Massachusetts Sues U.S. Over Definition of Marriage

From the Wall Street Journal :

Massachusetts sued the federal government Wednesday, seeking to overturn a key part of the U.S. law that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

The lawsuit, brought by the first state to legalize gay marriage, said the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act infringed on a state’s sovereign right to define marital status. The state wants a judge to rule that part of the act, known as DOMA, is unconstitutional.

DOMA prohibits the federal government from extending benefits that are tied to marital statu—such as spousal Social Security benefits and survivor rights to federal pensions—to same-sex couples, even if they are legally married in the six states that allow such weddings. The complaint says DOMA prevents MassHealth, the state’s insurance program for low-income residents, from covering gay couples as married—forcing the state to ignore its own laws—because it is partly funded by federal dollars.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court here, Massachusetts—which legalized gay marriage in 2004—said that in enacting DOMA, Congress “overstepped its authority, undermined states’ efforts to recognize marriages between same-sex couples, and codified an animus toward gay and lesbian people.”

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