Gay Marriage Gets Boost From 9th Circuit

[usregimechange]

Not one to be left out of a constitutional thicket, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski granted health benefits Thursday to the same-sex partners of court employees.

Kozinski's order comes a day after his colleague, Judge Stephen Reinhardt, issued his own published directive that a federal public defender be awarded back pay because his same-sex partner's benefits had been denied.

Reinhardt found that the federal Defense of Marriage Act -- which specifies marriage as a heterosexual union -- violates constitutional due process protections. Kozinski sidestepped that issue; instead he excoriated Obama administration officials for countermanding Kozinski's earlier order granting benefits to the spouse of court staff attorney Karen Golinski. Earlier this year, the Office of Personnel Management told Blue Cross -- the court's carrier -- to ignore Kozinski's order. That executive branch action violated the separation of powers doctrine, Kozinski wrote Thursday.

"Some branch must have the final say on a law's meaning. At least as to laws governing judicial employees, that is entirely our duty and our province," Kozinski wrote. "We would not be a co-equal branch of government otherwise."

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202435731360&Gay_Marriage_Gets_Boost_From__th__Circuit

[Ian David]

1. And he was appointed by Reagan. n/t