Constitutional Law

Couples Bring Lawsuit Seeking Equal Protection For Same-Sex Marriages

A group of same-sex couples and surviving spouses of gay marriages has lodged a lawsuit against the federal government's denial of marriage-related protections and benefits. The group, as The New York Times reported, successfully fought for same-sex marriage rights in Massachusetts. The Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) argues in its lawsuit that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) deprives legally wed couples in Massachusetts and Connecticut of the federal benefits that are available to married straight couples.

DOMA 'deprives families of federally-created economic safety nets, to the detriment of those couples and their children,' the group states on its Web site. 'It creates a system of first and second class marriages, where the former receive all federal legal protections, and the latter are denied them, even while taking on the responsibilities of legal marriage.' According to GLAD there are more than one thousand federal laws 'in which marital status is a factor.' For example, the group says that DOMA prevents Social Security survivors' payments to spouses in gay marriages. Mary L. Bonauto, GLAD's project director, told The New York Times that the case us a 'straight-forward equal-protection issue.'

Full post as published by ACS Blog on March 03, 2009 (boomark / email).