Thursday, July 8, 2010

Part of DOMA declared unconstitutional by 3rd District

From The Advocate:
In a major victory for marriage equality advocates, a federal judge in Boston ruled on Thursday in two separate cases that a critical portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.

In one challenge brought by the state of Massachusetts, U.S. district judge Joseph Tauro ruled that Congress violated the constitution when it passed DOMA and took from the states decisions concerning which couples can be considered married.

In the other, Tauro ruled that DOMA violates equal protection principles of the constitution as embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. ....

"In the wake of DOMA, it is only sexual orientation that differentiates a married couple entitled to federal marriage-based benefits from one not so entitled," Tauro wrote. "And this court can conceive of no way in which such a difference might be relevant to the provision of the benefits at issue."


Since Obama's administration was defending DOMA, we'll see if they go up the foodchain of appeal, and whether they fiercely advocate for second class citizenship....

More on this at Gay Married Californian

5 comments:

JCF said...

Yay! :-D

C'mon, cut Obama some slack, IT: he (Justice Dept.) HAD to defend, hate it or not...

Paul (A.) said...

The court involved is the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Other information (with links to the actual decisions) are here and here.

Paul said...

Interesting argument. It will be fun to watch the conservatives argue against states' rights.

IT said...

Thanks, legal guys. Please also comment at GMC.

JCF, they don't have to appeal. Though they will.

Erp said...

Even those vehement supporters of States rights, many in the antebellum South, were against them when it came to enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act.