Another federal judge strikes DOMA down

I remember a while back when the religious right kept saying that no court had ever found DOMA unconstitutional.  Oops. Read the rest of this post...

Freedom to Marry launches conservative pro-marriage group

The Daily Beast:

On Tuesday, the organization launched Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry, an initiative to mobilize Republican supporters of marriage equality. It’s also hired a Republican lobbyist, Kathryn Lehman. In the 1990s, while serving as chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Lehman helped write the Defense of Marriage Act. Since then, she’s come out as a lesbian and turned against the law but retains her conservative connections. “We’re spending about half of our lobbying time and resources meeting with Republicans,” says Freedom to Marry’s national campaign director, Marc Solomon. “It’s a central part of our effort.”

A closeted lesbian helped write DOMA. Woosh. Read the rest of this post...

DOJ asks Supreme Court to take up two DOMA cases

I'm suspecting the administration wouldn't take this position unless the gay legal groups wanted them to. From Chris Geidner:

The Obama administration is squarely taking on the Defense of Marriage Act, asking the U.S. Supreme Court today to review a pair of cases challenging the constitutionality of the federal definition of "marriage" contained in the 1996 law while continuing to argue that law should be struck down.

In Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management, the California-based case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, DOJ is asking for the Supreme Court to take the case before the appeals court, which is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case in September, even decides the case.

DOJ also is asking the Supreme Court to take review of another case, Massachusetts v. Department of Health and Human Services, that was decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on May 31. The House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, led by the House Republican leadership, had sought review of the case this past Friday, June 29.

Read the rest of this post...

House GOP leaders ask Supreme Court to review DOMA case

Chris Geidner at MetroWeekly:

The Republican-led House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group today mailed its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to review the May 31 ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that the federal definition of marriage contained in the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.

In a filing obtained by Metro Weekly, BLAG asks the Supreme Court, which must agree to consider the case, to take the appeal for three reasons: (1) the constitutionality of DOMA Section 3 is "an issue of great national importance" and raises separation-of-powers questions; (2) the First Circuit decision conflicts with the Supreme Court's 1972 decision in Baker v. Nelson and other appellate decisions; and (3) the First Circuit "invented a new standard of equal protection review."

In the course of the filing, called a petition for a writ of certiorari, BLAG states that "[t]he executive branch has ... abdicated its traditional role of defending the constitutionality of duly-enacted statutes."

Read the rest of this post...

The mother of all DOMA updates

Lots of DOMA court challenges out there, and Chris Geidner updates us on all them. Read the rest of this post...

DOMA struck down again

Via Igor Volsky at ThinkProgress:

Another federal judge has struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), finding the law unconstitutional.

The victory comes in the case of Edie Windsor, who was seeking a refund of the federal estate tax paid by the estate of her late wife. From the ruling:

The Court declares that section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional as applied to the Plaintiff. Plaintiff is awarded judgment in the amount of $353,053.00, plus interest and costs allowed by law.

It’s another loss for Paul Clement and House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives (“BLAG”), who had claimed that her homosexuality was a “choice.”

Read the rest of this post...

Gay money flowing to Obama, Log Cabin fibs about Romney's gay positions

The article isn't a great shock. I always suspected a good deal of gay money would flow to President Obama's re-elect, regardless of what he did on DADT or marriage. But. It was clear that there was growing disaffection in the community, and that disaffection spread like a virus to other key Democratic constituencies and the media.

I truly believe that the administration's mishandling of gay issues at the beginning set the tone for the media coverage of, and conventional wisdom about, the entire administration. So it's good, and important to their re-election chances, that they finally nipped it in the bud by moving forward on a number of key issues like DADT and marriage.

What's interesting to me is that the gay Republicans are still trying to claim that Romney isn't all bad on gay stuff.

Really?

From Jen Christensen at CNN:

But some gay Republicans say Romney is not totally close minded on LGBT issues. "On gay issues, where Romney stands is not as black and white as it seems," said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization for gay and lesbian Republicans. "One thing he has been consistent on, as governor and as a candidate for president, is he has spoken in broad terms about ending discrimination in the workplace. He has said there is no room for it."

Romney is for ENDA? False.

