# Amicus Curiae Brief — Obergefell v. Hodges

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URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40385016_0306%3A068

## Record

- **Collection:** Supreme Court brief
- **Document type:** Amicus Curiae Brief
- **Published:** January 1, 2015
- **Citation:** 576 U.S. 644

## Text

Supls -
t

MAR - 3 2015

Nos. 14-556, 14-562, 14-571, 14-5

ju The

Supreme Court of the Gnited States

@

JAMES OBERGEFELL, et al.,

Petition: 3,

Vv.

RICHARD HODGES, Director,
Ohio Department of Health, et al.,

Respondents.

[See Next Page For Other Consolidated Cases]
.

On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States
Court Of Appeals For The Sixth Circuit

-~@

BRIEF AMICUS CURIAE OF THE STATE
OF HAWAII IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

°

RUSSELL A. SUZUKI
Attorney Genera] of Hawaii

GIRARD D. Lau*
Solicitor General vu: Hawaii

425 Queen Street

Honolulu, Hawaii 96813

e-mail: girard.d lau@hawaii.gov

(808) 586-1360

Counsel for Amicus Curiae State of Hawaii

“alee Cs.

VALERIA TANCO, et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
BILL HASLAM, Governor of Tennessee, et al.,
Respondents.
+

APRIL DEBOER, et al.,
Petit

Vv.

RICK SNYDER, Governor of Michigan, et al.,

STEVE BESHEAR, Governor of Kentucky, et al.,
Respondents.

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTERESTS OF THE AMICUS CURIAE ........... 1
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT...................-.. 2
4

I. The Fundamental] Right to Marry Under
the Due Process Clause Includes Same
Sex Couples Because Such Marriages Are
Essential to the Orderly Pursuit of Hap-
piness and Fundamental! to our Existence
EE chihicitcinscenibiinedinninaneninininiiiiinabane

Il. History and Tradition Cannot Justify
Excluding Same Sex Couples from the
Fundamental Right to Marry.................... 12

a tcerersnscsseneresssssssenenenemneeneccanesusmecssene

‘:
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Page
CASES:
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986)............ 13, 14
Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. LaFleur, 414 U.S. 632

(neal acincecsisesninpudnbinineshemeinenpineinsinsieneniagmiinnmeinbenidientidia 5
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) ............. 7
Jackson v. Abercrombie, 9th Cir. Appeal Nos.

GEE HII inncitisainiinscananiadnidnnnieacedetieinsennsiiniined 4
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)......... 12, 13, 14
Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248 (1983)...................0004. 8
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)....... 5, 6, 7, 12, 15
Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292 (1993) ................ceeeeeeees 14
Skinner v. State of Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson,

Se ee Ci cencentinntntaremncantanienititinannniianemedin 7
Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987) .................00e000- 5,8
United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013)....3, 11
Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374 (1978)......5, 7, 9, 10,

sdppenashimngunenneumednesngimnnnpnmmanemnennmntiae 11, 12, 15
CONSTITUTION:

ill

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES — Continued

Page

OTHER AUTHORITIES:

G. Herek, et al., Demographic, Psychological,
and Social Characteristics of Self-Identified
Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Adults in a US
Probability Sample, 7 Sexuality Res. & Soc.
ED SIT scitnnecninidutciatiapedenniibiddncddidnsannenrindenns

M. Lamb, Mothers, Fathers, Families, and
Circumstances: Factors Affecting Children’s

Adjustment, Applied Developmental Science,
Sins TTT ccicncrnpniniemniitiinatainiantimupepediiaiiatdimniaadinescieniais

M. Lamb, Placing Children’s Interests First:
Developmentally Appropriate Parenting Plans,
10 Va. J. Soc. Pol’y & L. 98 (2002)...................000000-

1

INTERESTS OF THE AMICUS CURIAE

Amicus Curiae State of Hawaii has a strong
interest in the promotion and protection of the civil
rights of persons without regard to sexual orienta-
tion. In that vein, Hawaii has long had legislation
prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations
on the basis of sexual orientation. In 2013, Hawaii
legislatively eliminated its former restriction limiting
marriage to different sex couples, and extended the
right to marry to same sex couples.

