The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is suing the Federal Government over the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
The federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) interferes with the right of Massachusetts to define and regulate marriage as it sees fit, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said. The 1996 law denies federal recognition of gay marriage and gives states the right to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
[…] The lawsuit focuses on the section of the law that creates a federal definition of marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”
Before the law was passed, Mrs. Coakley said, the federal government recognized that defining marital status was the “exclusive prerogative of the states.” Now, because of the U.S. law’s definition of marriage, same-sex couples are denied access to benefits given to heterosexual married couples, including federal income tax credits, employment benefits, retirement benefits, health insurance coverage and Social Security payments, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also argues that the federal law requires the state to violate the constitutional rights of its citizens by treating married heterosexual couples and married same-sex couples differently when determining eligibility for Medicaid benefits and when determining whether the spouse of a veteran can be buried in a Massachusetts veterans’ cemetery.
There’s even more to it than that. I’m not sure about Mass., but I know that in Colorado the state income tax is based on the federal tax amount. If a married (in Mass.) gay couple cannot file jointly federally, the state ends up having to treat them differently from a married state couple.
It’s a bit difficult to figure the issue out, since DOMA doesn’t actually tell the state who they can consider married. But it sets the federal government up to define that for themselves in regard to all states, which is what the suit attacks. While different states have had differing laws on marriage, and in some rare cases have established justifications (consanguinity, age) why they should not be required to respect marriages from some other states, the feds have always, in the past, simply considered what each state considered marriage to be as its own guideline for federal benefits/taxes of people in that state.
“Every state has the right to determine who it will allow to marry, and the federal government always respects those decisions by states … except in this case,” said Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus.
Which sounds like a solid 10th Amendment (with overtones of Equal Protection Under the Law) case.
Les noted some of the standard cool and considered discussion over at the Free Republic on this. Some highlights I saw:
This is absurd. DOMA doesn’t prohibit the sodomites in Massachusetts from recognizing pretend “marriages.”
They hope that by the time in ends up at the USSC that the Obamanation has repacked the court with gay friendly activists who will be happy to twist the law into knots and invalidate it.
All conservatives not republicans from there are welcome to move out, in place of you moving out we’ll send our homo’s illegals, child molesters and loony brain dead sheep left wing idiots.
Sodomy is no basis for marriage. What’s next, sheep, small dogs, three people, kissing cousins??
String em all up. We will save billions on retirement benefits.
this is all based on sex like you said, they say love but I love my children and dog but do not feel the urge to have sex with them.
Massachusetts leads the nation in the downward plunge to Sodom and Gomorrah. I don’t think we will pull out before the fire and brimstone come.
That is what America will look like if some go along with the usual “well I know a couple and they are nice who want to be left alone” course they do not see their new friends at their freak parades etc
Massachusetts gets the same federal entitlement benefits that every other state gets so, actually, the scumbag is suing for MORE benefits than non-pervert states get.
Hey, weren’t the Freepers always part of the crowd protesting the “marriage tax”? You’d think they’d be pleased if Teh Gayz had to pay it, too.
It will be interesting to see how this case proceeds, and how Obama’s Justice Department treats it.