Federal court hears DOMA challenge

May 10, 2010

As posted by Lisa Keen of Keen News Service on Advocate.com:

"U.S. district court judge Joseph Tauro is not your typical federal judge. He wears his black robe wide open so you can see his blue shirt and boldly striped tie. He stands throughout the proceeding at a lectern, studying the attorneys before him as intently as a line judge might do at Wimbledon.

..."But gay legal activists feel they got a good hearing from Judge Tauro Thursday, in the first federal district court hearing to examine the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

"The case was Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, a lawsuit brought by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, the group that won the landmark decision in 2003 that enables same-sex couples in Massachusetts to obtain marriage licenses just as straight couples do.

"GLAD’s lawsuit is a very precise attack on DOMA, targeting just one section of the law — Section 3 — that limits the definition of marriage, for all federal purposes, to straight couples only.

"GLAD attorney Mary Bonauto told Tauro that DOMA constitutes a 'classic equal protection' violation.

“'It takes one class of married people in the commonwealth,' she said, 'and divides it into two.' And one class, same-sex couples, she said, is 'utterly disregarded' under federal law.

"Just as the federal government cannot take the word 'person' and say it means only Caucasians or only women, Bonauto said, it should not be able to take the word 'marriage' and say it means only heterosexual couples.

"Bonauto said the government has no reason to withhold the more than 1,000 federal benefits of marriage from same-sex couples, and noted that a House Judiciary Committee report 'explicitly stated the purpose of DOMA was to express moral disapproval of homosexuality.'

"In making its case GLAD also urged the court to give heightened scrutiny to DOMA. Heightened scrutiny requires the government to provide a strong justification for treating one group of citizens differently. Otherwise the government can justify a law with just some simple'“rational' reason.

"To get heightened scrutiny GLAD needed to convince the judge either that DOMA interferes with some 'fundamental right' of gay people or that gay people are a relatively powerless minority often targeted for discrimination. The latter is referred to legally as a 'suspect class.' The Supreme Court has already ruled that marriage is a fundamental right, but no court has ruled yet that gays and lesbians constitute a suspect class."

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