, 763 N.W.2d at 885-96; In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d at 441-44; Kerrigan v. Commr of Pub. Health, 957 A.2d 407, 425-31 (Conn. 2008). The United States has also determined that classifications based on sexual orientation should receive heightened scrutiny. See Brief for the United States on the Merits Questions at 22-27, United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013) (No. 12-307), 2013 WL 683048, at *22-27. See also Amicus Br. of Constitutional Law Scholars at 4-30.
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Herbert, No. 2:13-cv-217, 2013 WL 6697874, at *20 (D. Utah Dec. 20, 2014) (finding Utah same-sex marriage bans to be drawn according to sex); see also Aplt. Principal Br. at 1, 5, 38, 65, 66, 72 (defending Oklahoma Marriage Bans gendered definition of marriage). As such, the ban is invalid unless Defendant can demonstrate that it is substantially related to achieving an exceedingly persuasive justification. Virginia, 518 U.S. at 531, 533. Defendant argues, however, that the Oklahoma Marriage Ban does not classify on the basis of gender because any man or woman may marry a person of the opposite sex, and just as equally, no man or woman may marry a person of the same sex. Aplt. Principal Br. at 42. This is fallacious reasoning. To contend that it is not a gender classification when a quota specifies one (and only one) of each gender is likewise to contend that it is not a racial classification when a quota specifies one (and only one) of each race. Virginias anti-miscegenation statute would have been no less a racial classificationand no more a constitutional oneif instead it had been a miscegenation statute, restricting marriage to only the union of one white and one black. Furthermore, the suggestion that equally burdening both sides of a gender (or racial) line somehow eliminates rather than reinforces the classification is squarely foreclosed by Loving, 388 U.S. at 8 (stating we reject the notion that the mere equal application of a statute containing racial classifications is enough to
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remove the classifications from the Fourteenth Amendments proscription of all invidious racial discriminations). Relatedly, Defendants parade of horribles that recognizing the Oklahoma Marriage Ban as a gender classification would create a constitutional crisis every time [the state] offered sex-specific restrooms, locker rooms, living facilities, or sports teams, Aplt. Principal Br. at 43 conflates the classification inquiry with the scrutiny inquiry. Offering separate but equal restrooms based on gender is constitutional not because it is not a gender classification, but because it passes intermediate scrutiny as a gender classification. On the other hand, of course, offering separate but equal restrooms based on race is unconstitutional both because it is a racial classification and because it cannot survive strict scrutiny. See Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 686 (1954). E. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Triggers Strict Scrutiny As A Classification That Burdens The Fundamental Right To Marry.
In addition to drawing heightened scrutiny for the reasons discussed above, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban triggers strict scrutiny for barring Plaintiffs exercise of the same fundamental and cherished right to marry that other Oklahomans (except for interracial couples) have exercised every day since statehood. See pp. 64-67, infra (establishing that Plaintiffs seek to exercise the fundamental right to marry); Plyler, 457 U.S. at 216-17 (subjecting to strict scrutiny those classifications that disadvantage a suspect class or that impinge upon the exercise of a fundamental right (emphasis added) (quotations omitted)).
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therefore presumptively invidious and invalid unless Defendant can demonstrate that it is precisely tailored to serve a compelling government interest. Id. at 217. F. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Fails Careful Consideration Under Romer, Lawrence, And Windsor Because It Imposes Inequality Based On Moral Disapproval.
1. The District Court below found that excluding same-sex couples from marriage was not a hidden or ulterior motive; it was consistently communicated to Oklahoma citizens as a justification for the Oklahoma Marriage Ban. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *23. In fact, by adopting a state constitutional amendment barring the marriage of same-sex couples on top of existing statutory bans, Oklahoma voters did more than simply deny same-sex couples the right to marry. By design, the ballot measure shut the doors of Oklahoma courthouses and the state capitol on same-sex couples, ensuring that they could never marry in Oklahoma without winning an onerous, expensive, and extremely unlikely battle at the ballot box to change the definition of marriage in the state constitution. See id. 2. Given the design and purpose of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, it is no surprise that its effect on Oklahoma same-sex couples as well as their children is stark, sweeping, and severe. Not only does the ban work a total exclusion of only one group from marrying in Oklahoma. Id. at *21. That exclusion denies samesex couples numerous valuable benefits and protections under state and federal law that turn on state-recognized marriage, from spousal obligations, to property rights,
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to protections in inheritance and intestacy, to parental rights and responsibilities, to alimony, to child support, to child custody, to visitation rights, to social security, to family medical leave, to tax liability, to health insurance benefits, and to many other legal entitlements and obligations, from the mundane to the profound. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694; see pp. 11-13, supra. Defendant has not disputed that the Oklahoma Marriage Ban writes inequality across state and federal law for Oklahoma same-sex couples and their children. Id. at 2694; see Aplt. Principal Br. at 85 (stating that any disadvantage experienced by children as a result of such a ban is regrettable). Moreover, by denying same-sex couples the right to marry, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban demeans and humiliates these couples and their children, conveying to them, to family, to friends, to neighbors, to classmates, to teachers, to colleagues, to employers, to officials, to governments, and to all the world that their relationships are unworthy and second-tier. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694. Indeed, now and until the Oklahoma Marriage Ban is invalidated or repealed, the law makes it more difficult for children in these Oklahoma families, in comparison to children of married parents, to understand the integrity and closeness of their own families and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives. Id.
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3. As the District Court found, moral disapproval propelled passage of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban. The record below establishes clearly and without contradictionas a matter of law, the District Court ruledthat one particular moral definition of marriage, one embodying moral disapproval of same-sex marriage, served as the publicly stated and understood justification for the ballot measure. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *27. Considering the legislative and public discussions leading up to the ballot measures passage, the District Court highlighted a number of key public statements expressing support for the measure and disapproval of same-sex marriage on moral or religious grounds, including the following representative examples: Oklahoma House Minority Leader Todd Hiett stating, before passage of the measure in his chamber, that [t]o recognize something other than what God has ordained as traditional marriage obviously detracts or deteriorates the importance of the traditional marriage. Bill Graves, another member of the Oklahoma House, explaining that he believed Oklahomans would support the measure because [t]his is a Bible Belt state. . . . Most people dont want that sort of thing here. . . . Gay people might call it discrimination, but I call it upholding morality. State Senator James Williamson, the author of the measure, stating upon its passage in his chamber that Oklahoma should not legitimize that lifestyle by saying, Yes, two homosexuals can be just as married as two heterosexuals. Thats not right. Williamson again, at a pro-marriage rally organized by over forty Tulsa-area churches two months before the public vote, stating, As Christians, we are called to love homosexuals[.] But I hope everyone at this rally knows the Scriptures prohibit homosexual acts.
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Tulsa Mayor Bill LaFortune, at the same rally, stating, If you believe in Christ, if you believe in this country, and if you believe in this city, you believe that marriage is a covenant between God, a man, and a woman. Id. at *26-27 (quotations omitted); see also Aplt. Principal Br. at 36 n.7 (quoting additional examples from Plaintiffs exhibits on summary judgment).28 These and other public statements by proponents of the ballot measure are [j]ust like those of federal legislators who characterized their support of DOMA as defending the morality of marriage. Id. at *26. Additionally, just as the title of the federal measure (The Defense of Marriage Act) confirms its purpose as protecting the traditional moral teachings reflected in heterosexual-only marriage
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28
Defendant questions the District Courts use of newspaper articles reporting on the legislative and public debates leading up to the enactment of the ballot measure as evidence of its purpose. Aplt. Principal Br. at 35 & n.6. But in addition to relying on newspaper articles herself, see id. at 35-36 & n.7, Defendant draws on sources far and widefrom William Blackstone and John Locke to Claude LeviStrauss and The Witherspoon Instituteto establish the meaning and purpose of marriage in Oklahoma. Suffice it to say, these sources are not as relevant and reliable as statements by contemporary Oklahomans who originated, drafted, and promoted the ballot measure, and the accuracy of whose statements Defendant does not dispute. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *23 & n.31; see Atlantic Refining Co. v. Okla. Tax Commn, 360 P.2d 826 (Okla. 1959) (syllabus by the court) (noting that courts may with propriety recur to the history of the time when the act was passed; and this is frequently necessary, in order to ascertain the reason as well as the meaning of particular provisions (emphasis added)); North v. McMahan, 110 P. 1115 (Okla. 1910) (syllabus by the court) (The intention of the voter should be ascertained from the language of his ballot interpreted in light of the circumstances of a public nature surrounding the election (emphasis added)); see also Finstuen v. Crutcher, 496 F.3d 1139, 1148 & n.6 (10th Cir. 2007) (considering press release by Oklahoma House in determining impetus and rationale for enactment of statute barring recognition of valid out-of-state samesex adoptions).
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laws, Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693, so too the title of the Oklahoma measure (the Marriage Protection Amendment) reflects the same moral purpose. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *22 (quotations omitted). But as the District Court concluded, while moral disapproval often stems from deeply held religious convictions, it is not a permissible justification. Id. at *27 (quoting Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 577 ([T]he fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice) (quotations omitted)). 4. Defendant denies that moral disapproval was the motivating purpose for adopting the Oklahoma Marriage Ban. Defendant argues the measures purpose was limited to ensur[ing] that the definition of marriage in Oklahoma will be determined by the People rather than . . . by state-court judges. Aplt. Principal Br. at 35. However, the ultimate point of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban was to enshrine in the state constitution one particular moral definition of marriage. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *27. Furthermore, a state cannot justify an unconstitutional law simply by asserting an interest in keeping judges from ruling on the laws constitutionality. Otherwise, a state could shelter segregation, anti-miscegenation, and other odious laws from judicial review simply based on the asserted purpose of keeping those policies in the hands of the People rather than activist judges. Aplt. Principle Br. at 35 (quotations omitted).
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In any case, Defendants characterization of the measures purpose as merely procedural is not credible. Nearly the whole of Defendants brief is
devoted to a substantive defense of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban as an enactment to preserve marriage as a man-woman union, Aplt. Principal Br. at 1, to affirm the man-woman marriage institution, id. at 4, to reflect[] Oklahomans considered perspectives on the . . . the [sic] institution of marriage, id. at 7 (quotations omitted), to (yet again) affirm[] the man-woman marriage institution, id. at 15, and so on. 5. Given that the avowed purpose and practical effect of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban is to disparage and to impose inequality on same-sex couples based on improper . . . purpose, Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693, 2694, 2696 namely, moral disapproval of homosexuals as a class, or same-sex marriage as a practice, Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *27the measure cannot withstand the careful consideration required by Romer, Lawrence, and Windsor. Oklahoma Marriage Ban is unconstitutional. G. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Fails Any Level Of Scrutiny Because There Is Simply No Rational Connection Between Defendants Post-Hoc Justifications And The Exclusion Of SameSex Couples From Marriage. The
Because the Romer-Lawrence-Windsor trilogy considered actual purpose rather than post-hoc rationalizations in applying careful consideration to sexual orientation discrimination, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban rises or falls based on the
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only actual purpose found by the District Court as a matter of law to have motivated its enactment. Id. at *26, 27. That actual purpose being moral
disapproval, the measure falls. But in any case, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban fails all levels of scrutiny. As the District Court determined, the post-hoc justifications offered by Defendant to excuse the far-reaching inequality that the Oklahoma Marriage Ban visits on same-sex couples and their children make[] no sense and well exceed[] the limits of rationality. Id. at *29, 30. Rational basis review is the lowest level of equal protection inquiry. If a classification cannot survive rational basis, then it also fails the more demanding levels of scrutiny. Under rational basis, the classification must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must exhibit a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation. Johnson v. Robinson, 415 U.S. 361, 375 (1974) (quotations omitted). Moreover, to ensure that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike, id. (quotations omitted), the asserted rationales must be based on a reasonably conceivable state of facts, F.C.C. v. Beach Comms, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 313 (1993), rather than negative attitudes, undifferentiated fears, or irrational prejudice. City of Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 448, 449. In short, rational basis review is not toothless. Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U.S. 495, 510 (1976).
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1.
The Purpose Of Marriage In Oklahoma Is Not Based On Presumptive Procreative Potential.
To ascribe a rational basis to the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, Defendant asserts on appeal that it was adopted to affirm a longstanding public purpose of channeling the presumptive procreative potential of man-woman relationships into committed unions for the benefit of children and society. Aplt. Principal Br. at 15. Defendants peculiar and impoverished characterization of the public purpose of marriage strains credulity, and moreover diminishes and demeans the profound significance of marriage to millions of Oklahomans. a. There is no statement in the Oklahoma statutes or case law since
statehood (or even before) that links civil marriage in Oklahoma to the presumptive procreative potential of opposite-sex relationships. Nor is there any statement in the text of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban itself or by its legislative and public proponents suggesting that purpose. Apparently Defendant cannot find any such statement either. Though her brief is replete with the assertion that
channeling the presumptive procreative potential of opposite-sex relationships into marriage (to avoid begetting unintended children out of marriage) is the central purpose of Oklahoma marital law and the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, see Aplt. Principal Br. at 1, 3, 15, 23, 27, 33, 58, 59, 63, her brief is conspicuously devoid of any quotation or citation to any Oklahoma law, policy, or person stating anything to that effect. Indeed, the cumbersome phrase presumptive procreative
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potential is not only novel to Oklahoma marital law, but also nowhere to be found in Defendants principal brief below on summary judgment. (Aplt. App. 187-246). It is scarcely surprising that Oklahoma statutes and case law do not reference (much less adopt) Defendants asserted principal purpose of marriage. That is because, since statehood, it has been the established law and policy of Oklahoma to open the institution of marriage to couples without any regard to procreative potential. As discussed above (pp. 3-4), marriage in Oklahoma is a civil
contract that simply requires the consent of the parties legally competent of contracting and entering into it. Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 1; see Okla. Gen. Stat. ch. 31, 3249 (1908) (same). Neither the requirements for a marriage license nor the requirements for a common law marriage in Oklahoma reference, inquire into, or condition marriage on either the intent or the capability to beget children. See Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 5; Mudd, 235 P. at 479. As Justice Scalia has noted with respect to every state in the country, the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry, Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 605 (Scalia, J., dissenting), notwithstanding their lack of presumptive procreative potential.29 And of course, Oklahoma couples
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29
In Defendants cross-motion for summary judgment below, she characterized the states interest in marriage as to steer naturally procreative relationships into a stable union. (Aplt. App. 233 (emphasis added; capitalizations omitted)). But changing naturally to presumptively does not elide the fact that postmenopausal women and the infertile are not biologically procreative.
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who can but do not wish to procreate (thereby rebutting any presumption) may also marry. Furthermore, the very limited criteria that render an adult incapable of marrying under Oklahoma law have absolutely nothing to do with presumptive procreative potential. As also noted above (pp. 4-5), that list of ineligible adults consists of (1) those who lack the mental capacity to enter into a marriage contract, see Ross, 54 P.2d 611; (2) those who are related too closely by blood, see Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 2; and (3) those who are already married, see Okla. Const. art. 1, 2. All three classes, as a biological matter, presumptively can beget children. The only other classes of couples whom Oklahoma law has excluded from marriage are (4) interracial couples, see Okla. Gen. Stat. ch. 31, 3260 (1908), who of course can and do have children, and most recently, (5) same-sex couples, see Okla. Const. art. 2, 35, whose families in Oklahoma, as the District Court noted, had 1,280 children as of the 2010 census. See Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *29. Finally, just as entering into marriage in Oklahoma does not turn on presumptive procreative potential, so too exiting marriage is free of consideration regarding the capability to have children. Infertility is not a ground for divorce. See Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 101 (listing grounds for divorce). In fact, as the second state to adopt no-fault divorce (p. 5, supra), Oklahomas divorce policy mirrors its marriage policy. Marriage in Oklahoma, like in every state, is a civil
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contract based on the consent of the parties, and without regard to procreative ability. See Amicus Br. of Historians of Marriage at 14-18. b. To say that marriage is a civil institution based on consent is not to deny its immense import for Oklahomans who marry or wish to marry, for their children, and for society. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2692. Quite the opposite. First, it goes without saying (though in light of Defendants reductionist view of the purpose of marriage, it needs to be said) that marriage is of profound importance to couples who exchange vows of lifelong commitment to each other. For millions of Oklahomans, like millions of other Americans, those vows no doubt have consisted of the traditional and enduring pledges (or variations of them) to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part. For no Oklahomans, it is safe to say, have marriage vows consisted of channeling their presumptively procreative potential into a man-woman relationship to avoid unintended children outside of marriage. Second, it also goes without saying that marriages in which couples cannot have children because of age, infertility, or disability, choose not to have children for a number of deeply personal reasons, or remain married long after having children, are worthy of equal dignity. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693. To suggest, as Defendant does, that these adult-centric marriages are less self-giving and
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involve a less sacrificial ethic among spouses than child-centered marriages, Aplt. Principal Br. at 76, 77, is nothing short of demeaning, in the fullest sense of Windsors words. Lastly, Defendants impoverished view of the public purpose of marriage as avoiding unplanned non-marital children exemplifies a Bowers-like failure to appreciate the extent of the liberty at stake. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 567. As Lawrence confirms, our laws and tradition afford constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, as well as to procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child-rearing. Id. at 574. Indeed, with the notable current exception of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, Oklahoma law respects the autonomy of the person in making these choices by grounding marriage in the realm of individual consent that has led millions of Oklahomans to dateand doubtless millions in the futureto exchange vows of lifelong commitment. Id.; see Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 1. 2. Excluding Same-Sex Couples From Marriage Is Not Rationally Related To Promoting Responsible Procreation Or An Optimal Child-Rearing Environment.
Assuming for the sake of argument that the public purpose of marriage in Oklahoma is as diminished as Defendant formulates, excluding same-sex couples from marriage is so far divorced from such a purpose that the Oklahoma Marriage Ban well exceeds the limits of rationality. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *30.
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Defendant states that unintended children are the frequent result of sexual relationships between men and women, but never the product of same-sex relationships, and asserts that it is plainly reasonable to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples to address the unique challenges and opportunities posed by their procreative potential. Aplt. Principal Br. at 47, 49, 58. Defendant further claims that the State has an interest in channeling these man-woman relationships into marriage because children develop best when reared by their biological parents in a stable family unit. Id. at 46, 50, 59. These appear to be repackaged arguments, rejected below by the District Court, that the Oklahoma Marriage Ban encourages responsible procreation and promotes the optimal child-rearing environment. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *28-31 (quotations and capitalizations omitted); see Aplt. App. 229-40. However phrased, these
arguments cannot obscure the total lack of rational connection between the Oklahoma Marriage Ban and Defendants post-hoc justifications. First, it would require nothing short of a titanic surrender to the implausible to suppose that barring same-sex couples from marrying makes opposite-sex couples more inclined to marry before producing unintended offspring, or conversely that allowing same-sex couples to marry would make opposite-sex couples less inclined to marry before having unplanned children. Erie v. Paps AM, 529 U.S. 277, 323 (2000) (Stevens, J., dissenting). Certainly,
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Defendant has presented no evidence for such a surmise. Indeed, every federal and state court after Windsor, as well as numerous courts before Windsor, has rejected this responsible procreation justification as quintessentially irrational.30 Second, Defendants contention that children fare better when raised by their opposite-sex biological parents (the optimal child-rearing rationale) is squarely contradicted by decades of sound social science. As court after court has
recognized, a consensus has developed among the medical, psychological, and social welfare communities that children raised by gay and lesbian parents are just as likely to be well-adjusted as those raised by heterosexual parents. Gill v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 699 F. Supp. 2d 374, 388 (D. Mass. 2010); see Bostic v. Rainey, No. 2:13-cv-395, 2014 WL 561978, at *18 (E.D. Va. Feb. 13, 2014) (same); Obergefell, 2013 WL 6726688, at *20 & n.20 (same); Golinski, 824 F. Supp. 2d at 991 (same); Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F. Supp. 2d 921, 997, 999 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (same), affd, 671 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2012), vacated sub nom. Hollingsworth v. Perry, 133 S. Ct. 2652 (2013); Varnum, 763 N.W.2d at 902 & n.26 (same); see also Amicus Br. of American Psychological Association at 18 (same); Amicus Br. of American Sociological Association at 3 (same).
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30
See, e.g., Windsor, 699 F.3d at 188; De Leon, 2014 WL 715741, at *16; Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *29; Kitchen, 2013 WL 6697874, at *25; Golinski, 824 F. Supp. 2d at 993; Gill v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 699 F. Supp. 2d 374, 388-89 (D. Mass. 2010); Perry, 704 F. Supp. 2d at 972; Griego, 2013 WL 6670704, at *20; Varnum, 763 N.W.2d at 902; In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d at 431-33.
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Against the weight of this wide-spread scientific consensus, Defendant relies heavily on a handful of studies that examine the impact on child wellbeing of stepparents, divorced parents, single parents, or absentee fathers. See Aplt.
