This case is difficult because it couples issues of equal protection and federalism with the need to assess the rationale for a congressional statute passed with minimal hearings and lacking in formal findings. In addition, Supreme Court precedent offers some help to each side, but the rationale in several cases is open to interpretation. We have done our best to discern the direction of these precedents, but only the Supreme Court can finally decide this unique case.

Although our decision discusses equal protection and federalism concerns separately, it concludes that governing precedents under both heads combine–not to create some new category of “heightened scrutiny” for DOMA under a prescribed algorithm, but rather to require a closer than usual review based in part on discrepant impact among married couples and in part on the importance of state interests in regulating marriage. Our decision then tests the rationales offered for DOMA, taking account of Supreme Court precedent limiting which rationales can be counted and of the force of certain rationales.

I’m not really sure what to make of it. It screams “We want to strike down DOMA but we don’t want to disturb existing Supreme Court precedents which counsel in the opposite direction so we’ll do something really funny.”

And this is even odder–the court morphed the substantive due process analysis in Lawrence and the equal protection analysis in Romer:

Lawrence struck down Texas’ statute forbidding homosexual sodomy and Romer overturned a Colorado constitutional amendment that curtailed the right of communities to enact laws to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. Although Lawrence rested on substantive due process precedent and not equal protection, precedents under the two rubrics use somewhat related tests as to levels of scrutiny–applied to liberty interests under the former and discrimination claims under the latter. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 575-76, 578; Romer, 517 U.S. at 632, 635.

O’Connor’s equal protection analysis in Lawrence lost out.

The court resists creating a new suspect classification in light of Baker v. Nelson (that SCOTUS precedent the 9th Circuit ignored):

Second, to create such a new suspect classification for same-sex relationships would have far-reaching implications–in particular, by implying an overruling of Baker, which we are neither empowered to do nor willing to predict. Nothing indicates that the Supreme Court is about to adopt this new suspect classification when it conspicuously failed to do so in Romer–a case that could readily have been disposed by such a demarche. That such a classification could overturn marriage laws in a huge majority of individual states underscores the implications.

However, that is not the end of the matter. Without relying on suspect classifications, Supreme Court equal protection decisions have both intensified scrutiny of purported justifications where minorities are subject to discrepant treatment and have limited the permissible justifications. And (as we later explain), in areas where state regulation has traditionally governed, the Court may require that the federal government interest in intervention be shown with special clarity.

This is the rational basis “plus bite” we saw in Cleburne, Romer, and Moreno, rather than silly Lee Optical rational basis.

All three of the cited cases–Moreno, City of Cleburne and Romer–stressed the historic patterns of disadvantage suffered by the group adversely affected by the statute. As with the women, the poor and the mentally impaired, gays and lesbians have long been the subject of discrimination. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 571. The Court has in these cases undertaken a more careful assessment of the justifications than the light scrutiny offered by conventional rational basis review. . .  .

Accordingly, we conclude that the extreme deference accorded to ordinary economic legislation in cases like Lee Optical would not be extended to DOMA by the Supreme Court; and without insisting on “compelling” or “important” justifications or “narrow tailoring,” the Court would scrutinize with care the purported bases for the legislation. Before providing such scrutiny, a separate element absent in Moreno, City of Cleburne, and Romer–federalism–must be considered.

And this Federalism analysis is just bizarre:

In assailing DOMA, the plaintiffs and especially the Commonwealth rely directly on limitations attributed to the Spending Clause of the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment; the Justice Department, along with the Legal Group, rejects those claims. In our view, neither the Tenth Amendment nor the Spending Clause invalidates DOMA; but Supreme Court precedent relating to federalism-based challenges to federal laws reinforce the need for closer than usual scrutiny of DOMA’s justifications and diminish somewhat the deference ordinarily accorded. . . .

True, these federalism cases examined the reach of federal power under the Commerce Clause and other sources of constitutional authority not invoked here; but a statute that violates equal protection is likewise beyond the power of Congress. See Moreno, 413 U.S. at 541 (Douglas, J., concurring). Given that DOMA intrudes broadly into an area of traditional state regulation, a closer examination of the justifications that would prevent DOMA from violating equal protection (and thus from exceeding federal authority) is uniquely reinforced by federalism concerns.

What does that mean? This opinion seems to jumble together all aspects of constitutional law (equal protection, substantive due process, federalism), and transform constitutional challenges into whether the government has articulated a valid reason to infringe individual liberty, and satisfied the requisite burden. (Frankly, that is what all con law is, regardless of what provision is being cited).

And, moral disapproval can (really) no longer be a basis for enacting legislation. Somewhere Scalia is scoffing–this is the point of his Lawrence dissent that Kennedy profusely disclaimed.

For generations, moral disapproval has been taken as an adequate basis for legislation, although usually in choices made by state legislators to whom general police power is entrusted. But, speaking directly of same-sex preferences, Lawrence ruled that moral disapproval alone cannot justify legislation discriminating on this basis. 539 U.S. at 577-78. Moral judgments can hardly be avoided in legislation, but Lawrence and Romer have undercut this basis. Cf. Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429, 433 (1984).

This the Court’s conclusion–try to distill the holding:

We conclude, without resort to suspect classifications or any impairment of Baker, that the rationales offered do not provide adequate support for section 3 of DOMA. Several of the reasons given do not match the statute and several others are diminished by specific holdings in Supreme Court decisions more or less directly on point. If we are right in thinking that disparate impact on minority interests and federalism concerns both require somewhat more in this case than almost automatic deference to Congress’ will, this statute fails that test.

With all respect to Holmes and Friendly (for whom Boudin clerked):

For 150 years, this desire to maintain tradition would alone have been justification enough for almost any statute. This judicial deference has a distinguished lineage, including such figures as Justice Holmes, the second Justice Harlan, and Judges Learned Hand and Henry Friendly. But Supreme Court decisions in the last fifty years call for closer scrutiny of government action touching upon minority group interests and of federal action in areas of traditional state concern.