American Civil Liberties Union

There's lots to celebrate about the Justice Department's statement that it will no longer defend the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) in court. That statement makes a few things clear:

1. The Obama administration agrees with what we've been saying for years – that when the government treats gay people differently than straight people, it's got to have a very good reason for the discrimination (this is what courts call applying "heightened scrutiny").
2. The administration agrees that it doesn't have a good reason for respecting the marriages of heterosexual couples while pretending that married same-sex couples aren't actually married (which is what DOMA does, after all).
3. Since the administration doesn't have a good reason for the discrimination, it's going to stop defending DOMA, both in our case and in others. This is a video about our case challenging DOMA that we filed along with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.)

There's been lots going on around Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) this fall, from a federal judge ordering the reinstatement of Maj. Margaret Witt, to the Obama Administration getting a stay of an order from another federal judge that would have barred the enforcement of DADT worldwide, to continuing efforts at repealing the law in Congress. The ACLU LGBT Project has just added to the frenzy with a new class action case that challenges another form of discrimination faced by gay service members — reduced separation pay.

By now you’ve surely heard about yesterday’s smashing victory in the Perry v. Schwarzenegger federal marriage case in San Francisco. It’s a historic ruling that strikes down Prop. 8 because it violates the federal Constitution. The decision makes some big contributions to the law, but it’s the court’s factual findings that are likely to be most important in terms of changing the dialogue in America about marriage.

Back in March, we sued the public high school in Fulton, Mississippi, for canceling the school prom rather than allow Constance McMillen to attend with her girlfriend and to wear a tuxedo. You may remember that school officials then invited her to a "prom" that only Constance and a handful of students attended while the rest of her class partied at a secret prom several miles away. Quite a reminder of how cruel kids, and school officials, can be.