Legal News

State sues feds over gay marriage

By Glen Ashman

Massachusetts AG challenges Defense of Marriage Act

National Law Journal

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a federal law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, which denies same-sex couples married in Massachusetts access to certain federal benefits.  Coakley filed the July 8 lawsuit, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services... The lawsuit claims that Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the U.S. Constitution because it interferes with Massachusetts' "sovereign authority to define and regulate marriage."  The suit also claims that DOMA violates the Constitution's spending clause, which restricts Congress' power to impose conditions on states getting federal funding... Massachusetts was the first state to allow same-sex marriages, and more than 16,000 same-sex couples have tied the knot in the state since 2004... DOMA bars same-sex married couples from tapping into a range of federal benefits and privileges, including filing joint federal tax returns; collecting Social Security survivor benefits; getting federally mandated work leave to care for sick spouses; using flexible spending accounts to pay spouse's medical expenses; and taking advantage of federal gift tax and estate tax exemptions for spouses...

Full post as published by It's (Barely) Legal on July 09, 2009 (boomark / email).