Principal Br. at 48-54.31 But relying on apples to make arguments about oranges is not scientifically sound. See Amicus Br. of the American Sociological Association at 14-30 (distinguishing such sources and discrediting Defendants reliance on them); Amicus Br. of American Psychological Association at 15 (cautioning that researchers must take care to avoid conflating the negative consequences of experiencing divorce or household instability with the consequences of simply having a gay or lesbian parent). Indeed, to the extent the studies relied on by Defendant confirm anything, it is the general scientific consensus that positive child wellbeing is the product of stability in the relationship between two parents, stability in the relationship between the parents and the child, and greater parental socioeconomic resources. Amicus Br. of the American Sociological Association at 3. Consequently, as the District Court concluded, excluding same-sex couples from marriage and its
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31
For example, Defendant prominently features the study by Kristin Anderson Moore et al., Marriage from a Childs Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can We Do About It?, Child Trends Research Brief (June 2002). See Aplt. Principal Br. at 48, 50, 81. But that study only compared the wellbeing of children raised by stepparents and single parents to the wellbeing of children raised by stable two-parent families, and its authors have pointedly disclaimed on its front page that no conclusions can be drawn from this research about the well-being of children raised by same-sex parents.
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myriad legal, financial, and social benefits actually undermines the state interest in promoting a stable family unit for the benefit of children and society, Aplt. Principal Br. at 15, 50, while including same-sex couples would promote it. See Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *31; accord De Leon, 2014 WL 715741, at *14; Kitchen, 2013 WL 6697874, at *26; Golinski, 824 F. Supp. 2d at 992; Gill, 699 F. Supp. 2d at 389; Goodridge, 798 N.E.2d at 964. In the end, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban is at once too narrow and too broad. Romer, 517 U.S. at 633. It is too broad because, in the guise of promoting the wellbeing of children, it imposes inequality on numerous children of same-sex couples. See Plyler, 457 U.S. at 220 ([V]isiting . . . condemnation on the head of an infant is illogical and unjust (quotations omitted)). At the same time, it is too narrow because it does not bar any other class of Oklahoma couples based on their lack of procreative potential, much less their potential for optimal parenting. See Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *31 (noting that Defendant does not deny marital licenses to any opposite-sex couples based on their willingness or ability to provide an optimal child-rearing environment). This glaring underinclusivity resembles that of City of Cleburne, where the denial of a housing permit to only a single class among many that implicated the states asserted interests made the classification so attenuated in relation to those objectives as to render it arbitrary and irrational. 473 U.S. at 446. In short, the marital bans sheer
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breadth is so discontinuous with the reasons offered for it that it is invalid under any level scrutiny. Romer, 517 U.S. at 632.32 3. Wild Speculation About The Real-World Consequences Of Redefining Marriage Does Not Rescue The Oklahoma Marriage Ban From Irrationality.
With rising alarmand rising speculationDefendant warns that allowing same-sex couples to marry would have real-world consequences. Aplt. Principal Br. at 64 (capitalizations omitted). Namely, allowing same-sex couples to marry would (1) transform marriage from a gendered to a genderless institution; (2) sever the inherent link between marriage and procreation; (3) convey that marriage exists to advance adult desires rather than serving childrens needs; (4) convey that marriage is merely an option (rather than a social expectation) for man-woman couples raising children; (5) result in fewer man-woman couples
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32
Perhaps recognizing the essential irrationality of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, Defendant asks this Court to examine only whether including opposite-sex couples in marriage furthers the States asserted interests, and to close this Courts eyes to whether excluding same-sex couples from marriage promotes the bans purposes. See Aplt. Principal Br. at 55. This request reflects neither reality nor rational basis review. As to reality, the drawing of a line does not make the world beyond disappear, and the sensibility of any line (physical or otherwise) cannot be assessed without knowing what it separates. As to rational basis, the law reflects rather than rejects reality, and requires consideration of whether all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike, Johnson, 415 U.S. at 375 (emphasis added), so that special recognition (Aplt. Principal Br. at 46) is not given to one group over another without justification. For these reasons, and those given by the District Court below and the lower court in Kitchen, Defendants attempt to evade even the lowest level of equal protection scrutiny should be rejected. See Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *30; Kitchen, 2013 WL 6697874, at *24.
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marry[ing]; (6) result in more unwed childbearing and divorce; (7) result in less fathers being committed to jointly rais[ing] the children they beget; (8) entrench an adult-centered view of marriage that focuses on deep romantic love; (9) obscure a child-centric view of marriage that promotes self-giving and a sacrificial ethic; (10) decrease[] marital satisfaction and (again) father involvement; (11) erode marital norms like sexual exclusivity, permanence, and monogamy; and (12) promote a home environment with unknown effects on children. Aplt. Principal Br. at 64-82 (capitalizations omitted). As a preliminary matter, Defendants unsubstantiated assumptions about the history and nature of marriage are highly inaccurate with respect to Oklahoma, see pp. 51-55, supra, as well as the rest of the United States. See Amicus Br. of Historians of Marriage at 2-31.33 Furthermore, Defendants list of real-world consequences is as fantastical as it is insulting to both opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples. It defies rationality to suggest that opposite-sex couples would be less desirous of marriage, less devoted in marriage, and less loving and selfsacrificing to each other and their children if more couples share in the mutual
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33
As the historians of marriage observe in their amicus brief, marriage is a capacious and complex institution that has political, social, economic, legal, and personal components, and [o]nly a highly reductive interpretation would posit that the core purpose or defining characteristic of marriage is the married pairs procreation or care of biological children. Amicus Br. of Historians of Marriage at 2-3; see id. at 8-18. Of course, marriage has also evolved over time to be a more equal and inclusive institution. See id. at 4-6, 18-31.
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love, commitment, and sacrifice of marriage, and more couples and their children share in the status, benefits, and protections of marriage. See pp. 56-57, supra. These suggestions also manifest a disparaging and meager faith in the bonds between married couples and between parents and children. As for the suggestion that allowing same-sex couples to marry would eventually erode marital norms like sexual exclusivity, permanence, and monogamy, it is based on nothing more than invidious stereotypeand defied by the decades-long, loving relationships of Plaintiffs Bishop and Baldwin and Plaintiffs Barton and Phillips. Indeed, as the District Court below concluded after rejecting each of Defendants post-hoc rationalizations, excluding same-sex couples from marriage based on these imagined threats is, at bottom, an arbitrary exclusion based upon the majoritys disapproval, and insulting to same-sex couples, who are human beings capable of forming loving, committed, and enduring relationships. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *32. Defendants vague, speculative, and unsubstantiated fears are, in any case, misplaced. Obergefell, 2013 WL 6726688, at *8. They should be directed
primarily against Oklahoma civil marriage itself, which since statehood has grounded marriage on mutual consent between adults, see Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 1; against Oklahomas no-fault divorce regime, which as Defendant acknowledges reinforces the consent-based nature and norm of Oklahoma marriage, see Aplt.
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Principal Br. at 69-71; against contraception, which has enabled married couples to decide whether and when to procreate; and against the Supreme Court, which has recognized since Griswold a right of privacy and autonomy in personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, [and] childrearing. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 574. 4. State Regulatory Power Over Domestic Relations Does Not Shelter Invidious Discrimination.
As refuge for the fundamental irrationality of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, Defendant invokes the regulatory power of states over domestic relations. Defendant interprets Windsors central theme to be the right of States to define marriage for their community. Aplt. Principal Br. at 28. This reading
misunderstands Windsor. While the decision acknowledged the traditional power of states over domestic relations, it also took pains to repeatedly warn that [t]he States interest in defining and regulating the marital relation (1) always must respect the constitutional rights of persons, Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2691, 2692, (2) is subject to those guarantees, id. at 2691, (3) is subject to constitutional guarantees, id. at 2692, and (4) (again) is subject to constitutional guarantees. Id. In issuing these warnings, the Windsor Court cited Loving. As the District Court recognized, [a] citation to Loving is a disclaimer of enormous proportion. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *18. The states regulatory power over domestic relations is not a license to violate[] basic due process and equal protection
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principles. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693; see Amicus Br. of Massachusetts et al. at 16-19. III. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Denies Plaintiffs The Fundamental Right To Marry In Violation Of Due Process. A. The Right To Marry Is Fundamental.
The right to marry is older than the Bill of Rights, a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965). Accordingly, [t]he freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness, Loving, 388 U.S. at 12, one of the basic civil rights of man, Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942), and the foundation of the family and of society. Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 384 (1978) (quotations omitted). There is no dispute that the right to marry is a fundamental freedom. Loving, 388 U.S. at 12. B. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Infringes The Fundamental Right To Marry.
Plaintiffs and other same-sex couples seek no moreand no lessthan to exercise the same fundamental right to marry enjoyed and cherished by millions of other Americans. Defendant argues that Plaintiffs seek recognition of a new right to marry a person of the same sex, because marriage by same-sex couples is not deeply rooted in this Nations history and tradition. Aplt. Principal Br. at 37
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(quoting Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720-21 (1997)). This argument misuses history and tradition, and misunderstands the right to marry. In Lawrence, the Supreme Court cautioned that [h]istory and tradition are the starting point, but not in all cases the ending point of the substantive due process inquiry. Lawrence, 538 U.S. at 572 (quotations omitted). That is because [i]t is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of Law, 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457, 469 (1897). To highlight just one example, neither history nor tradition could save a law prohibiting miscegenation from constitutional attack. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 577-78 (quoting Bowers, 478 U.S. at 216
(Stevens, J., dissenting)). So too with the struggle of same-sex couples to exercise the right to marry. It is of course true, as Windsor observed, that the possibility of same-sex couples marrying had not occurred to many until recently. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2689. But people and courts across the country are gaining a new insight that the historical limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples amounts to an injustice that they had not earlier known or understood. Id.; see In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d at 853-54 ([I]f we have learned anything from the significant evolution in the prevailing societal views and official policies toward members of minority races and toward women over the past half-century, it is that even the most familiar and
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generally accepted social practices and traditions often mask an unfairness and inequality that frequently is not recognized or appreciated by those not directly harmed); Amicus Br. of Howard University School of Law Civil Rights Clinic at 5-30 (comparing bans on same-sex marriage to bans on interracial marriage). While Defendant unduly enlarges the significance of history and tradition, she wrongly diminishes the scope of the right to marry. As a general matter, the Constitution does not parcel out liberties by caste; it extends them to all. See Plessy, 163 U.S. at 559 (1896) (Harlan, J., dissenting) (observing that the Constitution neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens). Regarding the right to marry, the Supreme Court likewise has never narrowed its universality by recasting it as a more limited right to interracial marriage (Loving), right to inmate marriage (Turner v. Saffley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987)), or in any case right to man-woman marriage. See Golinski, 824 F. Supp. 2d at 982 n.5 (The analysis of the fundamental right to marry has not depended upon the characteristics of the spouse.); Pederson, 881 F. Supp. 2d at 333 n.9 (same). If there is any doubt what view the Supreme Court would adopt on the nature of the right at stake, Lawrence removed it. In affirming that our laws and traditions afford constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, the Supreme Court declared unambiguously that [p]ersons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as
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heterosexual persons do.
Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 574 (emphasis added); see
Bostic, 2014 WL 561978, at *12-13 (holding that same-sex couples seeking to marry ask for nothing more than to exercise . . . the same right that is currently enjoyed by heterosexual individuals); Kitchen, 2013 WL 6697874, at *15-18 (same); Obergefell, 2013 WL 6726688, at *9 (noting that a substantial logical and jurisprudential basis exists for such a conclusion). C. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Fails Strict Scrutiny.
Because the Oklahoma Marriage Ban prevents Plaintiffs and other same-sex couples from exercising the fundamental right to marry, it is subject to strict scrutiny. See Carey v. Population Servs. Intl, 431 U.S. 678, 686 (1977); accord Zablocki, 434 U.S. at 388. For the reasons discussed above (pp. 55-63), the Oklahoma Marriage Ban utterly lacks rationality and therefore cannot survive rational basis review, much less the stringent demands of strict scrutiny. The ban violates due process. IV. Oklahomas Refusal To Recognize The Valid Out-Of-State Marriages Of Same-Sex Couples Offends Due Process And Equal Protection. For same-sex couples now living in Oklahoma, and for those who will move into Oklahoma for work, school, family, or military service, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban effectively reaches across the entire country. On top of denying their ability to marry inside of Oklahoma, the measure denies them state recognition of marriages from outside of Oklahoma. The definition and the non*+"
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recognition provisions are essentially two sides of the same coin, the design, purpose, and effect of which is to impose inequality on all same-sex couples in Oklahoma. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2690, 2694. Of course, for the same reasons that barring same-sex Oklahomans from marriage is devoid of rational justification, the States refusal to recognize samesex marriages cannot withstand any level of constitutional scrutiny. Certainly, the State cannot claim that, even though the Constitution forbids it from prohibiting instate same-sex marriages, Oklahomas public policy trumps the Constitution when it comes to non-recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages. Such a claim would be too extravagant to be maintained. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 179 (1803). In any case, the argument is foreclosed by Windsor. See Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2692 (warning that, though marital policies may vary from state to state, they remain subject to constitutional guarantees); see Amicus Br. of Massachusetts et al. at 16-19 (Federalism considerations cannot justify these marriage restrictions. (capitalizations omitted)). If anything, under the basic due process and equal protection principles articulated in Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693, the non-recognition component of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban magnifies its constitutional infirmity. As the district court in Obergefell put it, the question is whether a state can do what the federal government cannot, 2013 WL 6726688, at *8, namely, divest married same-sex
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couples of the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, a dignity conferred by the States in the exercise of their sovereign power. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693. The answer is no.34 First, as a matter of due process, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, like the federal DOMA, strips married same-sex couples entering Oklahoma of a dignity and status of immense import conferred on them by another state. Id. at 2692. Married same-sex couples instantly lose a far-reaching legal acknowledgement of the intimate relationship between them, as the measure tells those couples, and all the world, that their otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of [Oklahoma] recognition. Id. at 2692, 2694 (substituting Oklahoma for federal). Worse than DOMA, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban does not just place[] same sex-couples in an unstable position of being in a second-tier marriage. Id. at 2694 (emphasis added). As long as they remain in the state, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban makes them unmarried to each other. But just as Oklahoma cannot deny same-sex
couples the right to marry, it cannot revoke that fundamental right by refusing to recognize their valid out-of-state marriages. Loving itself illustrates this point, for the Virginia couple in that case visited the District of Columbia to marry, only to
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34
See De Leon, 2014 WL 715741, at *27 (finding state non-recognition provisions unconstitutional after Windsor); Bostic, 2014 WL 561978, at *23 (same); Bourke, 2014 WL 556729, at *8 (same); Obergefell, 2013 WL 6726688, at *21 (same); see also Tanco, No. 3:13-cv-01159, at 14, 19 (preliminarily enjoining state nonrecognition provisions as likely unconstitutional).
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have their out-of-state marriage elicit prosecution rather than recognition upon their return. See Loving, 388 U.S. at 2. Under Loving and Windsor, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban denies due process. Second, like DOMA, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban offends equal protection because its principal purpose and effect is to identify a subset of state-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694 (emphasis added). On the one hand, Oklahoma law recognizes the out-of-state marriages of virtually every other class of adult couples, including first cousins whom Oklahoma itself does not permit to marry. See Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 2; see Spector, supra, at 17. On the other hand, by operation of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, same-sex couples married outside of Oklahoma are deemed legal strangers to each other in Oklahoma, as well as strangers to the vast array of legal benefits and protections conferred on state-recognized married couples and their children. See pp. 11-13, supra. As discussed above, and as found by the District Court, this disparate treatment promotes no compelling, legitimate, or even minimal rational interest, but at bottom is based on the majoritys moral disapproval. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *32; see 44-63, supra. Yet [t]he Constitutions guarantee of equality must at the very least mean that a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot justify disparate treatment of that group. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693 (quotations omitted).
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Finally, it bears mention that the havoc wrought by the Oklahoma Marriage Bans non-recognition provision is substantialand escalatingas more same-sex couples in more states marry. It harms gay and lesbian workers, who in a mobile and global economy may have little choice but to relocate their families to Oklahoma. See Amicus Br. of 46 Employers and Organizations Representing Employers. It harms gay and lesbian servicemembers, who may be stationed at major military installations in Oklahoma such as Tinker Air Force Base or Fort Sill. See Amicus Br. of Outserve-SLDN and the American Military Partner
Association. And it harms the children of gay and lesbian couples, who have even less control over where their families liveand if their families are recognized, protected, and dignified as a family.35 See Amicus Br. of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays; cf. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694 (DOMA humiliates these children). Indeed, this Court has first-hand experience with same-sex couples struggling to have Oklahoma even recognize the out-of-state
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35
Defendant characterizes the number of children living with same-sex couples in the United States as small (Aplt. Principle Br. at 85), but according to recent demographic data, more than 110,000 same-sex couples are raising more than 170,000 biological, step, or adopted children. See Gary J. Gates, LGBT Parenting in the United States (Feb. 2013), available at http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/LGBT-Parenting.pdf."
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adoptions of their children. See Finstuen v. Crutcher, 496 F.3d 1139 (10th Cir. 2007) (invalidating Oklahomas refusal to recognize such adoptions).36 V. Plaintiffs Possess Standing. A. Plaintiffs Barton And Phillips Have Standing To Challenge The Oklahoma Marriage Bans Non-Recognition Provision.
The District Court ruled that Plaintiffs Barton and Phillips lack standing to challenge the non-recognition component of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban because there is no causal connection between their non-recognition injury and Defendants official responsibilities as court clerk. See Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *13-14. The District Court based this ruling solely on Defendants assertion, in an affidavit filed in support of her cross-motion for summary judgment, that she has no authority as court clerk to recognize out-of-state marriages. See Aplt. App. 248. This ruling was erroneous. First, as the District Court acknowledged, this Court in a prior appeal, Bishop, 333 Fed. Appx. 361, had indicated that district court clerks were the Oklahoma officials with a connection to Plaintiffs injuries, and had implicitly
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36
After Finstuen, Oklahoma must recognize out-of-state adoptions by same-sex couples, but same-sex couples remain unable to adopt in Oklahoma as a couple. Oklahoma law permits married couples and single adults to adopt, but not unmarried couples. See Okla. Stat. tit. 10, 7503-1.1. The ineligibility of samesex couples to adopt a child in Oklahoma as a coupleeven if they have validly married out of state, because their marriages are not recognized in state exacerbates the inequality and uncertainty produced by the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, and further belies the purpose asserted by Defendant of promoting legally secure two-parent households in the interest of children.
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directed Plaintiffs to sue Defendant in place of the Governor and Attorney General, both of whom this Court had found to lack the requisite causal connection for purposes of Article III standing. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *3, 13. This Courts determination in the prior appeal should have controlled as law of the case. The doctrine of law of the case posits that when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case. McIlravy v. Kerr-McGee Coal Corp., 240 F.3d 1031, 1034 (10th Cir. 2000). Furthermore, when a case is appealed and remanded, the decision of the appellate court establishes the law of the case and ordinarily will be followed by both the trial court on remand and the appellate court in any subsequent appeal. Id. (quotations omitted). The compelling rationale for the doctrine is judicial economyby preventing continued re-argument of issues already decided. Id. at 1035. The District Courts reconsideration of this Courts conclusion that Plaintiffs possess standing to sue Defendant contravened the sound public policy on which the doctrine rests. Gage v. General Motors Corp., 796 F.2d 345, 349 (10th Cir. 1986). Second, this Courts determination was, in any case, undoubtedly correct. As this Court observed, in Oklahoma [m]arriage licenses are issued, fees collected, and the licenses recorded by the district court clerks. Bishop, 333 Fed. Appx. at 365 (citing Okla. Stat. tit. 28, 31 and Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 5).
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Furthermore, as this Court noted, the recognition of marriages is within the administration of the judiciary, and the court clerk, as judicial personnel, is an arm of the court who is subject to the supervisory control of the district court and ultimately the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Id. (quoting Speight v.
Presley, 203 P.3d 173, 177 (Okla. 2008)). Plaintiffs injuries therefore are fairly traceable to Defendant both as the official who issues and records marriage licenses and as an arm of the branch of government that ultimately recognizes marital status in a variety of contexts, from adoption to divorce to intestacy. Finstuen, 496 F.3d at 1145 (quotations omitted).37 Indeed, there is no question that Defendant has met Plaintiffs challenges to the Oklahoma Marriage Ban with the concrete adverseness that standing doctrine is designed to ensure. Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Envtl. Study Group, 438 U.S. 59, 72 (1978) (quotations omitted). Nor is there any question that the local district court or the Oklahoma Supreme Court, both of which supervise Defendant as judicial personnel, would nonetheless flout an injunction against Defendant in her representative capacity as an arm of the court. See Wilson v. Stocker, 819 F.2d 943, 947 (10th Cir. 1987) (explaining that a controversy exists not because the state official is himself the
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37
Tellingly, Defendants affidavit made no effort to contravene this Courts observation that the judicial branch ultimately is responsible for marriage recognition in Oklahoma, nor did she identify any other official within the judiciary who should have been sued instead.