Hawaii believes that the right of a same sex cou-
ple to marry should be extended to persons through-
out the United States, as a matter of fairness and
equality, and for the benefit of the couple and any
children raised by the couple. Hawaii believes that
if the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause
means anything, it is the liberty to love and commit
to the person one chooses (regardless of gender), with
the legal and social benefits and responsibilities at-
tendant to that commitment. Furthermore, Hawaii
has a strong interest in assuring that the marriages
of Hawaii same sex couples are recognized through-
out the United States were they to travel or move to
other states. Accordingly, Hawaii submits this amicus
brief urging this Court to hold that the fundamental
right to marry under the Due Process Clause includes
same sex couples.

2

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

This amicus brief presents a unique Due Process
argument, not made by the parties or their amici,
focused on the “existence and survival” element un-
derlying the fundamental right to marry.

The rationale and logic of existing Supreme
Court precedent require that the fundamental right
to marry under the Due Process Clause include same
sex couples. This Court has ruled many times that
marriage is a fundamental right because it is 1) es-
sential to the pursuit of happiness, and 2) important
to our “existence and survival.” Because same sex
marriage is also essential to the pursuit of happiness
and important to our “existence and survival,” the
fundamental right to marry must extend to same sex
couples as well.

Same sex marriage, of course, easily satisfies the
pursuit of happiness prong, as the vast majority of
same sex couples express a desire to marry their
partner if it were legal. Opponents, however, would
deny that same sex marriage is important to “exis-
tence and survival” because only different sex couples
naturally and biologically procreate. That theory is
fundamentally flawed because this Court’s determi-
nation that marriage is important to “existence and
survival” was not focusec on the biological capacity to
procreate. Indeed, biological procreation can, and
often does, occur outside of marriage, and this Court
stated that “marriage,” without mentioning “procrea-
tion,” was fundamental to existence and survival.

3

This Court’s reference to marriage being funda-
mental to “existence and survival” was referring not
to a couple’s biological ability to procreate, but rather
to the institution of marriage, which provides that a
couple undertake and fulfill legal and social responsi-
bilities: 1) to each other, for the couple’s mutual ben-
efit and survival, and 2) jointly to any children they
may have, for the children’s survival. Where children
are involved, marriage ensures that such children are
raised and nurtured by two parents, in a committed
legal relationship.

It is in this legal and social commitment sense
(not natural procreative capacity), which benefits
both the couple and their children, that marriage
promotes the “existence and survival” of human
beings in a modern society. Because same sex couples
are equally capable of taking on those legal and social
commitments to each other, and to any children they
may have — and they and their children benefit from
those responsibilities being fulfilled — same sex mar-
riages are just as fundamental to existence and
survival as marriages of different sex couples.

Indeed, because Windsor determined that deny-
ing full marriage status to same sex couples demeans
them, and humiliates and financially harms their
children, this Court already recognizes marriage’s
importance to their and their children’s “existence
and survival.”

In sum, because same sex marriage, like different
sex marriage, is important to both the pursuit of

4

happiness, and to the couple’s and their children’s
existence and survival, same sex marriage easily
satisfies the two foundational elements that caused
this Court to declare marriage to be a fundamental
right. Consequently, this Court’s existing precedents
command the inclusion of same sex couples within
the fundamental right to marry.

History and tradition cannot justify excluding
same sex couples from the fundamental right to
marry; this is especially true when the reasons
marriage is a fundamental right apply to same sex
couples. Accordingly, bans on same sex marriage
violate the Due Process Clause.

¢

ARGUMENT

Amicus Curiae State of Hawaii agrees with
arguments made in the multi-state Amicus brief to be
filed by Massachusetts, et al., but submits its own
brief in support of Petitioners to make the following
unique argument — focusing on “existence and sur-
vival” — explaining why the fundamental right to
marry under the Due Process Clause necessarily
includes same sex couples. Hawaii is not aware of
this particular argument having been made by any of
the parties in these cases, or their amici. Hawaii's
then-Governor initially made this argument in 2012
and throughout the Hawaii same sex marriage case of
Jackson v. Abercrombie, 9th Cir. Appeal Nos. 12-
16995 & 12-16998.

5

I. The Fundamental Right to Marry Under
the Due Process Clause Includes Same
Sex Couples Because Such Marriages Are
Essential to the Orderly Pursuit of Hap-
piness and Fundamental to our Existence
and Survival.

This Court has unanimously declared that:

The freedom to marry has long been recog-
nized as one of the vital personal rights es-
sential to the orderly pursuit of happiness
by free men.

