Rights for married gay couples tops US Supreme Court Agenda

Washington: The The US Supreme Court started a new term on Monday and is expected to confront several cases that seek to guarantee federal benefits for same-sex couples who are legally married. A provision of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act deprives same-sex couples of a range of federal benefits available to heterosexual couples. Several federal courts have agreed that the provision of the law is unconstitutional, a situation that practically ensures that the high court will step in. [caption id=“attachment_475634” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Several cases seek to guarantee benefits for same-sex couples who are legally married. AP[/caption] A separate appeal asks the justices to sustain California’s Proposition 8, the amendment to the state constitution that outlawed gay marriage in the nation’s largest state. Federal courts in California have struck down the amendment. However, justices may not even consider whether to hear the gay marriage issue until November. The court started the term with the high-stakes issue of whether businesses and individuals can be sued in the US courts for human rights violations that take place on foreign soil and have foreign victims. The case involves a lawsuit filed against Royal Dutch Petroleum over claims that the oil company was complicit in abuses committed by the Nigerian government against its citizens in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The court first heard the case in February to consider whether businesses could be sued under the Alien Tort Statute. But the justices asked for additional arguments about whether the law could be applied to any conduct that takes place abroad. Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the 223-year-old law has been an important tool in establishing accountability for “human rights atrocities that occur abroad.” Former State Department legal adviser John Bellinger III said the law has become “the bane of the existence of corporations” because suits filed under the law are lengthy and expensive. This new Supreme Court term offers the prospect of major rulings about affirmative action, gay marriage and voting rights. Three months after the court upheld President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, the same lineup of justices were returning to the bench. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberals in sustaining the landmark health care law, but this term’s big cases seem likely to have him in his more accustomed role of voting with his fellow conservatives. That leaves Justice Anthony Kennedy with his typically decisive vote in cases that otherwise split the court’s liberals and conservatives. A fight over the affirmative action program at the University of Texas, one of the country’s largest universities, is the first blockbuster case on the court’s calendar, with argument scheduled for 10 October. The outcome could further limit or even end the use of racial preferences in college admissions. Another hot topic is the future of a cornerstone law of the civil rights movement. In 2006, the Congress overwhelmingly approved, and President George W Bush signed, legislation extending for 25 more years a critical piece of the Voting Rights Act. It requires states and local governments with a history of racial and ethnic discrimination, mainly in the South, to get advance approval either from the Justice Department or the federal court in Washington before making any changes that affect elections. Cases from Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas could prompt the court to deal head on with the issue of advance approval. It is unclear when the justices will decide whether to hear arguments in those cases. Arguments themselves would not take place until next year. The justices also could become enmeshed in election disputes, even before the November ballots are counted. Suits in Ohio over early voting and provisional ballots appear the most likely to find their way to the justices before the election, said Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California at Irvine law school. AP