From the Nation:

In December 2007 Romney appeared on Meet the Press and was asked by Tim Russert whether he still supports ENDA. Here’s how the exchange went:

MR. RUSSERT: You said [in 1994] that you would sponsor [Sen. Ted Kennedy's federal] Employment Nondiscrimination Act. Do you still support it?

GOV. ROMNEY: At the state level. I think it makes sense at the state level for states to put in provision of this.

MR. RUSSERT: Now, you said you would sponsor it at the federal level.

GOV. ROMNEY: I would not support at the federal level, and I changed in that regard because I think that policy makes more sense to be evaluated or to be implemented at the state level.

In fact, Mitt Romney opposes ENDA, opposes the repeal of DADT, opposes the repeal of DOMA, and opposes marriage. Barack Obama is for ENDA, for the repeal of DADT, for the repeal of DOMA, and for marriage.

That gives Romney a 0% record on the most important issues to the community. (And if you think he's good on gay partners' immigration rights or trans rights, you're high). Obama hasn't been perfect on our issues, but with some cajoling we got significant - I'd even say "historic" - movement on marriage, DOMA, and DADT.

How much more black and white would Log Cabin like it? Read the rest of this post...

Richard Socarides on why the DOMA appellate court victory is a big deal

From Richard:

It now looks like it will be this case, rather than the more famous Perry case being litigated by Ted Olson and David Boies, that will reach the Supreme Court first. It’s a bit of inside baseball, but this is the result favored by the old guard of gay-rights litigators who prefer a more incremental strategy of Supreme Court review. (Although they will not like the language in today’s decision that suggests that states can decide on a case-by-case basis who can get married; but this is the risk of incrementalism.) In this case, a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would not require any kind of finding that there exists a hitherto-unrecognized constitutional right to same-sex marriage—only that the federal government must recognize marriages validly preformed in states that choose to do so. But whatever happens next, there is no question that this decision is another big step in the march toward full equality for gay and lesbian Americans.

Read the rest of this post...

Federal appeals court strikes down DOMA - this is a big deal

Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly:

Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act -- the federal definition of "marriage" and "spouse" is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court in Boston ruled today. The decision by a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. United States, is the first instance of a federal appellate court striking down any portion of the 1996 law.

Judge Michael Boudin, appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, wrote for the court:

[M]any Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today. One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage. Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest.

It's interesting how when the religious right either appeals to bigots, or lies to voters, they win on this issue. But when you explain the issue to Americans honestly, they side with us in the polls, an increasingly number of legislatures are now siding with us, and when we go to court - and actually discuss the constitutionality of this issue with educated experts - they side with us.

So basically, the religious right wins when people are bigots or uneducated. Which has been our point all along. And was the point of the NYT way back in the early 90s when they correctly defined the religious right as uneducated. That is "the" definition of the GOP base, and particularly the religious right. A lack of education breeds bigotry and intolerance. Read the rest of this post...

Another federal judge finds DOMA unconstitutional

From Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly:

On Thursday evening, a federal judge in California held that the Defense of Marriage Act and a provision of tax law unconstitutionally limit same-sex couples and domestic partners from participating in the long-term care plan offered by the California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS.

The May 24 decision in the class-action lawsuit came from U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken, a Clinton appointee to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California whose chambers are located in Oakland, and is the first federal court decision relating to the 1996 marriage-defining law since President Obama announced on May 9 that he believes that same-sex couples should be able to marry.

Wilken joins a growing group of federal judges to find DOMA unconstitutional. Judge Joseph Tauro reached a similar conclusion in 2010 in a case out of Massachusetts that is on appeal, and Judge Jeffrey S. White in California reached the same conclusion earlier this year in a case slated for appeals arguments in September.

Read the rest of this post...

Will Log Cabin endorse Romney?

From Chris Johnson at the Blade:

The debate over whether to endorse Romney could prove thorny for Log Cabin. On one hand, the organization is likely to feel pressure from its Republican base to throw its support behind the party’s standard-bearer in the general election. On the other, Romney has backed anti-gay positions during the primary season, including support for a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage throughout the country and a pledge to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

If history is any guide, then Log Cabin may withhold support for Romney because of his support for the federal amendment. Log Cabin endorsed George W. Bush in 2000. But in 2004, the group created a national stir when it withheld its endorsement of Bush’s re-election due to the president’s support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. In a 22-2 vote, the Log Cabin board decided to withhold the endorsement.