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights
of man,” fundamental to our very existence
and survival. To deny this fundamental
freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the
racial classifications embodied in these stat-
utes, classifications so directly subversive of
the principle of equality at the heart of the
Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive
all the State’s citizens of liberty without due
process of law.

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 (1967). See also
Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 384 (1978) (quoting
the same “orderly pursuit of happiness” and “existence
and survival” elements from Loving, and stating that
“the right to marry is of fundamental importance for
all individuals.”); Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 95
(1987) (“[T]he decision to marry is a fundamental
right”); Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. LaFleur, 414
U.S. 632, 639-40 (1974) (“freedom of personal choice
in matters of marriage ... is one of the liberties

6

protected by the Due Process Clause”). Although
Loving found a Due Process violation only as to
marriage restrictions on the basis of race, Loving
unambiguously found that marriage itself was a
fundamental right. And it did so because marriage
was “essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness,”
and “fundamental to our very existence and survival.”
Therefore, if same sex marriage, too, satisfies these
very same two underlying rationales that this Court
has used to justify marriage being a fundamental
right, then that right necessarily should extend
equally to same sex couples.

There is, of course, no reason to believe that
marriage for same sex couples is not “essential to the
orderly pursuit of [such couple’s] happiness.” See, e.g.,
G. Herek, et al., Demographic, Psychological, and
Social Characteristics of Self-Identified Lesbian, Gay,
and Bisexual Adults in a US Probability Sample, 7
Sexuality Res. & Soc. Policy 176, Table 8 (2010)
(88.4% of gay men and 88.6% of lesbians, currently in
a same sex relationship, would be somewhat, fairly, or
very likely to marry their current partner if it were
legal).

Thus, the remaining issue is whether same sex
marriage, like different sex marriage, is also “funda-
mental to our very existence and survival.” Although
some might argue that only different sex marriage is
“fundamental to our very existence and survival,”
because only different sex couples naturally and
biologically procreate, that theory is fundamentally
flawed. First, the underlying premise is no longer

7

true, because adoption, as well as now-common mod-
ern technologies, allow same sex couples to procreate
as well.

Most importantly, the Supreme Court’s reference
to marriage being fundamental to existence and
survival could not have been focused on the biological
ability to procreate. This is clear because mere biolog-
ical procreation can occur outside of marriage, and
often does. And the Court said that “marriage” —
not “procreation” — was fundamental to our very
existence and survival.’ Clearly then, it was some-
thing other than biological procreative capacity that
caused this Court to deem marriage fundamental to
existence and survival.

Instead, when the Supreme Court referred to
marriage as fundamental to “existence and survival,”
it was referring not to a couple’s biological ability to
procreate per se, but rather to the institution of
marriage, which provides that a couple undertake
legal and social responsibilities and obligations
1) to each other for the couple’s mutual benefit and
survival, see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479,

' Although this Court has also ruled that “procreation,” too,
is fundamental to our “very existence and survival of the race,”
Skinner v. State of Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535,
541 (1942), what matters is that this Court has concluded that
“marriage” itself — separate and apart from procreation — is
fundamental to our very existence and survival. See Loving,
supra; Zablocki, 434 U.S. at 386 (“the decision to marry has been
placed on the same level of importance as decisions relating to
procreation [and] childbirth.”).

8

486 (1965) (marriage is a “bilateral loyalty”); Turner,
482 U.S. at 95 (marriage is an “expression[] of
emotional support and public commitment”), and
2) jointly to their children. Where children are
involved, the institution of marriage ensures that
such children are raised by fwo parents who, in a
committed legal and social relationship, will work
together to protect the health, safety, and welfare of
their children, and develop them into responsible
members of society. Cf. Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S.
248, 256-57 (1983) (“The institution of marriage has
played a critical role . . . in defining the legal entitle-
ments of family members. ... In recognition of that
role, and [to] servi[e] the best interests of children,
state laws almost universally express an appropriate
preference for the formal family.”).

It is in that legal and social commitment
sense (not natural procreative capacity), that the
institution of marriage promotes the “existence and
survival” of human beings in a modern society.’
Indeed, even opponents agree that children benefit

* “(Tjhe relationship of love and duty in a recognized family
unit is an interest in liberty entitled to constitutional protec-
tion.” Lehr, 463 U.S. at 258. “Parental rights do not spring full-
blown from the biological connection between parent and child.
They require relationships more enduring.” Id. at 260. “When an
unwed father demonstrates a full commitment to the responsi-
bilities of parenthood by ‘com[ing) forward to participate in the
rearing of his child,’ his interest in personal contact with his
child acquires substantial protection under the due process
clause.... But the mere existence of a biological link does not
merit equivalent constitutional protection.” Id. at 261.

