While this is encouraging seeing one more federal judge find the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, it is also odd reading her reasoning. It interferes with the states’ rights to make determinations about domestic relations. Until the the late 1960’s many states had laws against interracial relationships and marriages. The Supreme Court ruled these laws unconstitutional in 1967. Given the history and the active banning of gay marriage in many states, have the states themselves shown they are not all that capable of ensuring those rights to equality provided within the US Constitution?
A Federal judge in New York has joined several other judges across the country in striking down a section of the “Defense of Marriage Act” or DOMA that denies benefits to married same-sex couples.
Judge Barbara Jones ruled Wednesday in a case brought in federal court in Manhattan by a woman whose partner died in 2009. She awarded $353,000 to the plaintiff, Edith Windsor.
Lawyers for Windsor had argued that the law violates the equal protection guarantee of the U.S. Constitution.
The judge said the law fails because it tries to reexamine the states’ decisions concerning same-sex marriage. She said such a sweeping review interferes with a system of government that places matters at the core of the domestic relations law exclusively within the province of the states.
Mashed Potato Bulletin 