Supreme Court and DOMA

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In another landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal liberty to same sex couples. To many of us who believe that marriage rights should be extended to all consenting, loving adults, this is a truly remarkable moment in the history of this country. It makes me think of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous quote: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In 100 years, the fight that has been waged by proponents of same-sex marriage will likely be conceptualized as another chapter in the book of civil rights struggles.

Importantly, the Supreme Court did not establish a constitutional right to same-sex marriage; rather, it articulated that same-sex couples whose marriages are recognized at the state level will be afforded the same recognition at the federal level. Interestingly, Justice Scalia, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, noted that this decision will pave the way for the eventuality that marriage rights and benefits will be extended to all  same-sex couples. I agree with this view, since it is rather easy to anticipate the next legal challenges that will emerge:

–Same-sex couples who are legally married and then move to a state that prohibits same sex marriages. It seems straightforward to anticipate that these states will be forced to recognize the legality of the marriages obtained in other states

–Same-sex couples who are denied the right to marry in a particular state will then be prevented from obtaining the same federal recognition and rights that other same-sex couples in other states have. This would seem to also be an untenable inequality, since it is hard to imagine that the federal government would tolerate unequal treatment of citizens from the same class merely by virtue of their place of residence.

So, while this decision has not yet fully settled the issue, it seems clear that it is only a matter of time, and likely a short matter at that. From the perspective of psychology, sexual orientation and identity are are sociopolitical statuses that are intertwined with individual and collective identity, like race and ethnicity, gender, and social class. These statuses affect how we see ourselves, others, and our relationships with our communities and country. Thus, it is critical to understand the effects of institutionalized discrimination based on these statuses, as well as the effects of institutional changes like today’s Supreme Court decision. I encourage you to visit the website of my colleague, Abbie Goldberg, who has explored some of these questions in her work on transition to parenthood among diverse families.

Supreme Court and the Voting Rights Act

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Today, the Supreme Court threw out the famous 1965 Voting Rights Act that has been hailed as a landmark civil rights piece of legislation. By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that one particular provision was unconstitutional: Section 4. This section of the Voting Rights Act established a “formula” to determine which states required oversight from the federal government and so needed to request permission prior to instituting any changes in voter registration laws, voting laws, or redistricting efforts. My understanding is that the Supreme Court found that this formula was outdated and irrelevant, as it was based on information and data gathered in the 1960s and had never been updated. Without this provision, the rest of the Voting Rights Act becomes harder to enforce, since much of it is connected to Section 4.

The response from the left and right has been fairly predictable, with those on the left lamenting the activist efforts of the Supreme Court to those on the right hailing the Solomonic wisdom of these same justices. As someone not versed in matters of law, the ruling seems mixed. On the one hand, it is hardly deniable that the country has evolved, and so it makes sense that a formula should be updated. it is an indictment of Congress that it had not made any efforts to seriously research these issues over the years in an effort to establish an updated formula. And yet, the assumption that the U.S. has evolved beyond the need for legislative protection of the voting rights of minority citizens ignores the volumes of sociological, public opinion, and psychological research documenting experiences of racism and discrimination that continue to affect so many citizens.

And so we now move to a wait-and-see mode. Will Congress respond by updating the formula? This would require bipartisan cooperation on a scale we have not seen since 2001. My guess is no, and so we may be in for a slew of lawsuits from both sides that attempt to continue to resolve this issue in the courts.

Who is Latino?

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Yesterday, Carlos Lozada published an interesting article in the Washington Post asking the question, “Who is Latino?” In response to the increasing attention given to Latinos’ political influence, he wonders about the definition of Latino and asks a really important question about the underpinnings of ethnicity and ethnic identity. He says,

Is being Latino a matter of geography, as simple as where you or your ancestors came from? Is it the language you speak or how well you speak it? Is it some common culture? Or is it just a vaguely brown complexion and a last name ending in “a,” “o” or “z”? Politicians build Latino-voter-outreach operations, businesses launch marketing campaigns to attract Hispanic “super-consumers,” yet depending on whom you ask — politicians, academics, journalists, activists, researchers or pollsters — contradictory definitions and interpretations emerge.

He cites public opinion research showing that many Latinos identify more strongly with their country of origin than with the term “Latino” or “Hispanic” and rightly notes that both terms (Latino and Hispanic) are U.S. inventions that are not widely used in Latin America.

Given all of this, it is worth pondering: who is Latino? Do we require some biological marker of ethnic heritage? No way — the diversity of racial and ethnic backgrounds of individuals who live in Latin American and immigrate to the U.S. make this idea a non-starter. What about Spanish-speaking ability? Well, this is also problematized by the number of second- and third-generation Latinos who do not speak Spanish. Maybe we just need to focus on geographic origins — anyone whose family of origin is from a country south of the U.S. But then how do we categorize individuals from countries south of the U.S. that don’t speak Spanish, like Belize (English), Guyana (English), French Guyana (French), Suriname (Dutch), and Brazil (Portuguese)?

In the end, all of our efforts at searching for necessary and sufficient features of the category of Latino will prove unsatisfying, as there will always be exceptions to any definitions we attempt to create. For me, the bottom line for any ethnic identity is that we can only rely on self-identification. Individuals who self-identify as Latino are therefore Latino, end of story. This approach, which is being used by the U.S. Census Bureau recognizes the prior attempts at establishing “true” or “objective” indices of ethnic heritage were absolute failures, because they were rooted in a biological and essentialist view of race and ethnicity.