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source of the injury, but because the official represents the state whose statute is being challenged as the source of injury). Finally, in her answer, Defendant admitted that she is responsible for the enforcement of the laws challenged by Plaintiffs First Amended Complaint. Aplt. App. 46. Defendants late-breaking, conclusory assertion to the contrary in her affidavit at the summary judgment stage does not suffice to raise a genuine issue of material fact regarding standing, much less defeat standing as a matter of law. Cf. Finstuen, 496 F.3d at 1146 (cautioning that [u]nsupported conclusory allegations . . . do not create an issue of fact). B. The Statutory Bans On Same-Sex Marriage And Marriage Recognition Do Not Deprive Plaintiffs Of Standing.
As a last straw on appeal, Defendant contendsfor the first timethat Plaintiffs cannot satisfy the causation and redressability components of standing because the state statutory bans on same-sex marriage and marriage recognition38 have not been challenged. Defendant claims that even if the Oklahoma Marriage Ban is declared unconstitutional, these statutory provisions would still prevent Plaintiffs from being legally married in Oklahoma, thereby precluding complete and adequate relief. See Aplt. Principal Br. at 86-88. This argument fails for several reasons.
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38
See p. 10 n.3, supra.

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First, Defendants argument is premised on a fallacy as to the statutes continued viability. Once the Oklahoma Marriage Ban became part of the state constitution, it subsumed the preceding statutory analogues as a matter of state law.39 As the Oklahoma Supreme Court explained in Fent v. Henry, 257 P.3d 984 (Okla. 2011): A time-honored rule teaches that a revising statute (or, as in this case, a constitutional amendment) takes the place of all the former laws existing upon the subject with which it deals. This is true even though it contains no express words to that effect. In the strictest sense this process is not repeal by implication. Rather, it rests upon the principle that when it is apparent from the framework of the revision that whatever is embraced in the new law shall control and whatever is excluded is discarded, decisive evidence exists of an intention to prescribe the latest provisions as the only ones on that subject which shall be obligatory. Id. at 992 n.20 (quoting Hendrick v. Walters, 865 P.2d 1232, 1240 (Okla. 1993)) (emphasis added). By virtue of its enactment, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban became the exclusive law of the state with respect to the definition and recognition of marriages in Oklahoma. With the Oklahoma Marriage Bans invalidation,
Plaintiffs will have complete and adequate relief.40
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39
Sans the addition of criminal liability, the language of the constitutional amendment mirrors that of the statutes in question. 40 None of the authorities cited by Defendant on this issue involved the scenario where a state constitutional provision, passed after identical state statutes were codified, was later declared unconstitutional. The cases cited in Defendants string citation (Aplt. App. at 87-88) are also distinguishable. In each of those cases, the plaintiffs challenged one provision of a sign ordinance without challenging another provision by which the government could have denied the requested permits on an
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Second, even assuming the statutes retained their viability after passage of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban, they lose their legal force once the state constitutional amendment is stricken. As the Oklahoma Supreme Court has
recognized, [a] statute can be given such force only as the Legislature could impart to it within the limitation of the State and Federal Constitutions. Williams v. Bailey, 268 P.2d 868, 873 (Okla. 1954). Consequently, the statutes die in the books the moment their analogues have been declared invalid. After all,
constitutional litigation is not a game of whack-a-mole in which batting down one law does not prevent identical ones from rising. Otherwise, even after winning their landmark case in the Supreme Court, Mildred and Richard Loving would have had to re-litigate it in every state they visited that still had an antimiscegenation law. Defendants logic would necessitate such an absurdity.41 Finally, Defendants own characterization of the purpose of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban undercuts her standing argument. She contends that Oklahoma constitutionalized its same-sex marriage bans to prevent activist judges from
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entirely different ground. Here, as discussed, the substantive provisions of the state statutes and superseding constitutional amendment are identical. 41 Even Defendant does not go so far as to assert that she would rely on the superseded state statutes to continue to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to deny recognition of their out-of-state marriages after she has been enjoined from enforcing the state constitutional amendment on federal constitutional grounds. In any event, Defendant would be barred by issue preclusion from relitigating their constitutionality. See Park Lake Res. L.L.C. v. U.S. Dept of Agric., 378 F.3d 1132, 1136 (10th Cir. 2004).
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redefin[ing] marriage pursuant to the state constitution, as had occurred in Massachusetts with Goodridge. Aplt. Principal Br. at 35 (quotations omitted). Yet the injury of shutting the state courthouse doors on Plaintiffson top of the injuries of marriage denial and non-recognitionwould be redressed by an injunction against the Oklahoma Marriage Ban. See Consumer Data Industry Assn v. King, 678 F.3d 898, 905 (10th Cir. 2012) ([R]edressability is satisfied when a favorable decision relieves an injury, not every injury). VI. The Oklahoma Marriage Ban Is Not Severable. For the reasons discussed above, the Oklahoma Marriage Ban violates the Fourteenth Amendment twice overin barring same-sex couples from marrying, and in barring state recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages. Yet if this Court invalidates only one of these two provisions, it should find that the Oklahoma Marriage Ban as a whole cannot survive because the provisions are mutually reinforcing in purpose and effect, and therefore not severable from each other. Oklahoma law calls for severability analysis when some, but not all, provisions of an enactment are to be condemned as unconstitutional. Liddell v. Heavner, 180 P.3d 1191, 1202-03 (Okla. 2008). The state severability statute, Okla. Stat. tit. 75, 11a, applies equally to constitutional provisions as well as to statutory enactments. Local Trans. Workers Union of America v. Keating, 93
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P.3d 835, 839 (Okla. 2003). As the Oklahoma Supreme Court has summed up the severance inquiry, the statute requires determining whether a) the purpose of the statute would be significantly altered by severing the offending language; b) the Legislature would have enacted the remainder of the statute without the offending language; and c) the non-offending language is capable of standing alone. Oklahoma Corr. Profl Assn, Inc. v. Jackson, 280 P.3d 959, 965 (Okla. 2012). The Oklahoma Marriage Ban is not severable. Its legislative history makes abundantly clear that the whole point of the measure was to protect traditional marriage by banishing same-sex marriage entirely from the state. Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *23 (quotations omitted); see pp. 44-49, supra. The legislative proponents of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban and its public supporters did not present the measure as stand-alone definition and non-recognition provisions. See Bishop, 2014 WL 116013, at *22-23, 26-27. They pitched and passed it as
prophylactic protection against the incursion of same-sex marriage into the state. Aplt. Principal Br. at 60. The mutually reinforcing effect of the definition and non-recognition provisions confirms the Oklahoma Marriage Bans unity of design. Neither
provision by itself would prevent same-sex couples from living as married couples in Oklahoma. Without the definition provision, they could marry inside the state; without the non-recognition provision, they could enter the stateand remain in
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the statemarried. But both together effectuate a total exclusion of same-sex couples from the institution of marriage in Oklahoma. Neither the legislature nor the voters of Oklahoma would have wanted it any other way. Accordingly, if either part of the Oklahoma Marriage Ban falls, the rest of it should follow. Cf. Awad v. Ziriax, No. 5:10-cv-01186-M, 2013 WL 4441476, at *4-7 (W.D. Okla. Aug. 15, 2013) (striking down entire Save Our State Amendment to Oklahoma Constitutionwhich barred judicial consideration of Sharia Law, international law, and foreign lawrather than severing unconstitutional Sharia provision). CONCLUSION Like every committed, loving couple in Oklahoma, Plaintiffs Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin, and Plaintiffs Susan Barton and Gay Phillips, have no wish to undermine the cherished institution of marriage. They wish to share in it and uphold it. The Constitution protects their right to do so. As Loving v. Virginia concluded, [u]nder our Constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry . . . resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State. 388 U.S. at 12. The judgment of the District Court should be affirmed in No. 14-5003 and reversed in No. 14-5006.
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Respectfully submitted, s/ Don G. Holladay Don G. Holladay, OBA No. 4294 James E. Warner III, OBA No. 19593 HOLLADAY & CHILTON PLLC 204 N. Robinson Ave., Suite 1550 Oklahoma City, OK 73102 (405) 236-2343 Telephone (405) 236-2349 Facsimile dholladay@holladaychilton.com jwarner@holladaychilton.com -andJoseph T. Thai, OBA No. 19377 300 Timberdell Rd. Norman, OK 73019 (405) 204-9579 Telephone thai@post.harvard.edu ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEES AND CROSSAPPELLANTS MARY BISHOP, SHARON BALDWIN, SUSAN BARTON AND GAY PHILLIPS
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STATEMENT REGARDING ORAL ARGUMENT This Court has set oral argument on April 17, 2014, a week following oral argument in Kitchen v. Herbert, No. 13-4178, before the same panel. Plaintiffs believe this Courts decisions on the significant questions presented will benefit from oral argument.
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CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE WITH RULE 32(a) 1. This brief complies with the type-volume limitation of Fed. R. App. P.
28.1(e)(2)(B) and the Courts order permitting Appelles/Cross-Appellants to file an enlarged brief because this brief contains 19,638 words, excluding the parts of the brief exempted by Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(7)(B)(iii). 2. This brief complies with the typeface requirements of Fed. R. App. P.
32(a)(5) and the type style requirements of Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(6) because this brief has been prepared in a proportionally spaced typeface using Microsoft Word 2011 in 14-point Times New Roman style.
Date: March 17, 2014
s/ Don G. Holladay
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CERTIFICATE OF DIGITAL SUBMISSION I hereby certify that with respect to the foregoing: (1) (2) All required privacy redactions have been made per 10th Cir. R. 25.5; If required to file additional hard copies, that the ECF submission is an exact copy of those documents; (3) The digital submissions have been scanned for viruses with McAfee Version 6.0, which was most recently updated on March 17, 2014, and, according to the program, are free of viruses.
Date: March 17, 2014
s/ Don G. Holladay
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I hereby certify that on March 17, 2014, I electronically filed the foregoing using the courts CM/ECF system which will send notification of such filing to the following: Byron Babione, James Andrew Campbell, Holly L. Carmichael, John David Luton, David Austin Robert Nimocks, Brian W. Raum, Dale Michael Schowengerdt, Kevin H. Theriot. I further certify that on March 17, 2014, an original and seven copies of the foregoing were dispatched to Federal Express for overnight delivery to the following: Elisabeth A. Shumaker Clerk of Court United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Byron White U.S. Courthouse 1823 Stout Street Denver, CO 80257 Date: March 17, 2014 s/ Don G. Holladay
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Case 4:04-cv-00848-TCK-TLW Document 272 Filed in USDC ND/OK on 01/14/14 Page 1 of 68 Appellate Case: 14-5003 Document: 01019219011 Date Filed: 03/17/2014 Page: 1
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA MARY BISHOP, SHARON BALDWIN, SUSAN BARTON, and GAY PHILLIPS, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ex rel. ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., in his official capacity as Attorney General of the United States of America; and SALLY HOWE SMITH, in her official capacity as Court Clerk for Tulsa County, State of Oklahoma, Defendants, BIPARTISAN LEGAL ADVISORY GROUP OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Intervenor-Defendant. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )
No. 04-CV-848-TCK-TLW
OPINION AND ORDER This Order addresses challenges to state and federal laws relating to same-sex marriage. The Court holds that Oklahomas constitutional amendment limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court lacks jurisdiction over the other three challenges. I. Factual Background This case involves challenges to: (1) both sections of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), codified at 28 U.S.C. 1738C and 1 U.S.C. 7; and (2) two subsections of an amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution, which are set forth in article 2, section 35(A)-(B) (the
Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment). Constitution. A. DOMA
All challenges arise exclusively under the U.S.
DOMA, which became law in 1996, contains two substantive sections. Section 2 of DOMA, entitled Powers Reserved to the States, provides: No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship. Defense of Marriage Act 2, 28 U.S.C. 1738C. Section 3 of DOMA, entitled Definition of Marriage, provides: In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word marriage means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word spouse refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. Id. 3, 1 U.S.C. 7. This federal definition, which was declared unconstitutional during the pendency of this lawsuit, informed the meaning of numerous federal statutes using the word marriage or spouse and functioned to deprive same-sex married couples of federal benefits. See United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675, 2683 (2013) (striking down DOMAs definition of marriage, which controlled over 1,000 federal laws in which marital or spousal status is addressed as a matter of federal law, as a violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution).
B.
Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment
On November 2, 2004, Oklahoma voters approved State Question No. 711 (SQ 711), which was implemented as article 2, section 35 of the Oklahoma Constitution.1 The Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment provides: Marriage Defined Construction of Law and Constitution Recognition of Outof-State Marriages - Penalty A. Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman. Neither this Constitution nor any other provision of law shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.2 B. A marriage between persons of the same gender performed in another state shall not be recognized as valid and binding in this state as of the date of the marriage.3 C. Any person knowingly issuing a marriage license in violation of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. Okla. Const. art. 2, 35 (footnotes added). Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment (Part A) is the definitional provision, which provides that marriage in Oklahoma shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman. Part B of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment (Part B) is the non-recognition provision, which provides that same-sex marriages performed
SQ 711 passed by a vote of 1,075,216 to 347,303. (See Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ.
J., Ex. 3.) An Oklahoma statute also prevents same-sex couples from marrying. Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 3(A) (Any unmarried person who is at least eighteen (18) years of age and not otherwise disqualified is capable of contracting and consenting to marriage with a person of the opposite sex) (emphasis added). This statute is not challenged. An Oklahoma statute also prevents recognition of same-sex marriages. Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 3.1 (A marriage between persons of the same gender performed in another state shall not be recognized as valid and binding in this state as of the date of the marriage.). This statute is not challenged. 3
3 2
in other states shall not be recognized as valid and binding in Oklahoma. Only Parts A and B are challenged in this lawsuit. C. Procedural History4
In late 2004, Plaintiffs Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin (Bishop couple) and Susan Barton and Gay Phillips (Barton couple), two lesbian couples residing in Oklahoma, filed a Complaint seeking a declaration that Sections 2 and 3 of DOMA and Parts A and B of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment violate the U.S. Constitution. In August 2006, the Court denied a motion to dismiss filed by the Oklahoma Attorney General and Oklahoma Governor, rejecting their sovereign immunity argument. See Bishop I, 447 F. Supp. 2d at 1255 (holding that suit was proper against these officials under the Ex parte Young doctrine). The state officials appealed this Courts denial of sovereign immunity, and the Court stayed the proceedings pending appeal. On June 5, 2009, the Tenth Circuit issued an unpublished decision reversing this Courts failure to dismiss the claims against the Oklahoma officials and remanding the case for entry of an order dismissing these claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See Bishop II, 2009 WL 1566802, at *4. The Tenth Circuits reversal was based on Plaintiffs lack of standing to pursue their claims against the named state officials:5
This case has a lengthy procedural history. See Bishop v. Okla. ex rel. Edmondson, 447 F. Supp. 2d 1239 (N.D. Okla. 2006) (Bishop I); Bishop v. Okla. ex rel. Edmondson, No. 065188, 2009 WL 1566802 (10th Cir. June 5, 2009) (Bishop II); Bishop v. United States, No. 04CV-848, 2009 WL 4505951 (N.D Okla. Nov. 24, 2009) (Bishop III). In this Opinion and Order, the Court only includes background facts that are relevant to the currently pending motions. Because standing was not raised on appeal, the Tenth Circuit examined it sua sponte. (See id. at *2.) 4
5
The Couples claim they desire to be married but are prevented from doing so, or they are married but the marriage is not recognized in Oklahoma. These claims are simply not connected to the duties of the Attorney General or the Governor. Marriage licenses are issued, fees collected, and the licenses recorded by the district court clerks. See Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 28, 31; Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 43, 5. [A] district court clerk is judicial personnel and is an arm of the court whose duties are ministerial, except for those discretionary duties provided by statute. In the performance of [a] clerks ministerial functions, the court clerk is subject to the control of the Supreme Court and the supervisory control that it has passed down to the Administrative District Judge in the clerks administrative district. Speight v. Presley, 203 P.3d 173, 177 (Okla. 2008). Because recognition of marriages is within the administration of the judiciary, the executive branch of Oklahomas government has no authority to issue a marriage license or record a marriage. Moreover, even if the Attorney General planned to enforce the misdemeanor penalty (a claim not made here), that enforcement would not be aimed toward the Couples as the penalty only applies to the issuer of a marriage license to a same-sex couple. Thus, the alleged injury to the Couples could not be caused by any action of the Oklahoma officials, nor would an injunction (tellingly, not requested here) against them give the Couples the legal status they seek. Id. at *3 (footnote omitted). Following remand, Plaintiffs retained new counsel and were granted leave to file an Amended Complaint. As implicitly directed by Bishop II, Plaintiffs sued the Tulsa County Court Clerk in place of the previously named officials. Specifically, Plaintiffs sued State of Oklahoma, ex rel. Sally Howe Smith, in her official capacity as Court Clerk for Tulsa County, alleging: [Sally Howe Smith] is sued in her official capacity as Clerk of Tulsa County District Court. Pursuant to state law, she is the designated agent of the State of Oklahoma given statutory responsibility for issuing and recording marriage licenses. (Am. Compl. 7.) The State of Oklahoma filed a second motion to dismiss, again asserting its immunity and arguing that it should be dismissed as a nominal party to the case. The Court granted this motion and dismissed the State of Oklahoma as a nominal party. See Bishop III, 2009 WL 4505951, at *3. Thus, the current Defendants to the lawsuit are: (1) United States of America, ex rel. Eric H. Holder, Jr., in his official capacity as Attorney General of the United States of America
(United States); and (2) Sally Howe Smith (Smith), in her official capacity as Court Clerk for Tulsa County, State of Oklahoma. Smith is represented by the Tulsa County District Attorneys Office and attorneys with an organization known as the Alliance Defending Freedom. Smith and the United States filed motions to dismiss the Amended Complaint. The United States based its motion, in part, on the Barton couples lack of standing to challenge Section 3 of DOMA.6 The Court ordered the Barton couple to provide more particularized facts regarding the federal benefits that were allegedly desired and/or sought but that were unavailable and/or denied as a result of Section 3. After the Barton couple submitted supplemental affidavits, the United States conceded that the Barton couple had standing to challenge Section 3 and abandoned this section of its motion to dismiss. On February 25, 2011, prior to the Courts issuing a decision on the pending motions to dismiss, the United States notified the Court that it would cease defending the constitutionality of Section 3 of [DOMA], thereby abandoning other portions of its previously filed motion to dismiss. (See Not. to Court by United States of Am. 1.) The United States informed the Court of the possibility that members of Congress would elect to defend Section 3. On July 21, 2011, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives (BLAG) filed a motion to intervene as a defendant for the limited purpose of defending Section 3. (See Mot. of BLAG to Intervene 1.) The Court permitted BLAG to intervene pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(b)(1)(A) and referred the matter to Magistrate Judge T. Lane Wilson for a scheduling conference. Magistrate Judge Wilson conducted the conference and entered an agreed schedule.
