BREAKING NEWS: Justice Department appeals DOMA rulings in Massachusetts
BOSTON – The U.S. Justice Department waited until the last minute to appeal two cases in Massachusetts in which the federal judge had declared parts of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to be unconstitutional.
Legal experts had anticipated the move, however.
On July 8, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro ruled in the cases of Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. Department of Health and Human Services that Section 3 of DOMA violated the U.S. Constitution and cited various reasons.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Health and Human Services
In this case, the judge ruled that DOMA violated the Tenth Amendment because the federal act took away state’s rights.
“This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the Commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights, and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status. 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,” said Judge Joseph Tauro, who was nominated to the court by President Richard M. Nixon, a Republican.
Gill et al. v. Office of Personnel Management
This case involving seven same-sex married couples and three widowers, Judge Tauro ruled that Section 3 of DOMA violated the Fifth Amendment and its due process clause.
