Legal Commentary

Federal Judge in Boston Rules Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

By Jeralyn

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro in Boston has declared the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional in two cases. In one case, he found the statute violates the Tenth Amendment. In the other, he found it violates the equal protection guarantee in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

"The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state, and in doing so, offends the Tenth Amendment. For that reason, the statute is invalid," Tauro wrote in a ruling in a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Martha Coakley.

In the second case, (opinion here)he ruled:

As irrational prejudice plainly never constitutes a legitimate government interest, this court must hold that Section 3 of DOMA as applied to Plaintiffs violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

[More...]

The DOMA provision at issue in the equal protection case reads:

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word “marriage” means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word “spouse” refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 08, 2010 (boomark / email).