Federal gay marriage banning unconstitutional
United States District Judge Joseph Tauro ruled in favor of gay couples‘ rights and said that federal gay marriage banning would be unconstitutional because it interferes with the states’ right to define marriage. In Massachusetts, although gay marriage was legal since 2004, gay couples were denied health related benefits, such as Medicaid, and Judge Tauro said that this law forced Massachusetts to segregate its own citizens. Tauro also found that DOMA intervenes against the equal right of protection clause from the United States constitution. Gary Buseck, GLAD’s legal director, declared that this law has been treating from the very beginning the gay married Massachusetts couples and that there is no use in applying it.
In response, the Justice Department replied that the federal government is free to establish any eligibility requirements considered to be correct for the federal benefits, including requirements that say that the marriage should be between a man and a woman.
This law appeared in 1996 just before same sex marriage became legal in the state of Hawaii, and the opponents of the legalization were worried that this might happen in all the states of America. In the next years gay marriage became legal in five more states plus the District of Columbia, but the gay couples are denied the right of receiving pension and other resembling benefits.
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