I doubt history will be their guide. Romney used to be as pro-gay as Ted Kennedy, as he liked to say. Not anymore. He's not only bad on marriage (though so is Obama), he's pro-DOMA, anti-ENDA, and anti- the repeal of DADT pro-DADT. Romney's downright awful on gay rights nowadays. n the top 3 issues, he's bad on all of them. Still, based on his past, I could see the gay Republicans endorsing him, which would be a bit nuts considering that we're voting for the Romney we have today, not the guy who liked us twenty years ago. Read the rest of this post...

Federal judge: Denial of fed benefits to same-sex spouse is discriminatory

Basically a gay couple married in California before Prop 8 tried to enroll his husband in the federal health insurance plan and was denied because of DOMA.  The judge ruled that denying benefits based on sexual orientation and gender was discriminatory.  From the SF Chronicle:

On Tuesday, Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware said the denial of insurance benefits based on the sexual orientation and gender of Nathan's spouse violated the federal court's guarantee of a "discrimination-free workplace."

Ware, acting as the administrator of the court's employee dispute-resolution program, said he has no authority to force the courts' national office to provide insurance coverage. Instead, he ordered the chief clerk of the San Francisco federal court to reimburse Nathan for the past and future costs of buying insurance for his husband.

The clerk, Richard Wieking, said Wednesday such orders by Ware and other judges pose a dilemma for court administrators, who must decide whether to follow their court's antidiscrimination policies or legal directives from the national office requiring them to comply with the Defense of Marriage Act.

Read the rest of this post...

Pelosi, Hoyer smack Boehner for exceeding DOMA defense to include veteran's case

Yesterday, as John wrote, Politico reported that House Republicans were backing away from the gay marriage issue. But, the Speaker continues to defend DOMA. And, he's trying to expand his authority by defending a lawsuit over veterans benefits. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer are not having it.

Chris Johnson has the details:

On Feb. 1, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed the lawsuit against DOMA in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of Tracey Cooper-Harris, who’s seeking benefits as a disabled Army veteran [for] her spouse, Maggie Cooper-Harris. The two were married in California in 2008 before Proposition 8 took effect.

Boehner’s attorney’s has yet to file the intervention, but the Washington Blade has obtained documents revealing their intent to intervene in the lawsuit. Informed sources are expecting a formal filing of the intervention next week.

Boehner will be defending not just DOMA in court, but Title 38, a law governing veteran benefits that as written precludes same-sex married couples from obtaining benefits. It’s the first time the speaker has elected to defend this statute in addition to DOMA.

In a letter last month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder notified Congress that the Obama administration would no longer defend portions of Title 38 related to same-sex couples as it has with DOMA.

It’s taking on defense of Title 38 that Pelosi and Hoyer belief are beyond Boehner’s authority. In the letter, the lawmakers request a formal Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group vote on defending Title 38 and ask that any extension of the existing legal contract receive prior examination by the Committee on House Administration and the House Ethics Committee.

Yeah, Republicans may be backing away from the gay marriage issue. But, their House leader continues to use taxpayer dollars to defend DOMA. And, now he's going after a veteran in a same-sex couple.

The best way to end this DOMA defense stupidity is to make Nancy Pelosi the Speaker again.

The letter from Pelosi and Boehner is after the break.

March 30, 2012

The Honorable John Boehner
Speaker of the House of Representatives
United States Capitol
H-232, The Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Mr. Speaker:

Today, we were notified that the House, through outside counsel acting at your direction, has decided to intervene in a case challenging the constitutionality of laws denying federal benefits to military spouses on the basis of their sexual orientation. As members of the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), who were not consulted prior to this unwise decision, we strongly object to spending taxpayer money to intervene in this case against a decorated veteran, Tracey Cooper-Harris, and her spouse, Maggie Cooper-Harris. This decision clearly exceeds the scope of the original BLAG authorization, with which we initially disagreed.

This intervention once again puts the House of Representatives on the wrong side of the future – supporting discrimination, unfairness, and the denial of basic equality to all Americans. We have objected to prior decisions by the House Republican BLAG members to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to defend discrimination. This latest decision not only ignores the civil rights of LGBT Americans but opens a new, direct assault on veterans. The men and women of our Armed Forces serve with courage and dignity on behalf of our safety and security. They risk their lives for the country they love – and they should not face prejudice at home because of whom they love. These brave soldiers deserve nothing less than our gratitude, our respect, and the benefits they have earned in battle.