The Barton couple challenges both sections of DOMA and both sections of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment. The Bishop couple challenges only Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment. 6
Smith and the United States withdrew their previously filed motions to dismiss, and the briefing process began anew. Although the Court did not issue a formal stay of the proceedings, the Court was aware that the United States Supreme Court had granted certiorari in two cases presenting nearly identical issues to those presented here namely, the constitutionality of Section 3 of DOMA and the constitutionality of Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative amending the California Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The Court delayed ruling in this case pending the Supreme Courts decisions. On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court issued its heavily anticipated decisions in United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013) (addressing Section 3 of DOMA), and Hollingsworth v. Perry, 133 S. Ct. 2652 (2013) (addressing Proposition 8). In Windsor, the Supreme Court held that Section 3 of DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693-94. This holding renders moot the Barton couples challenge to Section 3. See infra Part III. In Hollingsworth, the Supreme Court held that the official proponents of Proposition 8 lacked standing. See Hollingsworth, 133 S. Ct. at 2662-68 (reasoning that the proponents of Proposition 8 had not been ordered to do or refrain from doing anything by the trial court and that [t]heir only interest in having the district courts holding reversed was to vindicate the constitutional validity of a generally applicable California law). Therefore, the Court did not reach the constitutionality of Proposition 8. D. Barton Couple
Plaintiffs Susan Barton and Gay Phillips have resided in Oklahoma for over fifty years and currently own a home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They also own Barton, Phillips, and Associates, Inc.,
a company that provides training to agencies serving homeless teens. Ms. Phillips has a doctorate degree in sociology, and Ms. Barton is an adjunct professor at Tulsa Community College, where she teaches courses on Building Relationships and Teaching Discipline. The Barton couple has been in a continuous, committed relationship since November 1, 1984. They were united in a Vermont civil union in 2001 and were married in Canada on May 16, 2005. On November 1, 2008, prior to filing their Amended Complaint, they were issued a marriage license by the State of California and married under California law.7 As a same-sex couple that has been legally married in the United States, the Barton couple challenges Sections 2 and 3 of DOMA as violative of equal protection and substantive due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Barton couple seeks a declaratory judgment that DOMA is unconstitutional and a permanent injunction restraining enforcement of DOMA. As a same-sex couple that is denied the right to marry in Oklahoma, the Barton couple challenges Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment as violative of equal protection and substantive due process rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Barton couple also challenges Part B, which prohibits recognition of their California marriage in Oklahoma, as violative of equal protection and substantive due process rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.8 As remedies, the Barton couple seeks a declaratory
7
When this Court issued its decision in Bishop I, the Barton couple had entered into a Vermont civil union and a Canadian marriage. The Court held that neither relationship was treated as a marriage in another State and that the Barton couple lacked standing to challenge Section 2. See Bishop I, 447 F. Supp. 2d at 1245-49. In their Amended Complaint, the Barton couple includes allegations regarding their California marriage. During the scheduling conference, Magistrate Judge Wilson raised the question of whether the Amended Complaint asserted a challenge to Part B. The Barton couple asserted that they intended to challenge Part B in their Amended Complaint and desired to address Part B in their summary judgment brief. Smith did not object. Therefore, based on certain allegations in 8
8
judgment that Parts A and B of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment violate the U.S. Constitution and a permanent injunction enjoining enforcement of Parts A and B. E. Bishop Couple
Plaintiffs Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin have resided in Oklahoma throughout their lives and own a home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. They also jointly own a 1.3-acre lot in Osage County, Oklahoma. Ms. Bishop is an assistant editor at the Tulsa World newspaper, and Ms. Baldwin is a city slot editor at the Tulsa World. The Bishop couple has been in a continuous, committed relationship for over fifteen years and exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony in Florida in 2000. On February 13, 2009, the Bishop couple sought the issuance of a marriage license from Smith. Smith refused them a marriage license based upon their status as a same-sex couple. As a same-sex couple that is denied the right to marry in Oklahoma, the Bishop couple challenges Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment as violative of equal protection and substantive due process rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Bishop couple seeks a declaratory judgment that Part A is unconstitutional and a permanent injunction enjoining enforcement of Part A. F. Pending Motions
This Order substantively addresses the following pending motions: (1) the United States motion to dismiss, in which the United States argues that the Barton couple lacks standing to challenge Section 2;9 (2) the Barton couples motion for entry of final judgment as to Section 3,
the body of the Amended Complaint and Smiths lack of objection, the Court construes the Amended Complaint as also challenging Part B. The United States motion to dismiss only attacks standing and does not offer any defense of Section 2 on the merits. BLAG intervened for the limited purpose of defending the constitutionality of Section 3. Therefore, the only opposition to the Barton couples challenge to 9
9
which they filed following the Windsor decision; (3) Plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment, in which Plaintiffs argue that Sections 2 and 3 of DOMA and Parts A and B of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment violate the U.S. Constitution; and (4) Smiths Cross Motion for Summary Judgment, in which Smith argues that the Barton couple lacks standing to challenge Part B, and that Parts A and B do not violate the U.S. Constitution. The Court holds: (1) the Barton couple lacks standing to challenge Section 2 of DOMA; (2) the Barton couples challenge to Section 3 of DOMA is moot; (3) the Barton couple lacks standing to challenge Part B of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment; (4) the Bishop couple has standing to challenge Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment;10 and (5) Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. II. Barton Couple Lacks Standing to Challenge Section 2 of DOMA In its motion to dismiss, the United States argues that the Barton couple lacks standing to challenge Section 2 because any inability to secure recognition of their [California] marriage in Oklahoma would be attributable, not to the United States, but to the appropriate Oklahoma state official. (United States Mot. to Dismiss 2.)11
Section 2 is the United States standing argument. The Court reaches the merits of Part A based upon the Bishop couples standing and does not reach the question of whether the Barton couple also has standing to challenge Part A. See Watt v. Energy Action Educ. Found., 454 U.S. 151, 160 (1981) (Because we find [one plaintiff] has standing, we do not consider the standing of the other plaintiffs.). As explained infra Part IV, Smith testified that she is not the state official connected to recognition of out-of-state marriages, and the Barton couple failed to controvert this evidence. Thus, the identity of the appropriate State official remains unclear. 10
11 10
A.
Purpose of Section 2
Preliminary discussion of the purpose and legislative history of Section 2 is warranted. Relevant to this case, Section 2 provides that no state shall be required to give effect to a marriage license of any other state if the marriage is between persons of the same sex. 28 U.S.C. 1738(C). According to the House Report preceding DOMAs passage, the primary purpose of Section 2 was to protect the right of the States to formulate their own public policy regarding legal recognition of same-sex unions, free from any federal constitutional implications that might attend the recognition by one State of the right for homosexual couples to acquire marriage licenses. See H.R. Rep. No. 104664 (1996), reprinted in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2905, 2906. Congress was concerned that if Hawaii (or some other State) recognizes same-sex marriages, other States that do not permit homosexuals to marry would be confronted with the complicated issue of whether they are nonetheless obligated under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution to give binding legal effect to such unions. Id. at 2913. The House Judiciary Committee (Committee) determined that states already possessed the ability to deny recognition of a same-sex marriage license from another state, so long as the marriage violated a strong public policy of the state having the most significant relationship to the spouses at the time of the marriage. Id. However, the Committee also expressed its view that such conclusion was far from certain. Id. at 2914; see also id. at 2929 (While the Committee does not believe that the Full Faith and Credit Clause, properly interpreted and applied, would require sister states to give legal effect to same-sex marriages celebrated in other States, there is sufficient uncertainty that we believe congressional action is appropriate.). In order to address this uncertainty, Congress invoked its power under the second sentence of the U.S. Constitutions Full Faith and Credit Clause (the Effects Clause), which permits 11 More specifically,
Congress to prescribe the effect that public acts, records, and proceedings from one State shall have in sister States. Id. at 2929. The Committee described Section 2 as a narrow, targeted relaxation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. Id. at 2932. Consistent with this legislative history, Section 2 has been described by courts and commentators as permitting states to refuse to give full faith and credit to same-sex marriages performed in another state. See Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2682-83 (Section 2, which has not been challenged here, allows States to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed under the laws of other States.); Smelt v. Cnty. of Orange, 447 F.3d 673, 683 (9th Cir. 2006) (explaining that Section 2, in effect, indicates that no state is required to give full faith and credit to another states determination that a relationship between persons of the same sex . . . is treated as a marriage); Gill v. Office of Personnel Mgmt., 699 F. Supp. 2d 374, 378 (D. Mass. 2010) (In enacting Section 2 of DOMA, Congress permitted the states to decline to give effect to the laws of other states respecting same-sex marriage.) (footnote omitted); Gillian E. Metzger, Congress, Article IV, and Interstate Relations, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 1468, 1532 (2007) (Section 2s purpose, evident from its terms, is to ensure that states will not be required to recognize same-sex marriage by virtue of the Full Faith and Credit Clause.).12 Since DOMAs passage, some scholars have concluded that Section 2 was unnecessary and simply reiterates a power that states already possessed. See Joshua Baker & William Duncan, As Goes DOMA . . . Defending DOMA and the State Marriages Measures, 24 Regent Univ. L. Rev. 1, 8 (2011-2012) (Over time, something of a consensus seems to have developed among scholars that Section 2 of DOMA merely restates existing conflicts of law principles with respect to interstate recognition of a legal status or license . . . .); William Baude, Beyond DOMA: Choice of State Law in Federal Statutes, 64 Stan. L. Rev. 1371, 1392 (2012) (Section 2 of DOMA is expressly intended to ratify such [state public] policies (if any ratification were needed).); Mary L. Bonauto, DOMA Damages Same-Sex Families and Their Children, 32 Fam. Adv. 10, 12 (Winter 2010) ([S]tates have long possessed the power to decide which marriages they would respect from elsewhere, a power that both proponents and opponents of DOMA agree existed before and after DOMA.); Patrick Borchers, The Essential Irrelevance of the Full Faith and Credit Clause to the Same-Sex Marriage Debate, 38 Creighton Law R. 353, 358 (2005) (arguing that Section 2 of DOMA was unnecessary because it simply 12
12
B.
Standing Analysis
The Barton couple bears the burden of proving that there is an actual case or controversy regarding Part B. See Chamber of Commerce of United States v. Edmondson, 594 F.3d 742, 756 (10th Cir. 2010) (Article III of the Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to actual cases or controversies.). This jurisdictional requirement is known as standing. To establish standing, plaintiffs bear the burden of demonstrating that they have suffered an injury-in-fact which is concrete and particularized as well as actual or imminent; that the injury was caused by the challenged [laws]; and that the requested relief would likely redress their alleged injuries. Id. This three-pronged inquiry seeks to resolve three questions: Is the injury too abstract, or otherwise not appropriate, to be considered judicially cognizable? Is the line of causation between the illegal conduct and injury too attenuated? Is the prospect of obtaining relief from the injury as a result of a favorable ruling too speculative? Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 752 (1984). For purposes of standing, the Court examines the allegations in the Amended Complaint. See Mink v. Suthers, 482 F.3d 1244, 1254 (10th Cir. 2007) (explaining that, where an original pleading has been amended, a court looks to the amended complaint in assessing a plaintiffs claims, including the allegations in support of standing). Because the United States standing states what the law would be without it and that full faith and credit principles do not require one state to give effect to a marriage celebrated in another state); Metzger, supra, at 1532 ([I]t is unlikely that a states refusal to recognize same-sex marriages would have violated Article IVs full faith and credit demand even absent DOMA, at least as applied to same-sex marriage involving state residents.); Mark Strasser, As Iowa Goes, So Goes the Nation: Varnum v. Brien and its Impact on Marriage Rights for Same-Sex Couples, 13 J. Gender Race & Justice 153, 158 (Fall 2009) ([E]ven without DOMA, states could have refused to recognize their domicilaries marriages validly celebrated elsewhere if such marriages violated an important public policy of the domicile. Thus, DOMA did not give states a power that they did not already possess with respect to the power to refuse to recognize domiciliaries marriages that had been celebrated elsewhere in accord with the latter statess law.). 13
attack was made at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage, the Court accept[s] the allegations in the [Amended Complaint] as true for purposes of [its] standing analysis. United States v. Rodriguez-Aguirre, 264 F.3d 1195, 1203 (10th Cir. 2001). Further, the Court must presume that general allegations embrace those specific facts that are necessary to support the claim. Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 358 (1996) (internal citation omitted). The Court construes the Amended Complaint as alleging three injuries flowing from Section 2. First, the Barton couple alleges the injury of being unable to obtain recognition of their California marriage in Oklahoma (non-recognition). (See Am. Compl. 20.) Second, they allege the injury of unequal treatment, flowing from the United States erection of Section 2 as a barrier to obtaining the benefit of recognition of their California marriage in Oklahoma (unequal treatment). (See id. 12; see also Pls. Resp. to Mot. to Dismiss 12 (arguing that [Section 2] operates as such a barrier in that it officially sanctions the denial of equal treatment of Plaintiffs marriage and the attendant recognition/status that springs from such recognition).) Finally, they allege the injury of stigma and humiliation. (See Am. Compl. 22; see also Pls. Resp. to Mot. to Dismiss 11-12 ([Plaintiffs] have a second-class marriage in the eyes of friends, neighbors, colleagues, and the United States of America.).) 1. Non-Recognition
The Court concludes that neither Section 2, nor the U.S. Attorney Generals enforcement thereof, plays a sufficient causation role leading to the Barton couples alleged injury of nonrecognition of their California marriage in Oklahoma.13 Section 2 is an entirely permissive federal The United States also argues that the Baron couple has not suffered an injury in fact based upon their failure to have actually sought and been denied recognition of their California marriage in Oklahoma. (See United States Mot. to Dismiss 5.) For purposes of this motion, the Court assumes without deciding that the Barton couples alleged injuries constitute injuries in 14
13
law. 28 U.S.C. 1738C (No State . . . shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State . . . that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State . . . .). It does not mandate that states take any particular action, does not remove any discretion from states, does not confer benefits upon non-recognizing states, and does not punish recognizing states. The injury of non-recognition stems exclusively from state law namely, Part B and title 43, section 3.1 of the Oklahoma Statutes and not from the challenged federal law. Cf. Gillespie v. City of Indianapolis, 13 F. Supp. 2d 811, 818 (S.D. Ind. 1998) (city police officer was convicted of domestic violence crime, prohibited by federal law from carrying firearm, and then threatened with termination by the city) (court held that injury of threatened termination was fairly traceable to federal firearm law because a firearms disability operates as virtually a total bar to employment as a police officer and because any decision by local officials to fire the plaintiff stems from the federal statute and not the exercise of independent discretion). In contrast to the federal firearms prohibition, essentially mandating an officers termination in Gillespie, Section 2 does not remove any local, independent discretion and is not a fairly traceable cause of the Barton couples non-recognition injury. See generally Bonauto, supra note 12, at 13 (explaining that [l]egal challenges to section 2 of DOMA have been few, and none have succeeded, at least in part because it is the states nonrecognition law that presents the impediment to recognition, not section 2 itself). The Barton couples reliance on Bennet v. Spears, 520 U.S. 154 (1997), is misplaced. In Bennet, the Supreme Court addressed whether the injury of reduced water for irrigation was fairly traceable to a Biological Opinion authored by the Fish and Wildlife Service, where another agency
fact but concludes that none were sufficiently caused by Section 2. 15
actually issued the final decision regarding the volume of water allocated. Id. at 168-71. The Biological Opinion, although not the very last step in the chain of causation, had a powerful coercive effect and a virtually determinative effect on the action ultimately taken by the other agency. See id. at 169. While the other agency was technically free to disregard the Biological Opinion, it would do so at its own peril, including civil and criminal penalties. Id. at 170. In contrast to the Biological Opinion, Section 2 does not have any coercive or determinative effect on Oklahomas non-recognition of the Barton couples California marriage. At a maximum, it removes a potential impediment to Oklahomas ability to refuse recognition namely, the Full Faith and Credit Clause. See supra Part III(A) (explaining Section 2s purpose); note 12 (explaining that Full Faith and Credit Clause may not actually be an impediment). A federal law that removes one potential impediment to state action has a much weaker causation link than a federal agency opinion that has a coercive effect on another federal agencys action. The Court must address dicta in Bishop I that is inconsistent with the above reasoning regarding Section 2. In 2006, this Court addressed standing issues sua sponte and implied that, if the Barton couple obtained legal status that was treated as a marriage in another state, they would have standing to challenge Section 2. See Bishop I, 447 F. Supp. 2d at 1246 (describing Section 2 as preventing, or at least arguably preventing the Barton couple from obtaining legal recognition in Oklahoma). The Courts use of the phrase prevents, or at least arguably prevents was in error. Section 2 does not prevent or even arguably prevent Oklahoma from recognizing the Barton couples California marriage. At most, Section 2 removes one potential impediment to a states
16
ability to refuse recognition of the marriage. Therefore, the Courts dicta in Bishop I has been reconsidered and is superseded by this Opinion and Order.14 2. Unequal Treatment
The Barton couple also alleges the injury of unequal treatment resulting from the imposition of Section 2 as a barrier to the benefit of recognition of their California marriage. In certain equal protection cases, the right being asserted is not the right to any specific amount of denied governmental benefits; it is the right to receive benefits distributed according to classifications which do not without sufficient justification differentiate among covered applicants solely on the basis of [impermissible criteria]. See Day v. Bond, 500 F.3d 1127, 1133 (10th Cir. 2007) (quoting Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U.S. 728, 737 (1984)). In such cases, the injury in fact . . . is the denial of equal treatment resulting from the imposition of the [allegedly discriminatory] barrier, not the ultimate inability to obtain the benefit. Ne. Fla. Ch. of the Associated Gen. Contractors of Am. v. City of Jacksonville, Fla., 508 U.S. 656, 666 (1993); Day, 500 F.3d at 1133 (explaining that the injury in such cases is the imposition of the barrier itself). Although these standing principles are most commonly applied to competitive benefit programs, i.e., those for which there are a limited number of beneficiaries, the Tenth Circuit has also applied such principles to non-competitive benefit programs. See Day, 500 F.3d at 1131-35 (applying equal opportunity standing analysis to equal protection challenge to Kansas statute setting rules for receipt of in-state tuition at state universities). The Barton couple incorrectly argues that this dicta is controlling. The Barton couple filed an Amended Complaint, which renders moot this Courts analysis of standing allegations in the original Complaint. See Mink, 482 F.3d at 1254. Further, the Court has an independent obligation to satisfy itself of standing at all stages of the proceedings, see City of Colo. Springs v. Climax Molybdenum Co., 587 F.3d 1071, 1078-79 (10th Cir. 2009), and this necessarily includes reconsideration of prior reasoning. 17
14
The Court concludes that these discriminatory barrier cases are not applicable due to the permissive nature of Section 2. As explained above, Section 2 is not an allegedly discriminatory policy that Oklahoma must follow in deciding what marriages to recognize, and it does not stand as any significant obstacle between the Barton couple and recognition of their California marriage in Oklahoma. Cf. Ne. Fla. Ch. of the Associated Gen. Contractors of Am., 508 U.S. at 666 (minority set-aside program was barrier to non-minority gaining government contracts, the removal of which would have allowed non-minorities to compete equally); Turner v. Fouche, 396 U.S. 346, 361-64 (1970) (law limiting school board membership to property owners was barrier to non-property owners gaining election to school board, the removal of which would have allowed non-property owners to compete equally); Buchwald v. Univ. of N.M. Sch. of Med., 159 F.3d 487, 493 (10th Cir. 1998) (policy favoring long-term residents was barrier to short-term resident gaining access to medical school, the removal of which would have allowed short-term residents to compete equally). These cases are particularly unhelpful to the Barton couple because they have not challenged Part B of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment (which prohibits recognition and is the more direct cause of their injury) as violating the Full Faith and Credit Clause (which is the impediment to Part Bs legality that Section 2 potentially alleviates). Instead, they only challenged Part B as violative of their equal protection and substantive due process rights. 3. Stigma
The Barton couple also alleges that the mere existence of Section 2 separate from any impact it has on their legal status as married or unmarried causes ongoing stigmatic harm by indicating that their same-sex marriage is second-class. Stigmatic injuries are judicially
cognizable in certain circumstances, particularly those involving racial discrimination. See Allen,
18
468 U.S. at 755 (explaining that stigmatizing injury often caused by racial discrimination is a sort of noneconomic injury that is sufficient in some circumstances to support standing); Wilson v. Glenwood Intermountain Props., Inc., 98 F.3d 590, 596 (10th Cir. 1996) (explaining that stigmatizing injury often caused by racial discrimination can be sufficient in some circumstances to support standing and applying concept to advertising scheme that allegedly discriminated based upon gender). Assuming these cases extend to stigmatic injuries to non-suspect classes, see infra Part VI(D)(2)(a) (concluding that same-sex couples desiring a marriage license are not a suspect class), the stigma still must be causally linked to some concrete interest discriminatorily impaired by Part B of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment. See Allen, 468 U.S. at 757 n.22 (explaining that a plaintiff premising standing on a stigmatic injury must (1) identify some concrete interest with respect to which [she is] personally subject to discriminatory treatment[;] and (2) show that this concrete interest independently satisf[ies] the causation requirement of standing doctrine). For the same reasons explained above, Section 2 lacks a sufficient causal link to any stigmatic injury the Barton couple is suffering due to non-recognition of their California marriage. The stigmatic harm flows most directly from Oklahoma law and is only possibly strengthened in some manner by Section 2. Therefore, the Barton couples allegations do not establish standing to challenge Section 2, and this claim is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.15 The United States also argues that the Barton couples alleged stigmatic injury is not cognizable because it is merely a psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct. (See United States Reply in Support of Mot. to Dismiss 4 (quoting Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Ams. United for Separation of Church & State, 454 U.S. 464, 485 (1982), and also relying upon Freedom from Religion Found., Inc. v. Obama, 641 F.3d 803, 806-08 (7th Cir. 2011).) However, the Courts holding is premised on the Barton couples inability to show causation. The Court is not persuaded that the United States cited cases would extend to the more personal type of injury alleged here. Cf. Freedom from Religion Found. Inc., 641 F.3d at 806-08 (concluding that the perceived slight or feeling of exclusion suffered by one of many observers of President Obamas remarks during National Day of Prayer did not 19
15
III.