9

from the stability marriage offers. Marriage pro-
vides the couple with mutual obligations, both legal
and social, of support for one another, and provides
significant support for the safety, welfare, and devel-
opment of any children the couple may have by
providing two parents — in a committed legal and
social relationship — to together protect, feed, clothe,
educate, and develop their children into decent and
productive members of society. See Zablocki, 434 U.S.
at 384 (focusing not on procreation but on marriage’s
importance as “the foundation of family and society,
without which there would be neither civilization nor
progress,” and on marriage’s tie to “establishling] a
home and bring/fing] up children,” as opposed to
merely giving birth to children). It is those legal and
social responsibilities and obligations to each other
and jointly to any children, not biological procreative
capacity, that make marriage “fundamental to our
very existence and survival.”

Because same sex couples are equally able to
undertake those same legal and social responsibilities
and obligations to each other, and to any children
they may have — and they and their children benefit
from those responsibilities being fulfilled — same sex
marriages are equally fundamental to our existence
and survival. Thus, same sex marriage satisfies both
prongs of this Court’s rationale for deeming marriage
a fundamental right: 1) it is essential to the pursuit of
happiness, and 2) it is fundamental to our existence
and survival.

10

Moreover, natural procreative capacity is clearly
not the essence of marriage, given that states gener-
ally grant couples who have no intent, or are physi-
cally unable, to have children the same legal ability
to enter into marriage. Furthermore, the U.S. Su-
preme Court has treated as separate and distinct, the
decision to marry, versus the decision to procreate.
See Zablocki, 434 U.S. at 386 (“the decision to marry
has been placed on the same level of importance as
decisions relating to procreation [and] childbirth.”).”

Once it is understood that it is those legal and
social obligations of a couple in a marriage to each
other and to their children that make marriage fun-
damental to “our very existence and survival,” it
becomes clear that there is no reason to exclude same
sex couples from the fundamental right to marry this
Court has long recognized. For same sex couples, like
heterosexual couples, benefit from the legal and social
responsibilities of mutual support for each other that
marriage provides. And, the children of same sex
couples, too, will benefit just as strongly (as children
of different sex couples) from the legal and social
responsibilities (resulting from marriage) that their
parents will jointly have to them to together protect
them, and develop them into responsible adults. See
Zablocki, 434 U.S. at 384 (marriage is fundamental
because it is the “foundation of family and society”;

* In any event, same sex couples can, and frequently do,
procreate (through adoption and new technologies).

11

the right “‘to marry, establish a home, and bring up
children’ is a central part of the liberty protected by
the Due Process Clause”). See also M. Lamb, Placing
Children’s Interests First: Developmentally Appropriate
Parenting Plans, 10 Va. J. Soc. Pol’y & L. 98, 99
(2002) (“there is substantial consensus today that
children are better off psychologically and develop-
mentally in two rather than single-parent families”);
M. Lamb, Mothers, Fathers, Families, and Circum-
stances: Factors Affecting Children’s Adjustment,
Applied Developmental Science, 16:2, 98, 104 (2012)
(“children and adolescents with same-sex parents
probably would benefit if their parents could choose
to marry and solidify their family and parental ties”).

Indeed, preventing same sex couples from marry-
ing undermines “existence and survival” by lessening
those couples’ obligations (both legal and social) to
care for each other. And, where children are involved,
barring marriage undercuts the children’s “survival”
by weakening the bond between their parents who
ideally should together protect and nurture their
children. Moreover, as this Court determined recently,
denying full recognition of same sex marriages “de-
means the couple,” and “humiliates” and “financiall[ly]
harm(s)” their children. United States v. Windsor, 133
S. Ct. 2675, 2694, 2695 (2013). Thus, this Court has
already recognized that denying same sex couples full
marriage status undermines their and their chil-
dren’s existence and survival.

12

To argue that even though marriage is a funda-
mental right, same sex marriage is not, is thus incon-
sistent with existing Supreme Court precedent, and
otherwise highly problematic. Most importantly, as
explained above, the reasons marriage is a fundamen-
tal right — its importance to the pursuit of happiness
and to “our very existence and survival,” Loving,
Zablocki — apply equally to same sex couples. That,
by itself, requires including same sex couples within
the fundamental right to marry recognized by this
Court.

