GLAD Challenges DOMA in Federal Court

It sounds like the lawsuit has been brewing for a while, but this is exciting and unexpected news for me. Apparently Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) has filed a lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in federal court. The case is known as Gill v. Office of Personnel Management.

The DOMA is a federal law that has several provisions:

• Section 2 allows each state in the Union to refuse to recognize, acknowledge, or give effect to a same-sex marriage performed in another state.

• Section 3 defines marriage, for the purposes of federal law, as a union between one man and one woman. This essentially prohibits the federal government from recognizing, acknowledging, or giving effect to any same-sex marriage, even if the marriage was legally performed in a U.S. state, such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, or California. In other words, Section 3 denies married same-sex couples the federal benefits extended to married opposite-sex couples.

GLAD's suit challenges only Section 3. GLAD alleges that DOMA § 3 is constitutional based on its text, but that it is unconstitutional as it has been applied to the specific plaintiffs in this case. In short, the argument is: The federal government can define marriage any way it wants, but it must give the same benefits to all married couples, whether heterosexual or homosexual.

Some of the benefits GLAD mentions specifically, which are denied to same-sex married couples, are:

• The ability of federal employees to obtain health care benefits for their spouses.
• The ability to transfer federal employee retirement benefits to one's spouse after death.
• The ability to transfer social security payments to one's spouse after death.
• Certain tax benefits.
• The ability to change the name on one's passport after marriage without going through additional court proceedings.

GLAD says that, since their clients have been denied these benefits, they are being denied equal protection, as required by the U.S. Constitution.

This lawsuit should have gay families across the country on the edge of their seats. Until now, most gay-rights organizations have been reluctant to file federal challenges to the DOMA, since the majority of Supreme Court Justices at the moment to appear to be anti-gay or indifferent to the plight of LGBT Americans.

For those readers who are a bit lawyerly, GLAD's brief can be found here.

Updates as they come!

Sources:
[Wikipedia]
[CruzLines]
[GLAD]

NOTE: This has been cross-posted to FamilyFairness.org, which I also contribute to.