Barton Couples Challenge to Section 3 of DOMA Is Moot The Barton couple moves for entry of a final judgment on their challenge to Section 3 in light
of the Supreme Courts decision in Windsor. The United States argues that Windsor moots the Barton couples Section 3 challenge and that the Court lacks jurisdiction over this challenge. A. Mootness Standard
Mootness, like standing, is a jurisdictional doctrine originating in Article IIIs case or controversy language. WildEarth Guardians v. Pub. Serv. Co. of Colo., 690 F.3d 1174, 1182 (10th Cir. 2012). Thus, a court must decline to exercise jurisdiction where the award of any requested relief would be moot, i.e. where the controversy is no longer live and ongoing. Wirsching v. Colo., 360 F.3d 1191, 1196 (10th Cir. 2004). The defendant bears the burden of proving mootness, WildEarth Guardians, 690 F.3d at 1183, and this burden is a heavy one, Rezaq v. Nalley, 677 F.3d 1001, 1008 (10th Cir. 2012). If a defendant carries its burden of showing mootness, a court lacks subject matter jurisdiction. Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Bureau of Reclamation, 601 F.3d 1096, 1109 (10th Cir. 2010). B. Prayer for Relief
In their prayer for relief, the Barton couple seeks a declaration that [Section 3 of DOMA] violate[s] the U.S. Constitutions Equal Protection and substantive Due Process Rights of Plaintiffs Barton and Phillips. (Am. Compl. 10.) They also seek an award of their attorney fees and costs in prosecuting this action and [s]uch other relief deemed proper. (Id.) The Court will analyze each request to determine if any live and ongoing controversy remains following the Windsor decision.
confer standing). 20
1.
Declaratory Relief
[W]hat makes a declaratory judgment action a proper judicial resolution of a case or controversy rather than an advisory opinion is the settling of some dispute which affects the behavior of the defendant toward the plaintiff. Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, 601 F.3d at 1109-10. The crucial question is whether granting a present determination of the issues offered will have some effect in the real world. Id. at 1110 (internal citation omitted); see also Rezaq, 677 F.3d at 1008 ([I]n the context of an action for declaratory relief, a plaintiff must be seeking more than a retrospective opinion that he was wrongly harmed by the defendant.); Wirsching, 360 F.3d at 1196 (same). The Court concludes that there is no longer any live or ongoing controversy as to the Barton couples request for declaratory relief regarding Section 3. In Windsor, the Supreme Court held that Section 3 violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693-94 (reasoning that DOMAs principal effect is to identify a subset of state-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal). As a general rule, where a law has been declared unconstitutional by a controlling court, pending requests for identical declaratory relief become moot. Thayer v. Chiczewski, 705 F.3d 237, 256-57 (7th Cir. 2012) (claim for declaratory and injunctive relief moot in light of Seventh Circuits invalidation of challenged law in another case); Longley v. Holahan, 34 F.3d 1366, 1367 (8th Cir. 1994) (claim moot where challenged statute was declared unconstitutional in companion case); Eagle Books, Inc. v. Difanis, 873 F.2d 1040, 1042 (7th Cir.1989) (claim moot where state supreme court had declared challenged statute unconstitutional); see also Utah Animal Rights Coal. v. Salt Lake City Corp., 371 F.3d 1248, 1257 (10th Cir. 2004) (claim moot where challenged statute was repealed). Because Section 3 has
21
already been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, an identical declaration by this Court will have no further impact on the United States actions.16 Second, the United States has presented compelling evidence that, following Windsor, it has ceased to enforce Section 3 and that the Barton couple will suffer no further injury as a result of Section 3. In Revenue Ruling 2013-17, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provided guidance on the effect of the Windsor decision on the [IRS] interpretations of the [federal tax code] that refer to taxpayers marital status, stating that individuals of the same sex will be considered to be lawfully married under the Code as long as they were married in a state whose laws authorize the marriage of two individuals of the same sex, even if they are domiciled in a state that does not recognize the validity of same-sex marriages. (Rev. Ruling 2013-17, 2013-381.R.B.28 (emphasis added), Ex. B to United States Not. of Admin. Action.) In a news release, the IRS stated that same sex couples will be treated as married for all federal tax purposes, including filing status, claiming personal and dependency exemptions, taking the standard deduction, employee benefits, contributing to an IRA and claiming the earned income tax credit or child tax credit. (I.R.S. News Release, IR-2013-72 (Aug. 29, 2013), Ex. A to United States Not. of Admin. Action.) Thus, Section 3 of DOMA will no longer be used to deprive the Barton couple of married status for any federal tax purpose because (1) they have a legal California marriage, and (2) Oklahomas non-recognition of such marriage is irrelevant for federal tax
BLAG, the only party defending the constitutionality of Section 3, has stated that the Supreme Court recently held that DOMA Section 3 is unconstitutional and that its justification for participating in this case . . . has disappeared. (BLAGs Unopposed Mot. to Withdraw 1-2.) BLAGs disinterest in any further defense of Section 3 supports the Courts conclusion that its entry of a declaratory judgment would have no effect. 22
16
purposes. Any ongoing threat of injury based upon deprivation of married status for tax purposes has been rendered moot by Windsor and the IRS response thereto.17 In their evidentiary proffers regarding standing to challenge Section 3, the Barton couple asserts harms other than adverse tax consequences, such as an inability to plan for Social Security survivor benefits. The Barton couple argues that Windsor may affect the interpretation of the word married by other federal agencies and that this Court must ensure that the Barton couple reaps the full benefit of the Windsor decision. However, all evidence before the Court indicates that Section 3 will no longer be used to deprive married same-sex couples of federal benefits that are bestowed upon married opposite-sex couples, even when those couples live in non-recognizing states such as Oklahoma. The Windsor decision changed the legal landscape in such a drastic manner that the Barton couple no longer faces any reasonable threat of being denied equal protection of federal laws related to marriage. Were the Court to issue a declaratory judgment, it would be issuing an opinion based on a hypothetical application of Section 3 that is no longer likely to occur. See Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, 601 F.3d at 1117 (A case ceases to be a live controversy if the possibility of recurrence of the challenged conduct is only a speculative contingency.) (alterations and citation omitted). 2. Attorney Fees and Costs
The Barton couple also requests attorney fees and costs. However, the possibility of recovering attorney fees or costs is not a sufficient reason to enter judgment in an otherwise moot This is not a case in which the United States is showing any reluctant submission to complying with Windsor. See Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, 601 F.3d at 1116 (explaining that a case may not be moot if a governmental actor is showing reluctant submission or a desire to return to the old ways). The United States has given every indication that the Supreme Courts ruling will be implemented in a manner that ceases to cause the Barton couple any injury related to payment of federal income taxes. 23
17
case. See R.M. Inv. Co. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 511 F.3d 1103, 1108 (10th Cir. 2007) (explaining that a claim of entitlement to attorney fees does not preserve a moot cause of action); In re West. Pac. Airlines, Inc., 181 F.3d 1191, 1196 (10th Cir. 1999) (Precedent clearly indicates that an interest in attorneys fees is insufficient to create an Article III case or controversy where a case or controversy does not exist on the merits of the underlying claim.); 13C Charles Alan Wright, et al., Federal Practice and Procedure 3533.3 (3d ed. 2008) (If the action is mooted before any decision on the merits by the trial court, a statute that awards fees to the prevailing party does not justify decision on the merits in order to determine if that party would have prevailed absent mootness.) (Claims for costs traditionally have not been thought sufficient to avoid mootness, presumably on the theory that such incidental matters should not compel continuation of an otherwise moribund action.). 3. Other Relief Deemed Proper
The Barton couple does not expressly request money damages as relief. However, they urge the Court to construe their request for other relief deemed proper as a request for money damages. They are now urging this construction because, unlike claims for declaratory or injunctive relief, claims for damages are not mooted by subsequent events. See In re West. Pac. Airlines, Inc., 181 F.3d at 1196 (explaining that, although declaratory and injunctive relief was rendered moot by a defendants release from prison, a damages claim was still viable because it would alter the defendants behavior by forcing them to pay money); Charles Alan Wright, et al., supra, 3533.3 (Untold number of cases illustrate the rule that a claim for money damages is not moot, no matter how clear it is that the claim arises from events that have completely concluded without any prospect of recurrence.). In the Tenth Circuit, this same rule applies to claims for nominal damages. Utah Animal Rights Coal., 371 F.3d at 1257-58 (It may seem odd that a complaint for nominal damages
24
could satisfy Article IIIs case or controversy requirements, when a functionally identical claim for declaratory relief will not. But this Court has squarely so held.) (internal footnotes omitted). The Court does not construe the other relief deemed proper language as a request for compensatory or nominal damages against the United States for three reasons. First, the Barton couple has repeatedly argued, in response to certain ripeness and standing deficiencies raised by BLAG, that their Section 3 injury was not any specific denial of monetary benefits but was instead the ongoing injury of unequal access and/or unequal treatment caused by Section 3. (See, e.g., Pls. Resp. to BLAGs Cross Mot. for Summ. J. (containing heading entitled BLAGs Argument Regarding Standing is Without Merit, as Plaintiffs Do Not Request Monetary Damages and DOMA Was the Cause of their Injury).) This case has focused entirely on prospective declaratory relief, rather than injunctive relief related to a specific tax refund, and the Court finds no legitimate basis to now construe the Amended Complaint as seeking money damages. Second, the United States is generally immune from suits for money damages, and the Barton couple has not identified any waiver or statutory exception that would apply here. See Wyodak Res. Dev. Corp. v. United States, 637 F.3d 1127, 1130 (10th Cir. 2011) (explaining that suits for damages against the United States must proceed under the Tucker Act in the Court of Federal Claims or under some other statutory immunity waiver). Finally, the Barton couple has not urged the Court to construe the Amended Complaint as requesting nominal damages. (See Pls. Reply in Support of Mot. for Entry of J. 7-10.) Even if they had, these decisions generally require an express request, which was not made in the Amended Complaint. See R.M. Inv. Co., 511 F.3d at 1107 (rejecting argument that suit should be construed as one seeking nominal damages and stating that [b]ecause [the plaintiff] has no claim for nominal damages, it cannot rely on nominal-damages cases to overcome mootness); Charles
25
Alan Wright, et al., supra, 3533.3 (But failure to demand nominal damages may lose the opportunity to avoid mootness.). Accordingly, the Barton couples Section 3 challenge is not saved by the other relief language in the Amended Complaint. C. Conclusion
The Barton couple has only requested prospective declaratory relief regarding Section 3, and such request has been rendered moot in light of Windsor and the United States response thereto. The United States has satisfied its burden of showing mootness, and the Court lacks jurisdiction to enter any judgment in favor of the Barton couple. Based on this ruling, the Court agrees with BLAGs assertion that it has no further role to play in this litigation. BLAGs motion to withdraw as an intervening party is therefore granted, and its motion for summary judgment is denied as moot. Although the Barton couple will not receive a judgment in their favor as to this claim, they have played an important role in the overall legal process leading to invalidation of Section 3 of DOMA. The Barton couple filed this lawsuit many years before it seemed likely that Section 3 would be overturned. Although other plaintiffs received the penultimate judgment finding DOMAs definition of marriage unconstitutional, the Barton couple and their counsel are commended for their foresight, courage, and perseverance. IV. Barton Couple Lacks Standing to Challenge Part B of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment Bishop II held that, in order to have standing in this case, Plaintiffs must establish a connection between the state official sued and the alleged injury. See Bishop II, 2009 WL 1566802, at *3 (holding that Plaintiffs lacked standing to sue Oklahoma Governor or Oklahoma Attorney General in their challenge to Parts A and B because these officials did not have a sufficient enforcement connection to the challenged Oklahoma laws). The Tenth Circuit indicated that district 26
court clerks were the Oklahoma officials with a connection to Plaintiffs injuries because [m]arriage licenses are issued, fees collected, and the licenses recorded by the district court clerks. Id. Notably, the statutes cited in Bishop II do not reference court clerks authority to recognize an out-of-state marriage. In support of her motion for summary judgment, Smith submitted an affidavit stating that she has no authority to recognize or record a marriage license issued by another state in any setting, regardless of whether the license was issued to an opposite-sex or samesex couple and that [t]here are no circumstances in which the Clerk of Court of Tulsa County would be authorized to recognize a marriage license issued by another state. (See Smith Aff. 5, Ex. A to Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ. J.) The Barton couple has not controverted this evidence in any manner. Instead, the Barton couple argues that, in Bishop II, the Tenth Circuit has deemed [Smith] to be the appropriate party. (Pls. Reply to Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ. J. 27.) Based upon the evidence before the Court, Smith is entitled to summary judgment. Although Bishop II explained that clerks of court were generally the Oklahoma officials connected with the types of injuries alleged in the Amended Complaint, that decision was at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage. In her affidavit, Smith denies that she, or any other district court clerk in Oklahoma, has authority to recognize any out-of-state marriage and therefore denies her ability to redress the Barton couples non-recognition injury. The Barton couple has failed to controvert Smiths testimony in any manner or demonstrate that she would indeed be the proper official to recognize their California marriage. Citation to Bishop II, and inconclusive Oklahoma statutes cited therein, is not sufficient to create a question of fact in light of Smiths uncontroverted denial of authority. A recent case addressed the constitutionality of Ohios non-recognition provision, which was identical to Part B. See Obergefell v. Wymyslo, --- F. Supp. 2d ----, No. 1:13-cv-501, 2013 WL
27
6726688 (S.D. Ohio Dec. 23, 2013). In that case, the same-sex couples had been legally married in states other than Ohio. Upon the death of their same-sex spouse, the surviving spouses sought recognition of those marriages on Ohio death certificates. See id. at *1. The Obergefell plaintiffs sued the local and state officers responsible for death certificates. Id. While Obergefell does not stand for the proposition that local and state officials responsible for death certificates are the only types of officials who may be sued in a challenge to non-recognition laws, it does highlight the Barton couples evidentiary deficiencies in this case. Unlike the plaintiffs in Obergefell, who attempted to obtain recognition on death certificates, the Barton couple has not taken any steps to obtain recognition and has not shown that Smith is the proper official. While the Court does not believe that a futile trip to the courthouse is required in every instance, the only evidence before the Court is an uncontroverted denial of any connection to the injury by the sued state official. Therefore, the Barton couples challenge to Part B is dismissed for lack of standing.18 V. Bishop Couple Has Standing to Challenge Part A Smith has not attacked the Bishop couples standing to challenge Part A or raised any other jurisdictional deficiencies. Nonetheless, the Court has independently satisfied itself that standing and other jurisdictional requirements are satisfied. The Bishop couple has proven standing because they sought an Oklahoma marriage license from Smith, Smith denied them such license, and Smith did so based upon their status as a same-sex couple. Unlike with Part B, the Bishop couple has This is an unfortunate result for the Barton couple, who have twice been turned away based on standing. However, the Court notes that Part B was not the focus of this litigation. It was unclear whether the Barton couple challenged Part B in the Amended Complaint, and they devoted only one page of argument to it in their motion for summary judgment. (See Pls. Mot. for Summ. J. 41-42.) In a proper equal protection challenge, portions of this Courts analysis of Part A would also seem applicable to Part B. The Court is reminded of a quote by Harriet Beecher Stowe: [N]ever give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Old Town Folks (1869). 28
18
clearly demonstrated Smiths connection to their injury. Further, in contrast to Section 2 of DOMA, Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment represents a significant cause of the Bishop couples injury and, at a minimum, stands as a barrier between them and married legal status in Oklahoma. A favorable ruling would enjoin enforcement of an enshrined definition of marriage in the Oklahoma Constitution and bring the Bishop couple substantially closer to their desired governmental benefit. See supra Part II(B) (explaining that, in equal protection cases, a plaintiff need not show that a favorable ruling would relieve his every injury but must show that a favorable ruling would remove a barrier imposing unequal treatment).19 The Court has also satisfied itself that Smith is properly sued. The Bishop couple may seek relief from Smith under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), which permits suits where a plaintiff is (1) suing state officials rather than the state itself, (2) alleging an ongoing violation of federal law, and (3) seeking prospective relief. Cressman v. Thompson, 719 F.3d 1139, 1146 (10th Cir. 2013); see also Ky. Press Assn, Inc. v. Ky., 355 F. Supp. 2d 853, 861-62 (E.D. Ky. 2005) (applying Ex Parte Young doctrine to permit suit against court clerk in her official capacity). The Court had additional immunity concerns based on Bishop IIs holding that Smith acts as an arm of Oklahomas judiciary when she issues (or denies) marriage licenses. See Bishop II, 2009 WL 1566802, at *3. However, because the suit is one for declaratory and injunctive relief, Smith is not entitled to judicial or quasi-judicial immunity. See Guiden v. Morrow, 92 F. Appx. 663, 665 (10th Cir. 2004) (explaining that court clerk of Butler County, Kansas sued in her official capacity had quasi-judicial
As explained supra in footnote 2, there is an Oklahoma statute also impacting samesex couples eligibility for a marriage license. See Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 3(A). No party discussed standing problems posed by this statute, and the Court is satisfied that enjoining enforcement of Part A redresses a concrete injury suffered by the Bishop couple. 29
19
immunity from suits for money damages but would not be entitled to immunity in a suit seeking injunctive relief). VI. Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment Violates the U.S. Constitution The Bishop couple argues that Part A is an unconstitutional deprivation of their fundamental due process liberties and equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Bishop couple and Smith filed cross motions for summary judgment, and both parties urge the Court to decide the constitutionality of Part A as a matter of law. The Court concludes: (1) Baker v. Nelson is not binding precedent; (2) Windsors reasoning does not mandate a particular outcome for the Bishop couple or Smith; and (3) Part A intentionally discriminates against same-sex couples desiring an Oklahoma marriage license without a legally sufficient justification. A. Baker v. Nelson
Smith argues that Baker represents binding Supreme Court precedent and should end this Courts analysis of Part A. In Baker, the Supreme Court dismissed, for want of a substantial federal question, an appeal of the Minnesota Supreme Courts holding that its state marriage laws did not violate a same-sex couples equal protection or substantive due process rights under the U.S. Constitution. Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810 (1972). This type of summary dismissal for want of a substantial federal question, although without any reasoning, is considered a binding decision on the merits as to the precise issues presented and necessarily decided. Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 176-77 (1977); Okla. Telecasters Assn v. Crisp, 699 F.2d 490, 496 (10th Cir. 1983), revd on other grounds, Capital Cities Cable, Inc. v. Crisp, 467 U.S. 691 (1984).20 In 1972, the Supreme Court had no discretion to refuse adjudication of an appeal of a state court decision upholding a state statute against federal constitutional attack. See Hicks v. 30
20
Baker presented the precise legal issues presented in this case namely, whether a state law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violates due process or equal protection rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. This is evidenced by the jurisdictional statements submitted to the Supreme Court. In relevant part, the appellants phrased the issues as whether Minnesotas refusal to sanctify appellants marriage deprives appellants of liberty and property in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses. (Appellants Jurisdictional Statement, Ex. 4 to Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ. J.) Appellees similarly phrased the relevant issues as [w]hether appellees refusal to sanctify appellants marriage deprives appellants of their liberty to marry and of their property without due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment; and [w]hether appellees refusal . . . to sanctify appellants marriage because both are of the male sex violates their rights under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (Appellees Jurisdictional Statement, Ex. 4 to Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ. J.)21 Therefore, barring application of an exception, Baker is
Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 343-44 (1975) (explaining difference between this type of summary dismissal and a denial of certiorari). Thus, despite its lack of reasoning, Baker is binding precedent as to issues squarely presented and dismissed. Although Hicks remains the law, it has been criticized. See., e.g., Randy Beck, Transtemporal Separation of Powers in the Law of Precedent, 87 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1405, 1451 (2012) (Just as we do not accord precedential weight to a denial of certiorari, the Court should abandon Hicks and deny controlling force to unexplained summary dispositions. . . . [T]he value of allowing thorough consideration of a legal question outweighs any enhanced legal stability that flows from requiring lower courts to decipher unexplained rulings and treat them as binding authority.). At the trial court level, the same-sex couple had challenged a Minnesota county clerks refusal to grant them a marriage license. They argued that (1) same-sex marriage was authorized by Minnesota law, and (2) alternatively, denial of a marriage license deprived them of liberty without due process and equal protection in violation of their Fourteenth Amendment rights and constituted an unwarranted invasion of privacy in violation of the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. Baker v. Nelson, 191 N.W.2d 185, 185 (Minn. 1971) (explaining arguments made in trial court). The Minnesota Supreme Court held that (1) Minnesotas marriage statute, which did not expressly prohibit same-sex marriages, only authorized marriages between persons of the opposite sex; and (2) such an interpretation did not violate the plaintiffs equal protection, due 31
21
binding precedent in this case. See Jackson v. Abercrombie, 884 F. Supp. 2d 1065, 1087 (D. Haw. 2012) (holding that Fourteenth Amendment challenge to Hawaii law limiting marriage to oppositesex couples presented precise issues that had been presented in Baker); see also Windsor v. United States (Windsor I), 699 F.3d 169, 178 (2d Cir. 2012) (addressing DOMA challenge) (defining issue in Baker as whether same-sex marriage may be constitutionally restricted by the states); In re Kandu, 315 B.R. 123, 137 (Bankr. W.D. Wash. 2004) (addressing DOMA challenge) (The issue in Baker was whether a state licensing statute limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples, and thereby excluding same-sex marriage, violated the due process and equal protection provisions of the Constitution.). There is an exception to the binding nature of summary dismissals, however, if doctrinal developments indicate that the Supreme Court would no longer brand a question as unsubstantial. Hicks, 422 U.S. at 344-45 (stating that unless and until the Supreme Court should instruct otherwise, inferior federal courts had best adhere to the view that if the Court has branded a question as unsubstantial, it remains so except when doctrinal developments indicate otherwise). The Court concludes that this exception applies for three reasons. First, interpreting Hicks, the Tenth Circuit has pronounced that a summary disposition is binding on the lower federal courts . . . until doctrinal developments or direct decisions by the Supreme Court indicate otherwise. Okla. Telecasters Assn, 699 F.2d at 495 (emphasis added). If an express overruling by the Supreme Court is the only type of doctrinal development that qualifies for the exception, the disjunctive or would cease to have meaning.
process, or privacy rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Id. at 186-87. 32
Second, there have been significant doctrinal developments in Supreme Court jurisprudence since 1972 indicating that these issues would now present a substantial question. The Supreme Court has: (1) recognized a new form of heightened scrutiny and applied it to sex-based classifications, see Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 197-98 (1976); (2) held that a Colorado constitutional amendment targeting homosexuals based upon animosity lacked a rational relation to any legitimate governmental purpose, see Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 635 (1996); (3) held that homosexuals had a protected liberty interest in engaging in private, homosexual sex, that homosexuals moral and sexual choices were entitled to constitutional protection, and that moral disapproval did not provide a legitimate justification for a Texas law criminalizing sodomy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 564, 571 (2003); and (4) most recently, held that the U.S. Constitution prevented the federal government from treating state-sanctioned opposite-sex marriages differently than state-sanctioned same-sex marriages, and that such differentiation demean[ed] the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects, Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694. While none is directly on point as to the questions presented in Baker (or here), this is the type of erosion over time that renders a summary dismissal of no precedential value. It seems clear that what was once deemed an unsubstantial question in 1972 would now be deemed substantial based on intervening developments in Supreme Court law. See Windsor I, 699 F.3d at 178 (holding that Baker was not controlling as to constitutionality of DOMA, reasoning in part that [i]n the forty years after Baker, there have been manifold changes to the Supreme Courts equal protection jurisprudence that would warrant an exception to the general rule). But see Mass. v. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Servs., 682 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2012) (rejecting similar reasoning in DOMA challenge and indicating that Baker limited the arguments in that case).
