Yesterday a federal district judge in Boston ruled in two cases that The Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA is unconstitutional. The first case was brought by the state of Massachusetts, which claimed that DOMA is unconstitutional because marriage laws are left to the states rather than the federal government under US law. The second case was brought by people legally married in Massachusetts who claimed that the federal government must treat all married people the same under federal law. The judge ruled in favor of the state and the couples (and three widows or widowers). This is a big deal, since most legal benefits of marriage come from federal rather than state law. The decisions will be appealed, first to the circuit court and then to the Supreme Court, which will take years. But I'm happy about the outcome. I would like my national government to recognize my valid marriage.
It was also pointed out to me that Oliver does have a blog, agayolive.blogspot.com. (Every time I try to make that a link that you can click on it doesn't work.) Welcome Oliver.
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g&p... i would be curious to see if the recent court ruling in mass will have any effect on the federal court challenge to prop 8 here in california.... looks like double whammy time at the supremes, eh? btw, did you ever have the sex talk with leo?
ReplyDelete- cheers... david
Hi David.
ReplyDeleteI saw a legal commenter speak about that issue. He feels that the two cases from Massachusetts are very different from the Prop 8 trial. The Mass cases are about people who are already married who are being denied federal rights of marriage, while Prop 8 is about whether denying marriage rights to gays and lesbians is unconstitutional. I'm old enough to remember the Supreme Court screwing up (pun intended) Bowers versus Hardwick in the 1980s, so they could do it again.
to make it a link, hilight the text you want to link, then click the hyperlink button (little world with a chain link) and when the window pops up paste the url and click OK.
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