DOMA Lawsuit Wins First Victory

[keepCAblue]

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid91055.asp

June 17, 2009

DOMA Lawsuit Wins First Victory

By Julie Bolcer


A plaintiff in a lawsuit against the federal Defense of Marriage Act will be allowed to get a U.S. passport using his married name, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders announced on Wednesday. The victory is the result of a recent change in State Department policy for the issuance of passports to people who change their name after marrying someone of the same sex.

GLAD filed its lawsuit, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, in March to challenge section 3 of DOMA on behalf of six married same-sex couples and three men whose same-sex spouses have died. Section 3 of the law concerns federal recognition of same-sex marriages. In addition to the passport issue, other plaintiffs’ claims in the lawsuit involve taxation, Social Security, and federal employees’ benefits.

The passport complaint involved Keith Toney, who was able to change his last name from Fitzpatrick on his Massachusetts driver’s license after he married Al Toney III in 2004. However, the federal government denied his request to change his name on his passport, citing DOMA, which resulted in a frustrating discrepancy in his legal identification.

According to a letter sent to GLAD by the Department of Justice, the State Department will now issue passports to all married same-sex couples based on the name on their marriage certificates, provided the state issuing the certificate recognizes the name change in law.

Toney will apply for his new passport in Boston on Monday.

[Patsy Stone]

1. Very good

One tiny step forward in a huge fight.

[billyoc]

2. Oh, good! IANAL, but this might even be able to be cited in other suits.

Passports are considered to be a pretty big deal here in the Security Homeland, if I can have my married name on a passport, it's harder to say I can't have my name on survivor benefits, etc.

[cliffordu]

3. Yep. You're right.

[pinto]

7. I think the same way on this. Barring repeal of the law or a sweeping judicial ruling,

DOMA gets challenged case by case. Sets a precedent for more challenges, sets case law to cite, as I understand the process. A convoluted process, for sure. It was a convoluted compromise to begin with.

[and-justice-for-all]

4. DOMA is so unconstitutional and against my civil liberties..

DOMA also violates the first amendment, because DOMA is based on religious grounds.

[tavalon]

5. Absolutely.

That that peice of shit ever passed is testament to how low politicians can and will go.

[guruoo]

11. DOMA was intended as both a political litimus test, and a tool of socio-economic oppression..

[pinto]

8. The crux is, it's a crappy law. Yet it doesn't violate the 1st Amendment -

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It doesn't apply to establishing a religion, doesn't prohibit free speech, doesn't abridge freedom of speech or the press, or the right to peaceably assembly or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

It's wrong, though, and that's frustrating. Legal challenges to DOMA have to have constitutional merit, from what I read. Few apparently have. Legislative repeal would be a clear answer. Congress wrote the law.

[guruoo]

10. Technically speaking, it may be a violation of the establishment clause for government to sanction

marriage of any kind.

[sandnsea]

12. If marriage is a religious practice

and our state governing bodies require a license to fully participate in marriage, then it possibly could be argued that it does violate Freedom of Religion.

[AntiFascist]

14. Couldn't it be argued that...

DOMA was established to defend the traditional religious form of marriage? If my religion allows gay and lesbian marriages, and the only thing offensive about gay marriage is that it offends others' traditional religious beliefs, then couldn't the case be made that the government is preventing me from freely exercising my religion, on purely religious grounds? Protestants allow divorce, which is offensive to Catholics.

[and-justice-for-all]

15. Yes, it does violoate the first amendment...

A) There has been no argument against same-sex marriage based on civil grounds, B) meaning, that the entire bases of DOMA is that of religious means. C) so when any federal agency that upholds things like DOMA and Prop.8, they are in fact recognizing religion or respecting an establishment there of.

No proponents of Same-sex marriage has ever come up with anything that does not have a religious bases to it. Prop 8 and DOMA should have never even been heard, it is a constitutional and civil liberties violation..

[dickthegrouch]

17. Establishment doesn't mean "create"

in the sense and vernacular of the time at which the Constitution was written. Establishment means tenet or foundation.

The constitution doesn't say "the establishment of a religion". Remember the people who wrote it really spoke English!

[GodlessBiker]

18. It does violate the First Amendment, as the purported justifications of it...

are nothing more than a cloak for codifying religious prejudices into the law. It's no different than the "moment of silence" cases. Supporters say a moment of silence is for neutral reasons, but it is really to support religion.

Moreover, DOMA violates the "Equal Protection" clause.

[Gregorian]

6. DOMA and Proposition 8. Do we have civil liberties or not?

I think we're going to join the real world. It's looking a little brighter.

[ShadowLiberal]

9. The first step to courts striking down DOMA is cutting it away piece by piece

The same thing happened before some other famous supreme court rulings, like Brown vs board of education. Before Brown the courts been chipping away at separate but equal for years by ruling that white only schools had to accept black students who sued them because there was no separate but equal school for blacks in the program they wanted to attend at the white only school.

It's really sad though that the guy has to sue to get the US government to recognize his name change he got because of marrying another man. I mean seriously, anyone can legally change their name for any reason, so how the heck is this 'defending marriage' by suddenly refusing to accept name changes of gay people who get married?

[RetiredTrotskyite]

13. A Small Victory....

but just as sweet! This news makes my whole birthday!

[GodlessBiker]

16. This is a significant crack in DOMA. Great news.