33
Finally, although the Supreme Courts decision in Windsor was silent as to Bakers impact,22 statements made by the Justices indicate that lower courts should be applying Windsor (and not Baker) to the logical next issue of state prohibitions of same-sex marriage. See Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2696 (Roberts, C.J., dissenting ) (urging that the Windsor majoritys reasoning must not be extended to state-law bans because the majoritys judgment is based on federalism); id. at 2709-10 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (stating his opinion that the majority decision arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition) (explaining that state and lower federal courts will be able to distinguish Windsor due to its scatter-shot rationales and inviting lower courts to distinguish away). If Baker is binding, lower courts would have no reason to apply or distinguish Windsor, and all this judicial hand-wringing over how lower courts should apply Windsor would be superfluous. Accordingly, the Court concludes that Baker is no longer a binding summary dismissal as to those issues. See Kitchen v. Herbert, --- F. Supp. 2d ----, No. 2:13-cv-217, 2013 WL 6697874, at *8 (D. Utah Dec. 20, 2013) (reaching same conclusion in challenge to Utahs marriage definition in case issued after Windsor).23
22
Based on the Windsor I decision, it seemed likely that the Supreme Court would address Bakers precedential value. See Windsor I, 699 F.3d at 178-79 (majority concluding that doctrinal changes constitute another reason why Baker does not foreclose our disposition of this case); id. at 195 n.3 (Straub, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (acknowledging that questions may stop being insubstantial when subsequent doctrinal developments so indicate but concluding that Supreme Court decisions had not eroded Bakers foundations such that it no longer holds sway). However, no Justice mentioned Baker in any part of the Windsor decision. At least one commentator criticized this silence. Jonah Horwitz, When Too Little is Too Much: Why the Supreme Court Should Either Explain its Opinions or Keep Them to Itself, 98 Minn. L. Rev. Headnotes 1, 2 (2013) (explaining that Baker was examined in detail in the Supreme Court briefs and criticizing Supreme Court for failing to discuss Baker) (For a case of such length and significance, it is nothing short of amazing that no one refers, even in passing, to what struck the lower courts and the litigants as a potentially dispositive case.). Lower court decisions issued prior to Windsor are split as to the applicability of the doctrinal developments exception. Compare, e.g., Jackson, 884 F. Supp. 2d at 1085 (holding 34
23
B.
Windsors Impact
In Windsor, the plaintiff, a New York resident, inherited the estate of her same-sex spouse. 133 S.Ct. at 2682. The couple had entered into a Canadian marriage, which was recognized in New York at the time of her spouses death. See id. (citing Windsor Is reasoning regarding New Yorks recognition of the Canadian marriage).24 Upon inheriting her spouses estate, the plaintiff sought to claim the federal estate tax exemption but was prevented from doing so by Section 3 of DOMA, which defined marriage as between one and one woman for purposes of federal law. Id. The plaintiff paid the taxes and then filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of Section 3. Id. The Windsor majority opinion, authored by Justice Kennedy, held that: (1) when a state recognizes same-sex marriage, it confers upon this class of persons a dignity and status of immense import; id. at 2692; and (2) Section 3 of DOMA violated equal protection principles because the avowed purpose and practical effect of that law was to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of a state, id. at 2693. This Court interprets Windsor as an equal protection case holding that DOMA drew an unconstitutional line between lawfully married opposite-sex couples and lawfully married same-sex couples. See id. at 2694. (DOMAs principal effect is to identify a subset of state-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal.).
that the Supreme Court has not explicitly or implicitly overturned its holding in Baker or provided the lower courts with any reason to believe that the holding is invalid) with Smelt v. Cnty. of Orange, 374 F. Supp. 2d 861, 873 (C.D. Cal. 2005) (Doctrinal developments show it is not reasonable to conclude the questions presented in the Baker jurisdictional statement would still be viewed by the Supreme Court as unsubstantial.), overrd on other grounds, Smelt v. Cnty. of Orange, 447 F.3d 673 (9th Cir. 2006). The Windsor I court based its conclusion upon rulings by New York intermediate appellate courts, which indicated that the Canadian marriage was indeed recognized in New York when the plaintiff inherited her spouses estate. Windsor I, 699 F.3d at 177-78. 35
24
The Windsor Court did not apply the familiar equal protection framework, which inquires as to the applicable level of scrutiny and then analyzes the laws justifications. Instead, the Windsor Court based its conclusion on the laws blatant improper purpose and animus. See id. at 2693. The Court reasoned that DOMAs unusual deviation from the tradition of accepting state definitions of marriage was strong evidence of a law having the purpose and effect of disapproval of the class. Id. The Court concluded, based upon DOMAs text and legislative history, that DOMAs principal purpose was to impose inequality. Id. Thus, Windsor does not answer whether a state may prohibit same-sex marriage in the first instance. Nor does Windsor declare homosexuals a suspect class or discuss whether DOMA impacted a fundamental right, which would have provided this Court with a clear test for reviewing Part A. Both parties argue that Windsor supports their position, and both are right. Windsor
supports the Bishop couples position because much of the majoritys reasoning regarding the purpose and effect of DOMA can be readily applied to the purpose and effect of similar or identical state-law marriage definitions. See id. at 2693 (discussing essence of DOMA as defending a particular moral view of marriage, imposing inequality, and treating legal same-sex marriages as second class, ultimately concluding that DOMA was motivated by an intent to injure lawfully married same-sex couples); id. at 2710 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (explaining that the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition and transposing certain portions of the majority opinion to reveal how it could assist these challengers). However, Windsors purpose and effect reasoning is not a perfect fit, as applied to Part A, because Part A does not negate or trump marital rights that had previously been extended to Oklahoma citizens. Further, DOMAs federal intrusion into state domestic policy is more
36
unusual than Oklahoma setting its own domestic policy. See id. at 2692 (discussing DOMAs departure from the tradition of reliance on state law to define marriage). Windsor supports Smiths position because it engages in a lengthy discussion of states authority to define and regulate marriage, which can be construed as a yellow light cautioning against Windsors extension to similar state definitions. See id. at 2692 (explaining that state marriage laws vary between states and discussing states interest in defining and regulating the marital relation). Again, however, the yellow light argument has its limitations. In discussing this traditional state authority over marriage, the Supreme Court repeatedly used the disclaimer subject to constitutional guarantees. See id. at 2692 (citing Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) (holding that Virginias prohibition of interracial marriage violated equal protection and substantive due rights)). A citation to Loving is a disclaimer of enormous proportion. Arguably, the state rights portion of the Windsor decision stands for the unremarkable proposition that a state has broad authority to regulate marriage, so long as it does not violate its citizens federal constitutional rights. New York had expanded its citizens rights, and there was no possible constitutional deprivation in play. This Court has gleaned and will apply two principles from Windsor. First, a state law defining marriage is not an unusual deviation from the state/federal balance, such that its mere existence provides strong evidence of improper purpose. A state definition must be approached differently, and with more caution, than the Supreme Court approached DOMA. Second, courts reviewing marriage regulations, by either the state or federal government, must be wary of whether defending traditional marriage is a guise for impermissible discrimination against same-sex
37
couples. These two principles are not contradictory, but they happen to help different sides of the same-sex marriage debate. C. Civil Marriage in Oklahoma
Before reaching its equal protection analysis, some preliminary discussion of civil marriage in Oklahoma is necessary. In order to enter into a marital contract, see Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 1 (explaining that marriage is a personal relation arising out of a civil contract), a couple must first obtain a marriage license from the judge or clerk of the district court, of some county in this state, authorizing the marriage between the persons named in such license. Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 4. In order to qualify for a marriage license, a couple must have the following characteristics: (1) the parties must be legally competent of contracting, id. 1; (2) each person must be unmarried, see id. 3(A); (3) the couple must consist of one man and one woman, see Okla. Const. art. 2, 35(A); see also Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 3(A) (indicating that marital contract must be entered with a person of the opposite sex); (4) both parties must be of eighteen years of age, see Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 3(A);25 and (5) the couple must not be related to one another in certain ways, see id. 2.26 But for the Bishop couples status as a same-sex couple, they satisfy the other eligibility criteria for obtaining a marriage license. The process of obtaining a marriage license requires the couple to submit an application in writing signed and sworn to in person before the clerk of the district court by both of the parties
25
Oklahoma permits persons between the ages of sixteen and eighteen to marry with parental consent, see id. 3(B)(1)(a)-(f), and persons under sixteen to marry if authorized by the court in very limited circumstances, see id. 3(B)(2). Marriages between ancestors and descendants of any degree, of a stepfather with a stepdaughter, stepmother with stepson, between uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, except in cases where such relationship is only by marriage, between brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood, [or] first cousins are prohibited. Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 2. 38
26
setting forth certain information. Id. 5(A). If the court clerk is satisfied with the couples application and the couple pays the appropriate fee, the clerk shall issue the marriage license authorizing the marriage and a marriage certificate. Okla. Stat. tit. 43, 5(B)(1). The marriage certificate is a document with appropriate wording and blanks to be completed and endorsed . . . by the person solemnizing or performing the marriage ceremony, the witnesses, and the persons who have been married. Id. 6(A)(6). The couple may then choose how they will solemnize the marriage, which is when the parties enter into the marital contract: All marriages must be contracted by a formal ceremony performed or solemnized in the presence of at least two adult, competent persons as witnesses, by a judge or retired judge of any court in this state, or an ordained or authorized preacher or minister of the Gospel, priest or other ecclesiastical dignitary of any denomination who has been duly ordained or authorized by the church to which he or she belongs to preach the Gospel, or a rabbi and who is at least eighteen (18) years of age. Id. 7(A). The judge, minister, or other authorized person must have possession of the marriage license and must have good reason to believe that the persons presenting themselves for marriage are the individuals named in the license. Id. 7(C). Marriages between persons belonging to certain religions namely, Friends, or Quakers, the spiritual assembly of the Bahais, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which have no ordained minister may be solemnized by the persons and in the manner prescribed by and practiced in any such society, church, or assembly. Id. 7(D). Following the ceremony, whether civil or religious, the officiant, witnesses, and parties must complete and sign the marriage certificate. See id. 8(A)-(C). Any person who performs or solemnizes a marriage ceremony contrary to any of the provisions of this chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor. See id. 15.
39
After the license is issued and the contract entered into (either by civil or religious ceremony), both the marriage license and the marriage certificate are then returned to the court clerk who issued the license and certification. See id. 8(D). This must be completed within thirty days of issuance of the marriage license. Id. 6(A)(5). Once returned, the court clerk makes a complete record of the application, license, and certificate and then returns the original license to the applicants, with the issuing officers certificate affixed thereon showing the book and page or case number where the same has been recorded. Id. 9.27 Therefore, in Oklahoma, marriage is a three-step process consisting of: (1) applying for and receiving a marriage license from the court clerk, which authorizes the couple to then enter the marital contract; (2) entering the marital contract by civil or religious ceremony; and (3) having the marriage license and marriage certificate recorded by the court clerk. This Courts equal protection analysis is limited to Part As alleged discriminatory treatment with respect to the first and third steps namely, Part As prevention of Smith from issuing a marriage license to same-sex couples and then recording the license upon its return.28 Smith has no connection to the second step (solemnization), and this Courts equal protection analysis does not impact the second step.
Unlike some other states, Oklahoma does not offer any alternative scheme for samesex couples, such as civil unions. The Supreme Court has stated, and this Court firmly agrees, that marriage is more than a routine classification for purposes of certain statutory benefits. Windsor, 133 S.Ct. at 2692. This Courts opinion should not be read to mean that marriage is nothing more than a contractual relationship or to mean that a civil union scheme would survive constitutional scrutiny. However, because Oklahoma is an all-or-nothing state (marriage license or no marital benefits), the equal protection violation is that much clearer, and this Courts opinion need not reach the legal viability of some alternative scheme. When the Court refers to obtaining a marriage license throughout this Order, it refers to both the initial issuance of the marriage license and the recording of the marriage license by the court clerk after the marriage is solemnized. 40
28
27
Therefore, the declaratory and injunctive relief granted by the Court does not require any individual to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony. D. Equal Protection Analysis
The Fourteenth Amendment mandates that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. U.S. Const. amend. XIV 1. The Tenth Circuit has recently explained equal protection principles: Equal protection is the laws keystone. Without careful attention to equal protections demands, the integrity of surrounding law all too often erodes, sometimes to the point where it becomes little more than a tool of majoritarian oppression. But when equal protections demands are met, when majorities are forced to abide the same rules they seek to impose on minorities, we can rest much surer of the soundness of our legal edifice. No better measure exists to assure that laws will be just than to require that laws be equal in operation. At the same time, it is of course important to be precise about what equal protection is and what it is not. Equal protection of the laws doesnt guarantee equal results for all, or suggest that the law may never draw distinctions between persons in meaningfully dissimilar situationstwo possibilities that might themselves generate rather than prevent injustice. Neither is the equal protection promise some generic guard against arbitrary or unlawful governmental action, merely replicating the work done by the Due Process Clause or even the Administrative Procedure Act. Instead, the Equal Protection Clause is a more particular and profound recognition of the essential and radical equality of all human beings. It seeks to ensure that any classifications the law makes are made without respect to persons, that like cases are treated alike, that those who appear similarly situated are not treated differently without, at the very least, a rational reason for the difference. SECSYS, LLC v. Vigil, 666 F.3d 678, 684-85 (10th Cir. 2012) (alterations and citations omitted) (emphases added). A class-based equal-protection challenge, such as that raised here, generally requires a two-step analysis. Id. at 685. First, the Court asks whether the challenged state action intentionally discriminates between groups of persons. Id. Second, after an act of intentional discrimination is identified, the Court must ask whether the states intentional decision to discriminate can be justified by reference to some upright government purpose. Id. at 686. In 41
conducting its analysis, the Court has been particularly mindful of the above-quoted portion of Vigil and has closely adhered to its two-step test. This has helped the Court decide this controversial and complex case as it would decide any other equal protection challenge. 1. Does Part A Intentionally Discriminate Between Groups of Persons?
