United States v. Windsor

Earlier this month, a Tennessee state-court judge likely became the first in the country to uphold a state's ban on same-sex marriage since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional, according to Daily Kos. The ruling came in the case of a same-sex couple who got married in Iowa and seek to get divorced in Tennessee. The judge opined that the definition of marriage '“should be the prerogative of each state. That neither the federal government nor another state should be allowed to dictate to Tennessee what has traditionally been a state’s responsibility, which is to provide a framework of laws to govern the safety and wellbeing of its citizens.”'

After Pennsylvania state-court judges lost their challenge in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to the constitutionality of the requirement that they retire in the year that they turn 70, they now have lost in federal court too, The Legal Intelligencer reports. The federal judge rejected both their equal protection and due process claims, citing binding precedent. The judge also rejected arguments that he should apply a higher standard of review than rational basis and that the US Supreme Court's holding in United States v. Windsor rejecting the federal Defense Of Marriage Act provided more support for the judicial plaintiffs' position. There also are bills pending in the General Assembly to put constitutional amendments before voters on either eliminating judicial retirement altogether or to raise the mandatory retirement age to 75.