Gay Marriage Lawsuits Set Sights on Defense of Marriage Act

Currently there are at least four federal lawsuits making their way through courts in different parts of the United States.  Their common goal: o strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), or at least parts of the act.  One of these cases, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, was filed in .  The National Law Journal, in an article entitled Massachusetts case may be key in gay marriage fight, wrote the following regarding the case:

GLAD Legal Director Gary Buseck said the Gill case is a “pretty simple, mainstream equal protection case.” Its target is Section 3 [of the DOMA], which restricts federal benefits to those in traditional marriages only.

“Our basic conception is Massachusetts has one class of married people,” he said. “It issues the same license and registers all couples in the same registry. That one, undivided class is then broken into two pieces by the federal government, which says one part of that group is entitled to every benefit and responsibility under federal law and one part is treated as never married.”

GLAD argues there is no justification for that unequal treatment. “Under our system of dual sovereignty, it has been recognized across the spectrum that the law of marriage and domestic relations belongs to the states and the federal government has always accepted what the states have said about it,” Buseck said.

Marcia Coyle, Massachusetts case may be key in gay marriage fight, Nat’l L.J., Aug. 31, 2009.