Defense of Marriage Act

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is a federal law passed in 1996 that both created a federal definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman and expressly gave states permission to refuse to recognize marriages entered into by same-sex couples in other jurisdictions. The part of DOMA that defines marriage at the federal level – known as Section 3 – was a radical departure from 220 years of federal practice, which was to rely on each state to define marriage and to recognize any marriage legally entered into under state law as a valid marriage for federal purposes.

We are challenging Section 3 of DOMA on behalf of our client Edie Windsor in Windsor v. United States, which is currently pending before the Supreme Court of the United States. In June, the Court will rule on whether DOMA violates equal protection by treating married gay couples as unmarried in over 1,100 federal programs.

05/15/2013

Marriage for Same-Sex Couples

Three New Marriage States in Two Weeks – All Eyes Are On You, Illinois!

By Selene Kaye, ACLU at 10:34am

Yesterday, Minnesota became the 12th state in the country to approve a law allowing same-sex couples to marry. This comes on the heels of Rhode Island and Delaware approving freedom to marry laws in the last two weeks, and historic victories at the ballot box in Maine, Maryland, and Washington last November. Momentum is building across the country, and Illinois is poised to become the fourth state this month to affirm the dignity of all committed couples.

05/16/2013

Marriage for Same-Sex Couples

Bringing Marriage to "Modern Family"

By Alicia Gay, ACLU at 10:34am

You might be asking yourself: What does Modern Family have to do with an upcoming landmark Supreme Court case about the freedom to marry? Well, the ACLU launched a campaign today urging Modern Family's producers to script a wedding episode for popular gay characters Mitchell Pritchett and Cameron Tucker. The campaign comes as Americans await the Supreme Court's decisions on two important LGBT equality cases challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California's Prop 8. The ACLU is direct counsel in the DOMA case, United States v. Windsor. Additionally, a stream of states have recently passed marriage equality measures.

05/13/2013

Marriage for Same-Sex Couples

Tale of Two Marriages

By Lorraine Kenny, Center for Liberty at 11:53am

This is the story of two couples; two couples who come out of the same post-war generation, and who built their lives around the same emotional core of love, commitment, and devotion to one another. And yet, their relationships were marked very differently by history and by the laws that governed their lives.

12/07/2012

Defense of Marriage Act

We're Going to The Supreme Court! The Supreme Court Takes Review of DOMA and Prop 8!

By James Esseks, Director, ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project at 12:00am

Today the Prop 8 case (Perry) is being argued before the Supreme Court and tomorrow the ACLU will be there challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of Edie Windsor....

10/19/2012

Defense of Marriage Act

DOMA Unconstitutional Again, and Heightened Scrutiny to Boot!

By James Esseks, Director, ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project at 12:20pm

Yesterday, in Edie Windsor’s challenge to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that DOMA violates the Constitution. It’s the second federal appeals court to strike DOMA down, and it’s the first to rule that “heightened scrutiny” applies when the government discriminates against lesbians and gay men.

03/28/2013

Defense of Marriage Act

The ACLU and Windsor: "The future is ours. Equality is in this country's DNA."

By Anthony D. Romero, ACLU at 10:45am

I sat in the Supreme Court yesterday hearing the historic arguments in the Windsor case. I felt a mixture of pride...

03/27/2013

Defense of Marriage Act

Today at the Supreme Court: Ms. Windsor Goes to Washington

By James Esseks, Director, ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project at 7:55am

I'm writing from DC, where "Team Edie" has spent the last few days in intense preparations for today's Supreme Court oral arguments in Edie Windsor's challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act.

Edie's case presents a straightforward question of equality: Is it fair for the federal government to pretend that her marriage to Thea Spyer, with whom she shared her life for 44 years, never happened? That's what DOMA requires the federal government to do – treat the approximately 130,000 married same-sex couples in the United States as unmarried for purposes of the 1,100 different federal programs where being married makes a difference – from family medical leave, to social security survivor benefits, to veterans' benefits. The Court's answer to that question will determine whether DOMA falls.

07/16/2012

Defense of Marriage Act

DOMA headed to the Supreme Court?

By James Esseks, Director, ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project at 2:49pm

Today, we asked the United States Supreme Court to review the ACLU’s challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of Edie Windsor. A federal trial court struck down DOMA last month in Edie's case, holding that it violates the federal constitution.

Asking for Supreme Court review now, even before the federal appeals court decides Edie’s case, is unusual. In the vast majority of cases, the Supreme Court won’t take a case until there is a federal appellate decision, but in rare circumstances, it can reach down into lower courts and pluck cases for earlier review. At this point petitions for Supreme Court review have been filed in two other DOMA cases – GLAD’s Gill v. OPM case, which has been decided by the First Circuit, and Lambda Legal’s Golinski v. OPM case, which, like Windsor v. United States, doesn’t have an appeals court decision yet.

The Court will likely decide the constitutionality of DOMA this coming term, using one or more of these cases as vehicles for addressing the issue. We filed because we believe that Edie’s story is a strong addition to the striking collection of plaintiffs in the Gill case and to Karen Golinski’s story as well. Now the Court has three cases, offering a variety of harms, to choose from.

Edie is an 83-year-old lesbian widow who spent 44 years with her partner and then spouse, Thea Spyer. Over the course of decades, Edie and Thea dealt together with Thea’s multiple sclerosis and the progressive paralysis that it caused, deepening their love and commitment as Thea gradually became a paraplegic. When Thea died, two short years after they finally married in 2007, Edie learned that she owed the IRS $363,000 in estate taxes on her inheritance from Thea. When Edie found out that a straight widow wouldn’t have owed a dime, she decided to challenge DOMA in court. Her case was one of two that prompted the Department of Justice to stop defending the constitutionality of DOMA and instead to acknowledge that it violates the federal constitution.

03/19/2013

Voices Against DOMA

History Is On the Side of Striking Down DOMA

By Catherine R. Connors, Partner, Pierce Atwood LLP at 2:21pm

Of the many amici briefs filed to support marriage equality, the "Historian" brief, submitted by the American Historical Association along with 23 individual history professors, seeks to provide the proper historical context for the critical questions now facing the Supreme Court. As that brief explains, it is Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that is out of whack with our heritage, not the idea that states can recognize LGBT marriages.

12/11/2012

Defense of Marriage Act

What the Supreme Court’s Decision to Hear a Challenge to DOMA Should Mean for Same-Sex Bi-National Couples

By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:41pm

On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Edie Windsor’s challenge to the discriminatory, so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Despite the fact that Edie and her late spouse, Thea Spyer, were together for more than four decades and were legally married in Canada in 2007, DOMA required the federal government to treat the couple as legal strangers. When Thea passed away in 2009, Edie was forced to pay more than $363,000 in federal estate taxes that would have otherwise been zero had she been married to a man.

American Civil Liberties Union