ANOTHER federal judge finds DOMA unconstitutional

Another federal judge has struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), finding that the law “should not be presumed to be constitutional, and should instead be subject to a heightened form of judicial scrutiny.”


The victory comes in the case of Edie Windsor, who was seeking a refund of the federal estate tax paid by the estate of her late wife. From the ruling:

The Court declares that section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional as applied to the Plaintiff. Plaintiff is awarded judgment in the amount of $353,053.00, plus interest and costs allowed by law.

It’s another loss for Paul Clement and House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives (“BLAG”), who had claimed that her homosexuality was a “choice.”

Windsor’s attorneys had argued that “DOMA violates the Equal Protection principles of the U.S. Constitution because it recognizes existing marriages of heterosexual couples, but not of same-sex couples, despite the fact that New York State treats all marriages the same.”
(source)