Holds Same-Sex Married Couples Can’t Be Denied Federal Benefits
Today, a three judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously held that Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) – which defines marriage as between a man and a woman - is unconstitutional.
On appeal were Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, brought by seven same-sex couples married in Massachusetts and three surviving spouses of such marriages seeking to prevent federal agencies from enforcing DOMA, and a companion case, Massachusetts v. Office of Personnel Management, brought by the state of Massachusetts.
In today’s decision, the Court found that this Section 3 violated the Equal Protection Clause because:
[T]he combined effect of DOMA's restrictions on federal benefits will not prevent same-sex marriage where permitted under state law; but it will penalize those couples by limiting tax and social security benefits to opposite-sex couples in their own and all other states. For those married same-sex couples of which one partner is in federal service, the other cannot take advantage of medical care and other benefits available to opposite-sex partners in Massachusetts and everywhere else in the country.
While this decision, which will serve as precedent for future decisions, is a victory for the marriage equality movement, it does not go as far as it could have. For example, the Court declined to find evidence of Congressional animosity towards gays as a sufficient basis for invalidating DOMA. Furthermore, despite President Obama’s and the Department of Justice’s opinion that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation should be subject to a heightened scrutiny (which places the burden on the government to show that the law is constitutional) this Court declined to apply such a heightened scrutiny.
Nevertheless, the Court did reject the tired and baseless argument that DOMA somehow protects opposite-sex marriage:
Although the House Report is filled with encomia to heterosexual marriage, DOMA does not increase benefits to opposite-sex couples--whose marriages may in any event be childless, unstable or both--or explain how denying benefits to same-sex couples will reinforce heterosexual marriage. Certainly, the denial will not affect the gender choices of those seeking marriage.
And, the Court ultimately found that Section 3 of DOMA does not promote any legitimate federal interest and must therefore be invalidated.
Read the whole decision here.
This decision brings us another step closer to the end of DOMA and to full marriage equality for all Vermonters.