The 14th amendment has the Equal Protection Clause: "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" and this has previously been ruled to include the Federal government.
The original intent was to cover people of different skin colors. It has since been interpreted to include many different groups that could otherwise be treated separately by laws. Women, for instance. One of the questions at hand is whether the Defense of Marriage Act, which explicitly restricted federally recognized marriages to male-female couples, violated the Equal Protection Clause. If "homosexuals" are a covered group, then DOMA is illegal (and so are all state laws that restrict them differently from an equivalent heterosexual couple).
If they are not a covered group, then legal discrimination against them is allowed by the Constitution.
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"no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" and this has previously been ruled to include the Federal government.
The original intent was to cover people of different skin colors.
It has since been interpreted to include many different groups that could otherwise be treated separately by laws. Women, for instance. One of the questions at hand is whether the Defense of Marriage Act, which explicitly restricted federally recognized marriages to male-female couples, violated the Equal Protection Clause. If "homosexuals" are a covered group, then DOMA is illegal (and so are all state laws that restrict them differently from an equivalent heterosexual couple).
If they are not a covered group, then legal discrimination against them is allowed by the Constitution.