Il. History and Tradition Cannot Justify Ex-
cluding Same Sex Couples from the Fun-
damental Right to Marry.

Because this Court made clear in Lawrence uv.
Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), that “neither history nor
tradition could save a law prohibiting miscegenation
from constitutional attack,” 539 U.S. at 577-78, the
history or tradition of excluding same sex couples
from marriage cannot justify that exclusion today. In
fact, interracial marriage was banned in 30 states as
of 1952, see Loving, 388 U.S. at 6 n.5, and 41 states at
some point in their history banned it. Yet despite that
clear history and tradition of excluding interracial
couples from marriage, the Supreme Court in Loving
had no trouble finding interracial marriage to be a
fundamental right. As Lawrence recognized, “(hjistory
and tradition are the starting point but not in all

13

cases the ending point of the substantive due process
inquiry.” 539 U.S. at 572.*

It is especially inappropriate to rely upon an
historical or traditional practice of excluding certain
groups from a right when the principal reasons for
recognizing the right as fundamental — which are
part of that tradition — would include the excluded
groups. As demonstrated earlier, the reasons this
Court recognizes marriage as a fundamental right —
marriage being essential to the “orderly pursuit of
happiness,” and fundamental to our very “existence
and survival,” as well as being the “foundation of
family and society,” and furthering the “establish-
ment of a home and bringing up of children” — apply
equally well to same sex couples.

Finally, to allow tradition and history to single-
handedly restrict the scope of a fundamental right
would mean that longstanding discriminatory prac-
tices, once widely accepted in the nation, would escape
Due Process scrutiny simply because those practices
were longstanding, and once widely accepted. Uphold-
ing such an interpretation would severely weaken the

* And by overruling Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186
(1986), Lawrence, in recognizing a Due Process right to same sex
intimate relations, made extending the fundamental right to
marry to same sex couples even more compelling. Cf. Lawrence,
539 U.S. at 604 (Scalia, and Thomas, JJ., dissenting) (“Today's
opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has
permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and
homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is
concerned.”).

14

substantive protections enshrined in the Due Process
Clause. See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 577-78 (adopting
Justice Stevens’ position in Bowers that “the 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; neither history nor tradition could save a law
prohibiting miscegenation from constitutional attack.”).

Ultimately, because same sex marriages, like
different sex marriages, are “essential to the orderly
pursuit of happiness,” and “fundamental to our very
existence and survival,” this Court’s precedents vir-
tually dictate inclusion of same sex couples within the
fundamental right to marry this Court has long
recognized.

Opponents must therefore demonstrate that their
same sex marriage bans are narrowly tailored to
serve a compelling state interest. See Reno v. Flores,
507 U.S. 292, 301-02 (1993) (“‘due process of law’...
include[s] a substantive component, which forbids the
government to infringe certain ‘fundamental’ liberty
interests at all ... unless the infringement is nar-
rowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.”).
Because they cannot do so, state same sex marriage
prohibitions violate the Due Process Clause.

¢

CONCLUSION

This Court has repeatedly recognized marriage to
be a fundamental right under the Due Process Clause

15

because it is important: 1) to the pursuit of happiness,
and 2) to human existence and survival. See Loving,
Zablocki, supra. Because the marriage of same sex
couples unequivocally furthers these two purposes,
existing precedent requires that same sex marriage,
too, fall within the fundamental right to marry. The
Due Process Clause thus invalidates prohibitions on
same sex marriage. Only by granting petitioners a
right to marry that fully respects petitioners’ promises
of loving, will the promise of Loving be truly fulfilled.

Dated: Honolulu, Hawaii, March 3, 2015.

Respectfully submitted,

RUSSELL A. SUZUKI
Attorney General of Hawaii

GIRARD D. Lau*

Solicitor General of Hawaii
*Counsel of Record

KIMBERLY T. GUIDRY

First Deputy Solicitor General
ROBERT T. NAKATSUJI

Deputy Solicitor General

425 Queen Street
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813

e-mail: girard.d.lau@hawaii.gov
(808) 586-1360

Counsel for Amicus Curiae
State of Hawaii

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40385016_0306%3A068. Public record. Not legal advice.