Intentional discrimination can take several forms. Vigil, 666 F.3d at 685. When a distinction between groups of persons appears on the face of a state law or action, an intent to discriminate is presumed and no further examination of legislative purpose is required. Id. If the law is instead one of general applicability, some proof is required. Id. Because few are anxious to own up to a discriminatory intent, courts may draw inferences about a laws intent or purpose from circumstantial evidence. Id. at 686. A plaintiff may demonstrate that a generally applicable law results in intentional discrimination by showing that the law was adopted at least in part because of, and not merely in spite of, its discriminatory effect on a particular class of persons. Id. (emphasis added). The Court defines the relevant class as same-sex couples desiring an Oklahoma marriage license.29 The Bishop couple has easily satisfied the first element requiring a showing that Part A intentionally discriminates against this class for two reasons. First, Part As disparate impact upon same-sex couples desiring to marry is stark. Its effect is to prevent every same-sex couple in Oklahoma from receiving a marriage license, and no other couple. This is not a case where the law
It is somewhat unusual to define a class of couples, but the Court finds it proper here. The classification made by Part A is aimed only at same-sex couples who want to marry, rather than all homosexuals. A couple must apply together in person for a marriage license, and it is the fact that they are of the same sex that renders them ineligible. Further, Smiths proferred justifications are tied to alleged characteristics that two individuals have when coupled i.e., their inability to naturally procreate and to provide an optimal parenting environment. See infra Part VI(D)(2)(d) (setting forth Smiths proferred justifications for the law). 42
29
has a small or incidental effect on the defined class; it is a total exclusion of only one group. See Vigil, 666 F.3d at 686 (explaining that a laws starkly disparate impact may well inform a courts investigation into the laws underlying intent or purpose). Second, both the timing of SQ 711 in relation to certain court rulings and the statements in the public domain before passage of SQ 711 raise the inference that it was adopted, at least in part, for the purpose of excluding the class from marriage. SQ 711 originated from legislation entitled the Marriage Protection Amendment, which passed the Oklahoma Legislature as part of House Bill 2259 (HB 2259). (See Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. 1 to Ex. B.) Although there is no legislative history for HB 2259 cited in the record, the Oklahoma House of Representatives website provides a history of HB 2259, which (1) lists the title as Marriage; enacting the Marriage Protection Amendment; (2) shows that the Oklahoma Senate passed the measure by a vote of 38 to 7 on April 15, 2004; and (3) shows that the House passed the measure by a vote of 92 to 4 on April 22, 2004. See History for HB 2259, available at www.oklegislature .gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill= HB2259&Session=0400.30 On April 15, 2004, the day HB 2259 passed the Oklahoma Senate, the Oklahoma Senate issued the following press release: Senate Passes Marriage Protection Amendment Despite efforts by the Democrat leadership throughout the legislative session to kill the issue, the Senate passed a bill that sends to a vote of the people a constitutional amendment defining marriage in Oklahoma as only between one man and one The Court takes judicial notice of information available on the Oklahoma House of Representatives website and the Oklahoma Senate website pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 201, which allows courts to take judicial notice of adjudicative facts if they are generally known within the trial courts jurisdiction; or (2) can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot be questioned. Fed. R. Evid. 201(b); Winzler v. Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc., 681 F.3d 1208, 1213 (10th Cir. 2012). 43
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woman and prohibiting the state from recognizing homosexual marriages performed outside Oklahoma. I am thankful to the Senates Democrat leadership for finally giving up on their efforts to keep the people from voting on the marriage protection amendment, stated Senate Republican Leader James Williamson, R-Tulsa. All we wanted all along was for the Democrat leadership to allow an up or down vote on this issue, and to allow the Senate to work its will. This is a tremendous victory for the people of Oklahoma and for those of us here at the state Capitol who fight for pro-family issues, Williamson said. Todays vote was allowed as the result of an agreement on Tuesday between the Senate Democrat leadership and the Senate Republicans to end a filibuster by Senator Bernest Cain, D-Oklahoma City, the Senates leading supporter of legalizing homosexual marriage in Oklahoma. ... Today, Williamson succeeded in attaching the marriage protection amendment to House Bill 2259 . . ., sending it back to the House of Representatives for their approval of the Senates amendment to the bill. ... If HB 2259 becomes law, the people of Oklahoma will vote on the proposed constitutional amendment on this falls general election ballot. The constitutional amendment would define marriage as only between one man and one woman, prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages in other jurisdictions, and make it a misdemeanor to issue a marriage license in violation of the amendments definition of marriage. Many other states from Ohio to Georgia have taken action to provide constitutional protections to traditional marriage to combat efforts by liberals and activist judges seeking to redefine marriage by allowing same-sex unions. Senate Passes Marriage Protection Amendment, available at www.oksenate.gov/news/pressreleases/press_releases_2004/pr20040415.html (emphasis added). The press releases reference to judicial efforts to redefine marriage by allowing same-sex unions came shortly after two Massachusetts Supreme Court cases were issued, which held that the Massachusetts Constitution required that state to allow same-sex marriage. See Goodridge v. Dept. of Pub. Health, 798 N.E.2d 941, 968 (Mass. Dec. 20, 2003) (holding that practice of denying
44
marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated same-sex couples equal protection rights under Massachusetts Constitution); In re Opinions of the Justices to the Senate, 802 N.E.2d 565, 572 (Mass. Feb. 3, 2004) (providing opinion, in response to question from Massachusetts Senate, that a bill prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying, but allowing same-sex couples to enter civil unions, would also violate the Massachusetts Constitution). On February 6, 2004, three days after the second ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court, Tulsa and Oklahoma City newspapers both reported that State Senator James Williamson, author of the Marriage Protection Amendment, made public statements regarding the need for a constitutional amendment in order to prevent a similar ruling in Oklahoma. See Marie Price, Republican Legislators Wary of Same-Sex Ruling, Tulsa World, Feb. 6, 2004 (Legislative Republicans said Thursday that this weeks Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling outlining constitutional protection for same-sex marriages puts Oklahoma in jeopardy of a similar decision.) (quoting Mr. Williamson as stating that [Governor Brad Henrys] reluctance to protect traditional marriage could put Oklahoma at risk that a court will force same-sex unions on us here);31 Ryan McNeil, Party Leaders Trade Barbs on Marriage, The Oklahoman, The Bishop couple presented several newspaper articles in support of their Statement of Facts 13-15. (See Ex. 5 to Pls. Mot. for Summ. J.) Smith does not dispute the factual accuracy of the reporting in these articles but argues that they may not be considered because they are: (1) irrelevant, and (2) inadmissible hearsay. The Court rejects both arguments. First, the articles are relevant to both steps of the analysis whether the law was passed, at least in part, for the purpose of intentional discrimination and whether such discrimination is justified. See Vigil, 666 F.3d at 685 (setting forth two-step test); see generally Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693 (discussing statements made by legislators supporting DOMAs passage as relevant to question of laws purpose). Although the Court is addressing a constitutional amendment enacted by a vote of the people, public statements made by the drafting and championing legislators before the laws passage are certainly relevant evidence. Second, the articles do not pose hearsay problems because the Court is not relying upon the articles, or quotations therein, for their truth. The Court is relying upon the articles to demonstrate what information was in the public domain at the time SQ 711 passed. Whether the 45
31
Feb. 6, 2004 (similarly reporting on Mr. Williamsons public comments regarding activist judges who seek to overturn Oklahomas definition of marriage). Similar public comments regarding the need to protect marriage from same-sex couples were made closer in time to the laws passage. In a public debate held at the Tulsa Press Club between Mr. Williamson and Mark Bonney in October 2004, Mr. Williamson stated that [i]t is one thing to tolerate the homosexual lifestyle and another to legitimize it through marriage. Brian Barber, Ban on Gay Marriage Debated, Tulsa World, (Oct. 13, 2004) (quoting Mr. Williamson). Exclusion of the defined class was not a hidden or ulterior motive; it was consistently communicated to Oklahoma citizens as a justification for SQ 711. This is simply not a case where articles or quotations are accurate is of no moment; what matters is that these justifications were offered to the voting public. See Benak ex rel. Alliance Premier Growth Fund v. Alliance Capital Mgmt. L.P., 435 F.3d 396, 401 n.15 (3d Cir. 2006) (relying on articles for purposes of determining what was in the public realm, not whether the contents were in fact true); Florida Right to Life, Inc. v. Mortham, No. 98770CIVORL19A, 1998 WL 1735137, at *6 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 30, 1998) (finding news articles non-hearsay) ([T]he Court will consider the effect of the newspaper articles in creating a perception by the public of corruption occurring in Florida, which perception depends on the fact that members of the public have read the articles rather than the truth of the matters contained therein.). One important source of public knowledge and opinion are news articles conveying statements by the legislators who originated, drafted, and promoted SQ 711. Alternatively, the Court finds that all news articles and quotations therein qualify for the residual exception to the hearsay rule because: (1) the articles and quotations have circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness namely, that they were made publically to large groups, were consistently reported in Oklahoma newspapers, and are, in some ways, akin to statements against interest; (2) the articles and quotations are relevant to ascertaining the purposes and justifications for the law; (3) based on the lack of legislative history for a state question, the articles and quotations are more probative than other evidence that can be obtained through reasonable efforts; and (4) admitting the news articles, rather than requiring other forms of evidence, serves the interest of justice. See Fed. R. Evid. 807(1)-(4); cf. New England Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Anderson, 888 F.2d 646, 650 (10th Cir. 1989) (finding that trial court properly excluded news article reporting statements made by widow to one reporter that she conspired to kill insured, where issue was fraudulent procurement of the insurance policy). Further, Smith does not dispute or attempt to dispute their factual veracity in any manner; Smith just asks the Court to disregard them. That does not serve the interest of justice in this case. 46
exclusion of same-sex couples was a mere unintended consequence of the law. Cf. Vigil, 666 F.3d at 686-87 (holding that any discriminatory impact on a certain class of persons by an extortionist state action was an unintended consequence flowing from the ultimate goal of enriching the extortioner). Instead, this is a classic, class-based equal protection case in which a line was purposefully drawn between two groups of Oklahoma citizens same-sex couples desiring an Oklahoma marriage license and opposite-sex couples desiring an Oklahoma marriage license.32 2. Is This Intentional Discrimination Justified?
Not all intentional discrimination by a state against a class of citizens violates equal protection principles. See Vigil, 666 F.3d at 686 (The law . . . may take cognizance of meaningful distinctions between individuals without violating the constitutional command of treating similarly situated persons equally.). In determining whether distinctions between individuals are meaningful, the degree of judicial scrutiny varies. Id. If the discrimination is against a suspect class or quasi-suspect class, it comes to courts under grave suspicions and subject to heightened review because experience teaches that classifications against these groups is so rarely defensible on any ground other than a wish to harm and subjugate. Id. at 687. Laws selectively burdening
In some equal protection cases, the intentional discrimination imposed by the law is so unusual in its character that improper purpose and motive are readily apparent, and there is no need to determine whether the intentional discrimination is justified. See, e.g., Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693; Romer, 517 U.S. at 635. Because Windsor involved an unusual federal intrusion into state domestic law (not at issue here) and Romer involved an unusual, total removal of any equal protection of the law (not at issue here), the Court proceeds to conduct a more traditional equal protection analysis by determining the proper level of scrutiny and then considering all conceivable justifications for Part A. See generally Kitchen, 2013 WL 6697874, at *22 (discussing lack of guidance for determining whether a law imposes discrimination of an unusual character and applying well-settled rational basis test to Utahs same-sex marriage prohibition). 47
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fundamental rights are also carefully scrutinized.33 Laws discriminating against all other groups The Court does not reach the question of whether Part A selectively burdens the Bishop couples asserted fundamental right to marry a person of their choice. (See Pls. Reply in Support of Pls. Mot. for Summ. J. 14.) Such a holding would be broader than whether Part A intentionally discriminates against a defined class of Oklahoma citizens, and it would possibly affect other Oklahoma laws burdening the right to marry a person of [ones] choice. See supra Part VI(C) (setting forth age, number, and other eligibility requirements under Oklahoma law). If Part A does burden a fundamental right, it certainly would not withstand any degree of heightened scrutiny. See supra Part VI(D)(2)(d). Based upon its research on this topic, the Court offers two observations. First, whether or not the right in question is deemed fundamental turns in large part upon how the right is defined. If the right is defined as the right to marry, plaintiffs have thus far been more likely to win the argument. See, e.g., Kitchen, 2013 WL 6697874, at *15 (holding that the plaintiffs do not seek a new right to same-sex marriage and that the right to marry has already been established as a fundamental right); Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F. Supp. 2d 921, 994-95 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (Because plaintiffs seek to exercise their fundamental right to marry, their claim is subject to strict scrutiny.); Goodridge, 798 N.E. 2d at 959-61 (Mass. 2003) (stating in dicta that [w]hether and whom to marry . . . [is] among the most basic of every individuals liberty and due process rights but then failing to decide whether the case merited strict scrutiny because the law did not pass rational basis review); Golinski v. U.S. Office of Personnel Mgmt., 824 F. Supp. 2d 968, 983 (N.D. Cal. 2012) (stating in dicta that the right burdened by Section 3 of DOMA was the fundamental right to marry, which had never been limited based upon the status of the desired spouse). If defined as the right to marry a person of the same sex, plaintiffs have thus far been more likely to lose the argument. See, e.g., Jackson, 884 F. Supp. 2d at 1096 (defining right burdened as an asserted new right to same-sex marriage and holding that such right was not deeply rooted in the nations tradition) (collecting cases); Lewis v. Harris, 188 N.J. 415, 441 (2006) (defining right burdened as the right to same-sex marriage and holding that [d]espite the rich diversity of this State . . . and the many recent advances made by gays and lesbians . . ., we cannot find that a right to same-sex marriage is so deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people of this State that it ranks as a fundamental right under the New Jersey Constitution). Second, language in Windsor indicates that same-sex marriage may be a new right, rather than one subsumed within the Courts prior right to marry cases. It seems fair to conclude that, until recent years, many citizens had not even considered the possibility that two persons of the same sex might aspire to occupy the same status and dignity as that of a man and woman in lawful marriage. For marriage between a man and a woman no doubt had been thought of by most people as essential to the very definition of that term and to its role and function throughout the history of civilization. . . . The limitation of lawful marriage to heterosexual couples, which for centuries had been deemed both necessary and 48
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of citizens are reviewed to see if the distinctions they draw between persons are at least rational because there is less reason from historical perspective to suspect a meaningless classification. Id. a. Level of Scrutiny
The Bishop couple argues that Part A is subject to heightened scrutiny because it constitutes gender discrimination. As explained above, the Courts defined class is same-sex couples desiring an Oklahoma marriage license. This class of individuals is excluded from marriage regardless of their gender, i.e., regardless of whether they are two men or two women. Part A does not draw any distinctions between same-sex male couples and same-sex female couples, does not place any disproportionate burdens on men and women, and does not draw upon stereotypes applicable only to male or female couples. The female couples in this case could readily be substituted for male couples, and the male couples would be forced to make precisely the same sex discrimination arguments. Common sense dictates that the intentional discrimination occurring in this case has nothing to do with gender-based prejudice or stereotypes, and the law cannot be subject to heightened scrutiny on that basis. See Sevcik v. Sandoval, 911 F. Supp. 2d 996, 1005 (D. Nev. 2012) (holding that Nevadas prohibition of same-sex marriage was not directed toward persons of any particular gender and did not affect people of any particular gender disproportionately such that a gender-based animus [could] reasonably be perceived); Jackson, 884 F. Supp. 2d at 1099 (The Court thus agrees with the vast majority of courts considering the issue that an opposite-sex definition of marriage does not constitute gender discrimination.) (citing cases). But see Kitchen, fundamental, came to be seen in New York and certain other States as an unjust exclusion. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2689 (emphases added). 49
2013 WL 6697874, at *20 (finding that Utahs marriage definition constituted sex discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination); Perry, 704 F. Supp. 2d at 996 (Sexual orientation discrimination can take the form of sex discrimination.); Golinski, 824 F. Supp. 2d at 982 n.4 (Ms. Golinski is prohibited from marrying . . . a woman because [she] is a woman. . . . Thus, DOMA operates to restrict Ms. Golinskis access to federal benefits because of her sex.). Instead of gender-based discrimination, the intentional discrimination occurring against same-sex couples as a result of Part A is best described as sexual-orientation discrimination. The conduct targeted by Part A same-sex marriage is so closely correlated with being homosexual that sexual orientation provides the best descriptor for the class-based distinction being drawn. See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 583 (OConnor, J., concurring) (explaining that conduct targeted by Texas law criminalizing sodomy was so closely correlated with being homosexual that it amounted to a class-based distinction); Sandoval, 911 F. Supp. 2d at 1005 (concluding that Nevada law prohibiting same-sex marriage was sexual-orientation based); Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W.2d 862, 885 (Iowa 2009) (The benefit denied by the marriage statute the status of civil marriage for same-sex couples is so closely correlated with being homosexual as to make it apparent the law is targeted at gay and lesbian people as a class.). In this case, the Bishop couple self-identifies as a homosexual couple and desires to marry each other due to their sexual orientation. (See Bishop Couple Aff. 14, Ex. 1 to Pls. Mot. for Summ. J. (explaining that they deeply desire to marry the person [they] love and the companion [they] have chosen, which is driven by their sexual orientation as lesbian).)34 Classifications against homosexuals and/or classifications based on a Smith does not dispute that sexual orientation is the best descriptor for the classification. Smith argues only that: (1) the Court should reject any attempt to bootstrap a sex discrimination claim to what is actually a sexual orientation discrimination claim, and (2) sexual orientation discrimination is subject to rationality review. (See Smiths Cross Mot. for 50
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persons sexual orientation are not subject to any form of heightened review in the Tenth Circuit. See Price-Cornelison v. Brooks, 524 F.3d 1103, 1113-14 (10th Cir. 2008) (A government official can, therefore, distinguish between its citizens on the basis of sexual orientation, if that classification bears a rational relation to some legitimate end.) (citation omitted) (holding that county sheriffs refusal to enforce a lesbians protective order against her same-sex partner did not implicate any protected class that would warrant heightened scrutiny); see also id. n.9 (noting cases rejecting the notion that homosexuality is a suspect classification); Kitchen, 2013 WL 6697874, at *21 (finding Price-Cornelison controlling as to this question in the Tenth Circuit). Therefore, Part A is not subject to any form of heightened scrutiny based upon the Bishop couples membership in a suspect class. b. Rationality Standard
Because it disadvantages a non-suspect class, Part A does not come to this Court under heightened suspicion.35 It comes to the Court on the same footing, for example, as laws intentionally discriminating against the disabled or the elderly. Part A must be reviewed merely for rationality, which requires the Court to uphold Part A if there is any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification that it draws between citizens. Copelin-Brown v. N.M. State Personnel Office, 399 F.3d 1248, 1255 (10th Cir. 2005) (applying rational basis review to legislation discriminating against non-suspect class of disabled persons); see also PriceCornelison, 524 F.3d at 1114 (inquiring whether classification based on the plaintiffs status as a
Summ. J. 19-25.) This distinguishes this case from Loving, in which the Supreme Court analyzed Virginias miscegenation law under the most rigid scrutiny applicable to racial classifications. See Loving, 388 U.S. at 11. 51
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homosexual bore a rational relation to some legitimate end). In conducting its review, the Court must not only consider the actual purpose of the law but also whether there are any other justifications that could conceivably provide a rational reason for its passage. See Schanzenbach v. Town of Opal, Wyo., 706 F.3d 1269, 1276 (10th Cir. 2013) (explaining that a proferred justification for a law need not have actually motivated the legislature). Further, there need not be a perfect fit between purpose and achievement for a law to pass constitutional muster. Id. There is no difference in the rationality standard where the law in question is a state constitutional amendment enacted by a vote of citizens. See Romer, 517 U.S. at 631 (concluding that Colorado constitutional amendment did not bear a rational relation to a legitimate end). The Courts ultimate task, even under rationality review, is to determine whether there is some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to at least one of the stated purposes justifying the different treatment between the included class and the excluded class. Johnson v. Robison, 415 U.S. 361, 376 (1974); see also Vigil, 666 F.3d at 686 (In any case, though, and whatever the applicable standard of review, the aim is always to ensure that, while persons in dissimilar situations may be treated differently, the law treats like alike.). A state may not rely on a classification whose relationship to an asserted goal is so attenuated as to render the distinction arbitrary or irrational. City of Cleburne, Tex. v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 447 (1985). By requiring that the classification bear a rational relationship to an independent and legitimate legislative end, [a court] ensure[s] that classifications are not drawn for the purpose of disadvantaging the group burdened by the law. Romer, 517 U.S. at 634-35.
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c.
Promoting Morality
The Court turns now to the conceivable justifications for Part As preclusion of same-sex couples from receiving an Oklahoma marriage license. Although not advanced in this litigation as a justification, the Bishop couple has shown, as a matter of law, that promoting or upholding morality was at least one justification offered to the public prior to passage of the law.36 Just like federal legislators who stated their purpose as defending the morality of marriage, see Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693, Oklahoma legislators promoted Part A as upholding one specific moral view of marriage. In February 2004, prior to HB 2259s passage, House Minority Floor Leader Todd Hiett stated that [t]o recognize something other than what God has ordained as traditional marriage obviously detracts or deteriorates the importance of the traditional marriage. Marie Price, Republican Legislators Wary of Same-Sex Ruling, Tulsa World, Feb. 6, 2004 (quoting Mr. Hiett). State Representative Bill Graves said, This is a Bible Belt state . . . . Most people dont want that sort of thing here. . . . Gay people might call it discrimination, but I call it upholding morality. David Harper, Focus: Gay Marriage Clamor Grows Louder and Louder, Tulsa World, Mar. 22, 2004 (quoting Mr. Graves). On April 15, 2004, the date HB 2259 passed the Senate, Mr. Williamson stated that Oklahoma should not legitimize that lifestyle by saying, Yes, two homosexuals can be just as married as two heterosexuals. Thats not right. John Greiner, Marriage Vote Gets Backing of Senate, The Oklahoman, Apr. 16, 2004, at 5A (quoting Mr. Williamson). On or around May 11, 2004, commenting on an advertisement paid for by Cimarron Equality Oklahoma against SQ 711, Mr. Williamson stated that there is a real hunger for a return
This is a different question than the threshold question of whether the Bishop couple has shown intentional discrimination between groups, see supra Part VI(D)(1), although the analyses overlap somewhat in this case. 53
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to traditional values and for leaders who will draw a line in the sand to help stop the moral decay of this country. Judy Gibbs Robinson, Group Fights Marriage Plan With Print Ad, The Oklahoman, May 11, 2004, 1A (quoting Mr. Williamson). In August of 2004, approximately two months before the public vote, over forty Tulsa-area churches organized a pro-marriage rally, during which Mr. Williamson promoted passage of SQ 711 and discussed Biblical prohibitions of homosexual acts. Robert Evatt, Local Pro-Marriage Rally Takes Aim at Same-Sex Unions, Tulsa World, Aug. 25, 2004 (As Christians, we are called to love homosexuals, Williamson said. But I hope everyone at this rally knows the Scriptures prohibit homosexual acts.). At this same rally, Tulsa Mayor Bill LaFortune stated: If you believe in Christ, if you believe in this country, and if you believe in this city, you believe that marriage is a covenant between God, a man, and a woman. Id. (quoting Mr. LaFortune). An editorial that ran in The Oklahoman on October 17, 2004 urged Oklahomans to pass SQ 711 because the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman is consistent with the citizenrys morals and beliefs. Defining Marriage, The Oklahoman, Oct. 17, 2004, at 22A. The Bishop couple has shown, as a matter of law, that moral disapproval of same-sex marriage existed in the public domain as at least one justification for voting in favor of SQ 711. The Court recognizes that moral disapproval often stems from deeply held religious convictions. See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 571 (explaining that moral disapproval of homosexual conduct was shaped by religious beliefs, conceptions of right and acceptable behavior, and respect for the traditional family). However, moral disapproval of homosexuals as a class, or same-sex marriage as a practice, is not a permissible justification for a law. See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 577 ([T]he fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as
54
immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.) (quoting and adopting Justice Stevens dissent in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 216 (1986)) (concluding that the majority may [not] use the power of the State to enforce [moral] views [disapproving of homosexual conduct] on the whole society through operation of the criminal law); id. at 582-83 (OConnor, J., concurring) (explaining that moral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest, is not a sufficient rationale . . . to justify a law that discriminates among groups of persons); Mass. v. United States Dept. of Health and Human Servs., 682 F.3d 1, 15 (1st Cir. 2012) (Lawrence ruled that moral disapproval alone cannot justify legislation discriminating on that basis. Moral judgments can hardly be avoided in legislation, but Lawrence and Romer have undercut this basis.) (internal citations omitted).37 Preclusion of moral disapproval as a permissible basis for laws aimed at homosexual conduct or homosexuals represents a victory for same-sex marriage advocates, and it forces states to demonstrate that their laws rationally further goals other than promotion of one moral view of marriage. Therefore, although Part A rationally promotes the States interest in upholding one particular moral definition of marriage, this is not a permissible justification. d. Other Justifications
The Court must also consider whether Part A rationally relates to the state interests now being offered by Smith in this litigation.38
37
Smith asserts four justifications for Part As
Justice Scalia has repeatedly expressed his disagreement with this conclusion. See Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2707 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (As I have observed before, the Constitution does not forbid the government to enforce traditional moral and sexual norms. . . .). However, these are dissenting opinions. At the time of her concurrence in Lawrence, Justice OConnor believed that reasons exist, other than moral disapproval, for prohibiting same-sex marriage: 55
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discrimination against same-sex couples: (1) encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing; (2) steering naturally procreative relationships into stable unions; (3) promoting the ideal that children be raised by both a mother and a father in a stable family unit; and (4) avoiding a redefinition of marriage that would necessarily change the institution and could have serious unintended consequences. (Smiths Cross. Mot. for Summ. J. 38.) In support of these
justifications, Smith has provided twenty-five exhibits consisting primarily of articles and scholarly writings on marriage, child-rearing, and homosexuality, ranging in date from the early twentieth century to 2008, all of which this Court has carefully reviewed. i. Encouraging Responsible Procreation/Steering Naturally Procreative Couples to Marriage39
Smith argues that through the institution of marriage, societies seek to increase the likelihood that children will be born and raised in stable and enduring family units by both the mothers and fathers who brought them into this world. (Smiths Resp. to Pls. Mot. for Summ. J. 27-28.) For purposes of its analysis, the Court accepts that Oklahoma has a legitimate interest in encouraging responsible procreation, (i.e., procreation within marriage), and in steering naturally procreative relationships into marriage, in order to reduce the number of children born out of wedlock and reduce economic burdens on the State.
