{"id":979,"date":"2011-09-19T11:37:47","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T15:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=979"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:28:08","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:28:08","slug":"the-danger-of-doma-in-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/09\/19\/the-danger-of-doma-in-limbo\/","title":{"rendered":"The Danger of DOMA In Limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

Jake Laperruque<\/em><\/p>\n

This has been a year of tremendous progress for marriage equality.\u00a0 For the first time in America\u2019s history, a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage.\u00a0 In June, New York \u2013 the third largest state in the country \u2013 legalized same-sex marriage.\u00a0 And in February, the Justice Department announced that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court, a major blow to the 1996 law barring gay couples from receiving any federal marital benefits or protections.<\/p>\n

However, the Justice Department\u2019s decision in no way ends the restrictions imposed by DOMA.\u00a0 While the DOJ ending its defense of DOMA \u2013 and now actually filing briefs arguing against its Constitutionality \u2013 increases the likelihood that the law will eventually be ruled unconstitutional, DOMA is not going undefended.\u00a0 In March, House Speaker Boehner announced that the House of Representatives \u2013 specifically the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group \u2013 would continue to defend DOMA in the key cases of\u00a0Golinski v. OPM<\/em>,\u00a0Gill v. OPM<\/em>, and\u00a0Pedersen v. OPM<\/em>.\u00a0 Thus even if DOMA is found to be unconstitutional in lower courts, any such ruling will be stayed on appeal, which already occurred in\u00a0Gill<\/em>.\u00a0 And while the Obama Administration has refused to defend DOMA, it continues to enforce the law.\u00a0 This means DOMA\u2019s restrictive policies will stay in place until the Supreme Court rules on these cases, which is estimated by GLAD not\u00a0to occur until 2013 \u2013 at the earliest.<\/p>\n

However, there is one way to provide federal marriage benefits and protections in a timelier manner \u2013 the Respect For Marriage Act.\u00a0\u00a0This legislation<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 currently under consideration in the Senate with 29 co-sponsors \u2013 would end the federal government\u2019s definition of marriage as a union between a man and woman, and allocate federal marriage benefits to all couples defined as married under their state\u2019s laws.\u00a0 Democrats would need Republican support to overcome a filibuster in the Senate and pass the legislation in the House, but this does not preclude its passage; eight Republicans supported the repeal of DADT last year, and the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York was only made possible due to the support of several Republican legislators.\u00a0 This issue is not only shifting in public opinion, but also in politics.\u00a0 Marriage equality will reach the point of being a civil rights issue that transcends the divide between Democrats and Republicans long before it reaches the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque This has been a year of tremendous progress for marriage equality.\u00a0 For the first time in America\u2019s history, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-fN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}