The Unconstitutionality of DOMA

by Michael Jones · 2009-02-04 21:02:00 UTC
Topics:

9th CircuitCheck out this late-breaking news from change.org's Women's Rights blogger, Jen Nedeau. To paraphrase Jen, here's hoping the rest of the country (starting with California on March 5!) follows suit:

9th Circuit Undermines DOMA, Asks for Federal Benefits of Same Sex Spouses

by Jen Nedeau

Published February 04, 2009 @ 08:41PM PST

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just ordered Federal Health Insurance Benefits for same sex married couples. The case involves Deputy Federal Public Defender Brad Levenson, who married Tony Sears last July 12, and 9th Circuit staff lawyer Karen Golinski, who married Amy Cunninghis last year.

The LA Observer reported today that the ruling by Judge Stephen Reinhardt says the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutionally denies benefits to gay federal employees' spouses. The ruling filed under the Order, Employment Dispute Resolution Plan for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals says:

"The denial of federal benefits to same-sex spouses cannot be justified simply by a distaste for or disapproval of same-sex marriage or a desire to deprive same-sex spouses benefits available to other spouses in order to discourage exercising a legal right afforded them by the state," Reinhardt wrote in his Feb. 2 order....

Both orders are internal employee grievance decisions. Both found in favor of the gay employees, directing court administrators to give health insurance benefits to their spouses. The orders also represent direct challenges to DOMA, the 1996 act that forbids the federal government from treating same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose.

A lawyer for the staff attorney said this is believed to be the first time federal employees will get benefits covering a same-sex spouse.

[skip]

Reinhardt and Kozinski wrote the orders in their roles as hearing officers for some circuit employee disputes."

Well done, Ninth Circuit. Thank you for setting the trend in equality once more - now if only the rest of the country could follow suit!

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
International: Sudanese Bishop Targets V. Gene Robinson
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (4)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.