Will the United States Supreme
Court legalize same-sex marriage?
Hollingsworth v. Perry and United
States v. Windsor
This spring the US Supreme Court will make its decision in two well-known cases:
Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor. In both the Court must
resolve the nationwide dispute over the constitutionality of federal and state
laws which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The Ninth
and the Second Circuits found (in Perry and Windsor respectively) that such laws
violate both Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution. The
aim of this paper is to analyze the former Supreme Court’s decisions in this field in
order to propose the most probable rationale of the expected judgements. Taking
into account the Supreme Court’s milestone rulings in Griswold v. Connecticut
from 1965, Loving v. Virginia from 1967, Romer v. Evans from 1996 and Lawrence
and Garner v. Texas from 2003, it seems fairly possible that the Court will uphold
the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Most likely, it will be done on the
ground of the Second Circuit decision in Windsor which is the best opportunity
to gather the sufficient five-member majority round this solution.