WASHINGTON (CN) - The Supreme Court championed gay rights in its most awaited decision of the term, unraveling the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional Wednesday.
Section 3 of the 1996 federal law defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman, meaning that Edith Schlain Windsor did not qualify for the estate-tax exemption on spousal inheritance when her wife, Thea Spyer, died in 2009.
Windsor and Spyer had married each other in Canada before it was possible for to do so in their home state of New York, where the couple had lived together since 1963.
After paying the $363,000 tax on Spyer's estate, Windsor challenged DOMA on equal-protection grounds, persuading a federal judge in Manhattan to strike Section 3 down as unconstitutional and order the government to give Windsor a refund.
The 2nd Circuit agreed last year that Section 3 was unconstitutional, reviewing the appeal even though the Justice Department abandoned its defense of DOMA in 2011, leaving the task to private counsel retained by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Despite concerns over standing, a five-justice majority of the Supreme Court found Wednesday that "prudential rules" support taking jurisdiction "in these unusual and urgent circumstances."
Dismissing the case would lead to extensive litigation, as well as a lack of guidance for "the district courts in 94 districts throughout the nation" as to tax-refund suits and "the whole of DOMA's sweep involving over 1,000 federal statutes and a myriad of federal regulations," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.
Turning to the merits, Kennedy pointed out that DOMA has a far greater reach than other examples of "limited federal laws that regulate the meaning of marriage in order to further federal policy."
At its heart, DOMA takes aim at "a class of persons that the laws of New York, and of 11 other states, have sought to protect," according to the ruling.
Though marriage laws vary from state to state - such as in New Hampshire where the minimum age to marry is 13 - Kennedy said "these rules are in every event consistent within each state."
"Against this background DOMA rejects the long-established precept that the incidents, benefits, and obligations of marriage are uniform for all married couples within each state, though they may vary, subject to constitutional guarantees, from one state to the next," he added. "Despite these considerations, it is unnecessary to decide whether this federal intrusion on state power is a violation of the Constitution because it disrupts the federal balance. The state's power in defining the marital relation is of central relevance in this case quite apart from principles of federalism. Here the state's decision to give this class of persons the right to marry conferred upon them a dignity and status of immense import. When the state used its historic and essential authority to define the marital relation in this way, its role and its power in making the decision enhanced the recognition, dignity, and protection of the class in their own community. DOMA, because of its reach and extent, departs from this history and tradition of reliance on state law to define marriage."
The "resulting injury and indignity" of imposing restrictions through DOMA is ultimately "a deprivation of an essential part of the liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment," Kennedy wrote.