The plaintiffs in Cooper-Harris v. U.S. argue that federal law, including Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), 1 U.S.C. § 7, and portions of the Veteran’s Benefits title of the United States Code, 38 U.S.C. § 101(3) and (31), denies them equal protection under the law by failing to uphold our promises to our servicemembers to care for them and their families. We agree, and note that the U.S. Department of Justice has notified Congress that Section 3 of DOMA – as well as the definitional portions in Title 38 dealing with military and veterans’ benefits – “cannot be constitutionally applied to same-sex couples who are legally married under state law.” We applaud the decision of the Attorney General against defending indefensible discrimination.

Federal district courts have already deemed DOMA unconstitutional, and the Justice Department will not defend the law. We call upon the Republican members of the BLAG to rescind your unilateral decision to expand your defense of DOMA to cases involving veterans. If you insist upon continuing this costly and wasteful use of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds, we request: (a) a formal vote of the BLAG on extending your defense of discrimination to veterans and their families, and (b) any extension of the existing legal contract, any new contract, and any additional expenditure of public funds on behalf of outside counsel receive full prior examination by the Committee on House Administration and the House Ethics Committee.

We look forward to receiving your response to this and the several previous letters from House Democrats on this subject.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

best regards,




NANCY PELOSI STENY H. HOYER
Democratic Leader Democratic Whip

Read the rest of this post...

GOP DOMA defender Paul Clement, now fighting health care reform too

You may recall that I wrote the other day about former Bush appointee, and DOMA defending lawyer to the Republicans, Paul Clement who compared defending DOMA to defending Gitmo detainees.  No, in fact what Paul Clement is doing is the moral, and legal, equivalent of defending the law taking rights away from Gitmo detainees.  But who's counting?

What struck me in the previous interview with Clement was his pique at being characterized as an arch-homophobe simply because he's promoting and defending arch-homophobia.  According to Clement, you can't judge his heart by simply looking at a single client:

“Look, I’m a Republican,” said Clement. “But it certainly doesn’t define the kinds of cases I take on. You read about one big case and you think, That must be the kind of lawyer he is. That’s not what it’s about. The specialty an appellate lawyer provides is pitching legal cases to appellate judges.

At the time, I noted that this wasn't just one case. Clement was also defending South Carolina's racist anti-black voter ID law and Arizona's racist anti-Latino immigration law, in addition to defending the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act.

And now the other shoe drops (well, the fourth shoe, in Clement's case).

Guess who's going before the Supreme Court trying to get Health Care Reform killed? None of other than Paul Clement:

[W]hen 26 states decided to challenge the health-care law passed by Congress and championed by President Obama, which mandates coverage for all Americans, they hired Clement, who frequently bills at about $1,000 an hour but is handling the case for a capped fee of $250,000.

So to recap, Paul Clement is getting rich off of helping Republicans disadvantage gays, Latinos and blacks, and helping Republicans take health care away from millions of Americans. But he's not a bad guy, really, because it's just one case. Except that now it's four different cases.

Oops, make that five:

In January, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against one of his clients, an offshore oil exploration and drilling company. Clement had argued that the widow of a company employee, who generally had worked on an offshore platform but who died in an accident at an onshore facility, was not entitled to benefits under a federal statute which, Clement contended, limited the benefits to those working exclusively offshore.

Arguing on behalf of a rich company that a widow shouldn't receive benefits. Anyone else see a pattern here? Here's my favorite Clement line:

[If] you take a snapshot of my legal position in this particular case or that case and associate it with the policy issue, well, you know, depending on the case, you’re going to think, ‘Wow, you’re really a crazy conservative’ or ‘You’re a crazy liberal.’ ”

Crazy liberal?  Where?  The man worked for John Ashcroft.


Even though Clement claims that his choice of cases is not a window into his soul, how many pro-gay, pro-civil rights, and pro-health care reform cases is he working on right now? Contrast this to Clement's former boss in the Bush administration, Ted Olson, who is making waves and history by fighting Prop 8 in court.

