Today set the stage for two HUGE victories for gay marriage, as a federal judge in Boston ruled that section three of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is INDEED unconstitutional.
Both cases were argued, separately, in May,and today the decisons were reached.
Massachusetts, Judge Joseph Tauro ruled that Congress violated the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when it passed DOMA and took from the states decisions concerning which couples can be considered married. In the other, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, he ruled DOMA violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
And in the second case Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Health and Human Services, Tauro ruled that the federal law’s definition of marriage — one man and one woman — violates state sovereignty by treating some couples with Massachusetts’ marriage licenses differently than others. In Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), a gay legal group, asked Tauro to consider whether DOMA violates the right of eight same-sex couples to equal protection of the law
This also means the Department of Justice, OPM and HHS lost today. And they’will have to decide if they want to appeal it which given the current climate of LGBT rights relations and the Obama administration and will undoubtedly have HUGE ramifications either way.
