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First Circuit Declares DOMA Unconstitutional

By Janice G. Inman

Two federal courts have recently taken action in significant cases affecting the marriage rights of same-sex couples. One of these cases deals with an issue that is unlikely to affect New York citizens: In Perry v. Brown, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit left in place a February 2012 decision of a panel of that court denying the legality of California's Proposition 8 (which, by voter referendum, stripped same-sex couples of the right they had previously enjoyed in that state to marry.) In the other, the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), 1 U.S.C. ' 7, is in question, and the ultimate outcome could affect the rights of New York same-sex married couples to be treated equally with opposite-sex couples by the federal government. On May 31, the First Circuit, in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Office of Personnel Management, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 10950 (1st Cir., 5/31/12), declared DOMA unconstitutional. (In pertinent part, DOMA defines “marriage,” for all federal law purposes, to be a legal union only between a man and a woman, and defines a “spouse” as a person married to a husband or wife of the opposite sex.)

Both these rulings are adding to the drive toward a showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court between social conservatives and liberals. If the Supreme Court takes them up, many questions that now surround gay marriage could be significantly cleared up.

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