If Paul Clement's cases don't show a mean and nasty ideological bent, then why do we keep hearing about cases in which Clement is defending the mean and the nasty?  Lawyers choose their cases.  And they, like the rest of us, are self-defined by their choices.

To paraphrase J.K. Rowling, it is our choices, Mr. Clement, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. Read the rest of this post...

Boehner’s lawyer Paul Clement: Defending DOMA is like defending Gitmo detainees

Harvard Law talks to John Boehner's DOMA lawyer, former Bush appointee Paul Clement:

What heartened [Clement] during the [DOMA] controversy (which he said, affably, “wasn’t that unpleasant”) were the reminders by his defenders (including Attorney General Eric Holder, who announced early this year that the Obama administration would no longer defend the federal ban on same-sex marriage in court) that an attorney’s job is simply to represent the client who signed on with him.

“In … representing Congress in connection with DOMA, I think he is doing that which lawyers do when we’re at our best,” Holder told the media in April. “[The] criticism, I think, was very misplaced.”

“It’s not that different from representing Guantánamo detainees. This isn’t a left or right issue; it’s something lawyers should stand together on,” said Clement, who is also defending South Carolina’s controversial voter identification law and Arizona’s disputed immigration law.

First off, we'd all like to thank Attorney General Holder, the White House, and Supreme Court Justice Kagan for all defending Paul Clement's defense of the DOMA case, and "heartening" him. We're certain there's no double standard here as I'm sure Holder, the Obama White House, and Supreme Court Justice Kagan would all have defended segregationist lawyers in the deep South who were fighting to keep anti-miscegenation laws on the books.  Someone should ask them that.

As for Clement and his ridiculous comparison to Gitmo detainees, is DOMA a person, cuz I'm confused.  How exactly is defending an oppressed person and their basic constitutional rights the same thing as defending an oppressive law that denies basic constitutional rights?  Are laws now people, just like corporations?  Rather than Clement doing the same thing as lawyers defending Gitmo detainees, Clement is in fact the exact opposite of the Gitmo lawyers.  Clement is more akin to the lawyers who came up with Gitmo detainment in the first place. But Clement says, no way.

“Look, I’m a Republican,” said Clement. “But it certainly doesn’t define the kinds of cases I take on. You read about one big case and you think, That must be the kind of lawyer he is. That’s not what it’s about. The specialty an appellate lawyer provides is pitching legal cases to appellate judges.

One big case. Really? Two of his other clients, we learn from the article, are people who oppress blacks and Latinos.

Clement, who is also defending South Carolina’s controversial voter identification law and Arizona’s disputed immigration law.

Anyone else see a pattern here?

There are only so many hours in a day.  A lawyer can only handle so many clients.  Yet somehow Paul Clement keeps ending up with cases where he's helping to take rights away from blacks, gays, and Latinos.  Never seems to end up on the other side.  And as a lawyer, he's perfectly free to defend the other side of the debate, the side that's not promoting bigotry and hatred, but somehow he never does.  If there's no moral inference to be drawn from the cases he chooses, because any lawyer could end up on any side of any issue, then why is it that Paul Clement keeps ending up on the side of the bigots? Read the rest of this post...

How the Obama administration helped us win the Golinski case

See, isn't is so much more fun when we all play together nicely :)  From Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly:

On July 1, 2011, the arguments sketched out in Holder's six-page letter were expanded to a 31-page filing in Golinski's case that laid out, in expansive terms, the U.S. government's "significant and regrettable role" in discrimination in America against gays and lesbians.

The filing did more than simply acknowledge the federal government's role in discrimination, it explained precisely what the federal government had done. Detailing specific instances of anti-gay and anti-lesbian discrimination, the brief described the 1950 Senate resolution seeking an "investigation" into "homosexuals and other sexual perverts" in government employment and President Dwight Eisenhower's executive order adding "sexual perversion" as a ground for "possible dismissal from government service." It also went on to detail the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Postal Service in investigations seeking information about government employees suspected of such "perversion."

When oral arguments were held on Dec. 16, 2011, on the arguments advanced by Golinski, the Department of Justice and BLAG in her case, DOJ sent the head of the civil division, Assistant Attorney General Tony West, to argue its position. It was, a DOJ spokesperson said at the time, only the second time that West appeared in court as assistant attorney general to argue a case.