Texas cannot assert any legitimate state interest here, such as national security or preserving the traditional institution of marriage. Unlike the moral disapproval of same-sex relations the asserted state interest in this case other reasons exist to promote the institution of marriage beyond mere moral disapproval of an excluded group. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 585 (OConnor, J. concurring). However, she did not explain or list what these other reasons may be, and the Court has found none present in this case.
39
Due to their similarity, the Court addresses the first and second justifications together. 56
However, Part A is not rationally related to these state interests for four reasons. First, the wealth of scholarly articles in this section of Smiths brief, which range from William Blackstone to John Locke, simply demonstrate that state-recognized marriages developed in part as a means of encouraging and incentivizing procreation within marriage. See, e.g., John Locke, The Second Treatise on Civil Government, On Politics and Education, at 113-14 (1947) (For the end of conjugation between male and female, being not barely procreation, but the continuation of the species, this conjugation betwixt male and female ought to last, even after procreation, so long as is necessary to the nourishment and support of the young ones.). (Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ. J. Ex. 5 to Ex. B.) These articles do not provide what is necessary in an equal protection case that is, a link between the legal classification now being drawn by Part A against same-sex couples and a historical state objective of encouraging procreation to occur within marriage. Traditional exclusion of the disadvantaged group from state-sanctioned marriage does not itself evidence a rational link to the identified goal of promoting responsible procreation within marriage. See Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 326 (1993) (Ancient lineage of a legal concept does not give it immunity from attack for lacking rational basis.); Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235, 239 (1970) (Neither the antiquity of a practice nor the fact of steadfast legislative and judicial adherence to it through the centuries insulates it from constitutional attack.); Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 11-12 (1967) (striking down Virginias miscegenation statute as violation of equal protection despite states historical practice of prohibiting interracial marriage). During oral arguments in Hollingsworth, Justice Scalia asked Mr. Theodore Olson, counsel for the proponents of Proposition 8, when it became unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage. Tr. of Oral Argument 37-38 (March 26, 2013), Hollingsworth v. Perry, 133
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S. Ct. 2652 (2013). Mr. Olson responded with the rhetorical question of when did it become unconstitutional to prohibit interracial marriage or assign children to separate schools. Id. at 38. As demonstrated by Mr. Olsons response, the mere fact that an exclusion has occurred in the past (without constitutional problem) does not mean that such exclusion is constitutional when challenged at a particular moment in history. This Court has an obligation to consider whether an exclusion, although historical, violates the constitutional rights of Oklahoma citizens. Second, there is no rational link between excluding same-sex couples from marriage and the goals of encouraging responsible procreation among the naturally procreative and/or steering the naturally procreative toward marriage. Civil marriage in Oklahoma does not have any procreative prerequisites. See supra Part VI(C); see also Gill, 699 F. Supp. 2d at 389 ([T]he ability to procreate is not now, nor has it ever been, a precondition to marriage in any state in the country.). Permitting same-sex couples to receive a marriage license does not harm, erode, or somehow water-down the procreative origins of the marriage institution, any more than marriages of couples who cannot naturally procreate or do not ever wish to naturally procreate. Marriage is incentivized for naturally procreative couples to precisely the same extent regardless of whether same-sex couples (or other non-procreative couples) are included.40 Third, Part As failure to impose the classification on other similarly situated groups (here, other non-procreative couples) can be probative of a lack of a rational basis. See City of Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 448 (finding that requiring special use permit for mentally handicapped occupants of a
If Smiths unarticulated but underlying argument is that opposite-sex couples are more likely to forego marriage because permitting same-sex couples erodes spiritual and religious aspects of marriage, this devolves again to legislation driven by moral disapproval and not legitimate state interests. 58
40
home, but not for other potential occupants, was probative of a lack of rationality); Bd. of Trustees of Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356, 366 (2001) (explaining Cleburne as reasoning that the citys purported justifications for the ordinance made no sense in light of how the city treated other groups similarly situated in relevant respects). As in Cleburne, the purported justification simply makes no sense in light of how Oklahoma treats other non-procreative couples desiring to marry. See Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W.2d 862, 884 (Iowa 2009) (applying Iowa Constitution) (concluding that same-sex couples were, for purposes of states interest in regulating marriage, similarly situated to opposite-sex couples despite their inability to naturally procreate); Goodridge, 798 N.E.2d at 962 (applying Massachusetts Constitution) (The marriage is procreation argument singles out the one unbridgeable difference between same-sex and opposite-sex couples, and transforms that difference into the essence of legal marriage.). This asserted justification also makes no sense because a same-sex couples inability to naturally procreate is not a biological distinction of critical importance, in relation to the articulated goal of avoiding children being born out of wedlock. The reality is that same-sex couples, while not able to naturally procreate, can and do have children by other means. As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 1,280 same-sex households in Oklahoma who reported as having their own children under 18 years of age residing in their household. United States Census 2010 and 2010 American Community Survey, Same-Sex Unmarried Partner or Spouse Households by Sex of Householder by Presence of Own Children, available at http://www.census.gov/hhes/samesex/files/supp-table-AFF.xls. If a same-sex couple is capable of having a child with or without a marriage relationship, and the articulated state goal is to reduce children born outside of a marital relationship, the challenged exclusion hinders rather than promotes that goal.
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Finally, the Court rejects Smiths lack of interest argument. Perhaps recognizing that excluding same-sex couples does not promote the asserted justifications in any rational manner, Smith argues that it is rational to exclude same-sex couples from marriage simply because the State has no real interest in them: Even though some same-sex couples do raise children, they cannot create them in the same way opposite-sex couples do as the often unintended result of casual sexual behavior. As a result, same-sex relationships simply do not pose the same risk of irresponsible procreation that opposite-sex relationships do. . . . Sexual relationships between individuals of the same sex neither advance nor threaten societys interest in responsible procreation in the same manner, or to the same degree, that sexual relationships between men and women do. (Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ. J. 34.) This lack of interest argument is ironic, given the history surrounding Part As passage. See supra Part VI(D)(1). Nonetheless, the Court has considered whether it applies to this case. In Johnson v. Robison, 415 U.S. 361, 383 (1974), the Supreme Court stated that when inclusion of one group promotes a legitimate governmental purpose, and the addition of other groups would not, we cannot say that the statutes classification of beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries is invidiously discriminatory. In Johnson, the Court held that exclusion of
conscientious objectors from veterans educational benefits was rational, in part, because the benefits would not incentivize service for that class. See id. at 382-83. The classification here is readily distinguishable. Assuming a state can rationally exclude citizens from marital benefits due to those citizens inability to naturally procreate, the states exclusion of only same-sex couples in this case is so grossly underinclusive that it is irrational and arbitrary. In Johnson, the carrot of educational benefits could never actually incentivize military service for the excluded group due to their religious beliefs. In contrast here, the carrot of marriage is equally attractive to procreative
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and non-procreative couples, is extended to most non-procreative couples, but is withheld from just one type of non-procreative couple. Same-sex couples are being subjected to a naturally procreative requirement to which no other Oklahoma citizens are subjected, including the infertile, the elderly, and those who simply do not wish to ever procreate. Rationality review has a limit, and this well exceeds it. ii. Promoting the Optimal Child-Rearing Environment
Smith also argues that excluding same-sex couples is rationally related to the goal of promoting the ideal family unit. Smith defines this ideal in several different ways throughout the brief, including: (1) a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage because benefits flow in substantial part from the biological connection shared by a child with both mother and father, (Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ J. 35 (quoting Kristin Anderson Moore, Marriage from a Childs Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can We Do About It?, Child Trends Research Brief (June 2002), Ex. 19 to Ex. B)); (2) a family unit where children are being raised by both a mother and a father in a stable family unit; (id.); and (3) a family unit with gender-differentiated parenting because the contribution of fathers to childrearing is unique and irreplaceable; (id. 36 (quoting David Popenoe, Life Without Father, at 146 (1996), Ex. 23 to Ex. B)). The Court assumes, for purposes of this motion for summary judgment only, that (1) the ideal environment for children must include opposite-sex, married, biological parents, and (2) that promoting this ideal is a legitimate state interest.41 Again, however, the question remains whether The Court suspects that many adoptive parents would challenge this defined ideal, and that many non-ideal families would question this paternalistic state goal of steering their private choices into one particular model of child-rearing. The Court also notes that same-sex couples are physically capable of satisfying many of the descriptors of the ideal environment 61
41
exclusion of same-sex couples promotes this interest, or is simply a guise for singling out same-sex couples for different treatment due to moral disapproval of a same-sex household with children. Smith has not articulated, and the Court cannot discern, a single way that excluding same-sex couples from marriage will promote this ideal child-rearing environment. Exclusion from marriage does not make it more likely that a same-sex couple desiring children, or already raising children together, will change course and marry an opposite-sex partner (thereby providing the ideal child-rearing environment). See Mass. v. Dept. of Health and Human Svcs., 682 F.3d 1, 1415 (1st Cir. 2012) (addressing Section 3 of DOMA) (Certainly, the denial [of marital benefits] will not affect the gender choices of those seeking marriage.).42 It is more likely that any potential or existing child will be raised by the same-sex couple without any state-provided marital benefits and without being able to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2694 (explaining that DOMA humiliate[d] thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples and brought financial harm to children of same-sex couples); see also Gill, 699 F. Supp. 2d at 389 (concluding that Section 3 of DOMA did not nothing to help children of opposite-sex parents but prevented children of same-sex couples from enjoying advantages flowing from a stable family structure); Goodridge,
explained in Smiths cited literature namely, a stable, low-conflict, non-violent, loving, and nurturing environment. The Bishop couple denies that their exclusion from marriage makes it more likely they would marry a member of the opposite sex. (See Bishop Couple Aff. 14 (explaining that marrying someone of the opposite sex would, in their opinion, be emotionally unhealthy and mentally damaging and that, more importantly, they have already identified the companion [they] have chosen to marry and established a long-standing relationship with them), Ex. 1 to Pls. Mot. for Summ. J.) 62
42
798 N.E.2d at 335 (employing same reasoning in conducting rationality review of state policy prohibiting same-sex marriages). In addition, Smith has not explained, and the Court cannot discern from any of Smiths cited materials, how exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage makes it more likely that opposite-sex marriages will stay in tact (thereby remaining optimal child-rearing environments). Excluding same-sex couples from marriage has done little to keep Oklahoma families together thus far, as Oklahoma consistently has one of the highest divorce rates in the country. See Table 133, Marriages and Divorces Number and Rate by State: 1990-2009, available at www.census.gov/compendia/ statab/2012/tables/12s0133.pdf (showing Oklahoma as ranking sixth in 2009 for divorce rates). The Court concludes that denial of same-sex couples from marriage does nothing to promote stability in heterosexual parenting. See Gill, 699 F. Supp. 2d at 389 (analyzing rationality of Section 3 of DOMA). After presenting the empirical support espousing the benefits of this ideal family unit, Smith offers a one-sentence, conclusory statement that is supposed to provide the link between the empirical data and the exclusion: It is rational, then, for Oklahoma to give special recognition to relationships that are designed to provide children the optimal environment of both a mother and a father. (Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ. 38.) Whether they are designed to or not, common sense dictates that many opposite-sex couples never actually do provide this optimal child-rearing environment, due to drug use, abuse, or, more commonly, divorce. As with natural procreative abilities, Smith does not condition any other couples receipt of a marriage license on their willingness or ability to provide an optimal child-rearing environment for any potential or existing children. While there need not be a good fit between the exclusion of same-sex couples from
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marriage and the promotion of this ideal family unit, there does need to be some reason for excluding the class. Such a reason is lacking here. iii. Negative Impact on Marriage
Smiths final argument is that it is rational for Oklahoma voters to believe that fundamentally redefining marriage could have a severe and negative impact on the institution as a whole. (Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ. J. 38.) This argument is best summarized in an article entitled Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles. (Witherspoon Institute, Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles (2008), Smiths Cross Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. 28 to Ex. B.) After discussing the plethora of benefits that marriage offers adults and children, the article then explains how same-sex marriage is one of four threats to the institution (along with divorce, illegitimacy, and cohabitation): [T]here remain even deeper concerns about the institutional consequences of samesex marriage for marriage itself. Same-sex marriage would further undercut the idea that procreation is intrinsically connected to marriage. It would undermine the idea that children need both a mother and a father, further weakening the societal norm that men should take responsibility for the children they beget. Finally, same-sex marriage would likely corrode marital norms of sexual fidelity, since gay marriage advocates and gay couples tend to downplay the importance of sexual fidelity in their definition of marriage. (Id. at 18-19.) See also, e.g., Sandoval, 911 F. Supp. 2d at 1015-16 (finding Nevadas same-sex marriage bans to pass rationality review because extending marriage to same-sex couples could conceivably lead to an increased percentage of out-of-wedlock children, single-parent families,
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difficulties in property disputes . . ., or other unforeseen consequences);43 Jackson, 884 F. Supp. 2d at 1112-15 (same).44 The negative impact argument is impermissibly tied to moral disapproval of same-sex couples as a class of Oklahoma citizens. All of these perceived threats are to one view of the marriage institution a view that is bound up in procreation, one morally ideal parenting model, and sexual fidelity. However, civil marriage in Oklahoma is not an institution with moral requirements for any other group of citizens. See supra Part VI(C). Smith does not ask a couple if they intend to be faithful to one another, if they intend to procreate, or if they would someday consider divorce, thereby potentially leaving their child to be raised in a single-parent home. With respect to marriage licenses, the State has already opened the courthouse doors to opposite-sex couples without any moral, procreative, parenting, or fidelity requirements. Exclusion of just one class of citizens from receiving a marriage license based upon the perceived threat they pose to the marital institution is, at bottom, an arbitrary exclusion based upon the majoritys disapproval of the defined class. It is also insulting to same-sex couples, who are human beings capable of forming loving, committed, enduring relationships. Preserving the traditional institution of marriage, which is the gist of Smiths final asserted justification, is just a kinder way of describing the States moral disapproval of same-sex couples. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 602 (Scalia, J., dissenting).
The Sandoval court reasoned in part that civil marriage is at least partially a public activity, and preventing abuse of an institution the law protects is a valid state interest. Sandoval, 911 F. Supp. 2d at 1014. As demonstrated above, same-sex couples do not possess any characteristic indicating they can or will abuse the institution of marriage any more or any differently than other included groups.
44
43
Both Jackson and Sandoval were decided before Windsor. 65
Having considered all four proferred justifications for Part A, the Court concludes that exclusion of same-sex couples is so attenuated from any of these goals that the exclusion cannot survive rational-basis review. See City of Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 447 (explaining that a state may not rely on a classification whose relationship to an asserted goal is so attenuated as to render the distinction arbitrary or irrational); Vigil, 666 F.3d at 685 (equal protection review seeks to ensure that those who appear similarly situated are not treated differently without, at the very least, a rational reason for the difference); Price-Cornelison, 524 F.3d at 1114 ([W]e cannot discern on this record, a rational reason to provide less protection to lesbian victims of domestic violence than to heterosexual domestic violence victims.). E. Equal Protection Conclusion
The Supreme Court has not expressly reached the issue of whether state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage violate the U.S. Constitution. However, Supreme Court law now prohibits states from passing laws that are born of animosity against homosexuals, extends constitutional protection to the moral and sexual choices of homosexuals, and prohibits the federal government from treating opposite-sex marriages and same-sex marriages differently. There is no precise legal label for what has occurred in Supreme Court jurisprudence beginning with Romer in 1996 and culminating in Windsor in 2013, but this Court knows a rhetorical shift when it sees one. Against this backdrop, the Courts task is to determine whether Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment deprives a class of Oklahoma citizens namely, same-sex couples desiring an Oklahoma marriage license of equal protection of the law. Applying deferential rationality review, the Court searched for a rational link between exclusion of this class from civil marriage and promotion of a legitimate governmental objective. Finding none, the Courts
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rationality review reveals Part A as an arbitrary, irrational exclusion of just one class of Oklahoma citizens from a governmental benefit. Equal protection is at the very heart of our legal system and central to our consent to be governed. It is not a scarce commodity to be meted out begrudgingly or in short portions. Therefore, the majority view in Oklahoma must give way to individual constitutional rights. The Bishop couple has been in a loving, committed relationships for many years. They own property together, wish to retire together, wish to make medical decisions for one another, and wish to be recognized as a married couple with all its attendant rights and responsibilities. Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment excludes the Bishop couple, and all otherwise eligible samesex couples, from this privilege without a legally sufficient justification. VII. Injunctive Relief and Rulings on Pending Motions The Court declares that Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by precluding samesex couples from receiving an Oklahoma marriage license. The Court permanently enjoins enforcement of Part A against same-sex couples seeking a marriage license. In accordance with the U.S. Supreme Courts issuance of a stay in a nearly identical case on appeal from the District Court of Utah to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, see Herbert v. Kitchen, U.S. Supreme Court Order in Pending Case 13A687 (Jan. 6, 2014), the Court stays execution of this injunction pending the final disposition of any appeal to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 197) is GRANTED as to Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment and otherwise DENIED. Defendant Sally Howe Smiths Cross Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 216) is DENIED as to Part A of the Oklahoma
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Constitutional Amendment, and GRANTED as to Part B based on the Barton couples lack of standing. The Barton couples challenge to Part B is dismissed for lack of standing. The Barton couples Motion for Entry of Final Judgment (Doc. 257) is DENIED, and their challenge to Section 3 of DOMA is dismissed based upon constitutional mootness. BLAGs motion to withdraw as an intervening party (Doc. 263) is GRANTED, and BLAGs pending motion for summary judgment (Doc. 214) is DENIED as moot. The Motion to Dismiss by United States of America and Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General (Doc. 211) is GRANTED, and the Barton couples challenge to Section 2 of DOMA is dismissed for lack of standing. IT IS SO ORDERED this 14th day of January, 2014.
____________________________________ TERENCE C. KERN UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA MARY BISHOP; SHARON BALDWIN; SUSAN G. BARTON; and GAY E. PHILLIPS, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ex rel. ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., in his official capacity as Attorney General of the United States of America; and SALLY HOWE SMITH, in her official capacity as Court Clerk for Tulsa County, State of Oklahoma, Defendants, BIPARTISAN LEGAL ADVISORY GROUP OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Intervenor-Defendant. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )
No. 04-CV-848-TCK-TLW
JUDGMENT Judgment is hereby entered in favor of Plaintiffs Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin and against Sally Howe Smith with respect to these Plaintiffs challenge to Part A of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment. The Courts declaratory and injunctive relief is set forth in the Opinion and Order entered this date. A judgment of dismissal is hereby entered in favor of Defendant Sally Howe Smith and against Plaintiffs Susan Barton and Gay Phillips with respect to these Plaintiffs challenge to Part B of the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment.
A judgment of dismissal is hereby entered in favor of Defendant United States of America ex rel. Eric H. Holder, Jr., in his official capacity as Attorney General of the United States of America, and against Plaintiffs Susan Barton and Gay Phillips with respect to these Plaintiffs challenges to Sections 2 and 3 of DOMA. This Judgment terminates the litigation. SO ORDERED this 14th day of January, 2014.

14-5003 #8185 Plaintiffs' Opening/Response

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Appellate Case: 14-5003

Date Filed: 03/17/2014

ORAL ARGUMENT REQUESTED March 17, 2014

Docket Reference Number [10158185]

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protection of spousal domestic support obligations under the

Bankruptcy Code; 20 and burial as a spouse alongside a servicemember in a