This is what we've been talking about for several years nows - the ability of the administration to do more. They kept saying no, but we kept asking "why not?" Far too many times "the lawyers" will say, when they're really not giving a legal reason why not. Usually they'll giving a political reason, which isn't their job. The lawyers work for the administration, and not the other way around. Of course, no one wants to break the law, but when the lawyers are giving political advice they're not talking about law-breaking. And when that happens, sometimes they need to be ignored.

This is a very good outcome. Read the rest of this post...

Bush appointee strikes down DOMA in Golinski case

Via ThinkProgress and GinnyLaRoe (and here's the PDF of the decision):



If we lived in Iran, we wouldn't have to worry about all these judges giving people their civil rights.  Who gave them the power to decide these cases anyway?  Oh yeah, that's right, the Founding Fathers and the United States Constitution.  At their core, Republicans and their religious right overlords simply don't like our system of government because when the system is fair and honest and open, conservatives tend to lose, at least the dishonest ones that currently run the GOP do.  It's the same reason they, along with their propaganda arm at Fox, are trying to destroy the US media.  Anything that keeps the system fair keeps them from winning.

Never forget: When Republicans attack judges they are attacking our democracy and arguing that the Framers got it wrong.

More from Geidner. Read the rest of this post...

Justice Dept refuses to defend laws that discriminate against service members with same-sex partners

Excellent. Now we need to win back the House so John Boehner will stop defending these cases.  From Chris Geidner at MetroWeekly.

The Department of Justice sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) today stating that the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments would not be defending the government's laws preventing equal treatment for servicemembers who have same-sex spouses, a decision confirmed by Metro Weekly that was first reported by Talking Points Memo's Ryan Reilly.

The move by Attorney General Eric Holder comes in the context of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's lawsuit in McLaughlin v. Panetta. Metro Weekly reported on Thursday, Feb. 16, that the parties to the case had agreed a day earlier to a 60-day delay in the government's deadline for filing a response to the lawsuit.

McLaughlin raises challenges involving DOMA and two military-specific statutes implicated by today's decision -- 38 U.S.C. 101(3) and 38 U.S.C. 101(31) -- and could potentially involve other issues relating to the military-specific context, but today Holder told Boehner that these other provisions also "violate the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment."

Read the rest of this post...

Two big court cases coming up soon on Prop 8 and DOMA

Richard Socarides writing in the New Yorker:

After a year in which we saw a number of high-profile gay-rights victories, including the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the legislative enactment of same-sex marriage in New York, it’s hard to imagine that more big news is on the immediate horizon. But it is. Two highly significant court rulings in gay-rights cases pending in federal appellate courts are expected soon. Moreover, President Barack Obama’s self-described “evolution” on same sex-marriage appears likely to end with a strategically timed (if low-key) pre-election announcement of his support for marriage equality.

In Perry v. Brown, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is being asked to address a lower court decision striking down California’s voter-approved Proposition 8. If the court upholds the earlier ruling, it would restore same-sex marriage in California, making that right available to a total of almost twenty-five per cent of all Americans, in seven states and the District of Columbia.

Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, which is before the First Circuit, asks whether the Defense of Marriage Act should be declared unconstitutional. That law prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages legally preformed in states which allow them.

Read the rest of this post...

Obama admin to appear in court with Golinski to challenge DOMA

This is great. Isn't is so much easier, and nicer, when we all work together? From the San Jose Mercury News:

In late August 2008, Karen Golinski and her partner of 18 years, Amy Cunninghis, gathered with family and friends in the rotunda of San Francisco City Hall and exchanged wedding vows, their young son serving as ring bearer.

But as one of the 18,000 same-sex couples who married before voters approved Proposition 8 that fall, Golinski and Cunninghis now find themselves in the midst of a legal firestorm over same-sex marriage that may be one of several to make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Their marriage license, it turns out, was just the beginning of the fight, not the end.

With a simple bid to add Cunninghis to her health insurance plan, Golinski has triggered one of six constitutional challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, a 15-year-old law that restricts the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman and therefore forbids federal government recognition of same-sex marriages.

San Francisco U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White is set to hear Golinski's case in mid-December, pushing it near the front of the line in lawsuits around the country challenging DOMA. And, significantly, the Obama administration, which has abandoned defense of the law, will appear in court to side with Golinski.

Read the rest of this post...