U.S. District Court For Northern California Rules DOMA Unconstitutional

The plaintiff is Karen Golinski who works for the federal government. In 2008 she married Amy Cunninghis in San Francisco. She requested to switch her FEHB health insurance to the family level. This was denied because the federal government is not permitted to recognize her marriage due to DOMA. The full decision can be downloaded here.

"The legislative history reveals that Congress acknowledged the constraints imposed by federalism on the determination of who may marry, which has always been uniquely the province of state law." Indeed, unless you've had some reason to know, you may be unaware of the great many variations in marriage laws from state to state. The differences become greater the further back in time you look, and some of those old differences remain relevant today. I used to work at Social Security and we had hundreds of pages on marriage law in all the states and territories. Adding gay marriage in some states would have been an entirely minor matter, costing the government less than a single snow day in Boston.

The judge references Plessy v. Ferguson: "“[T]he Constitution 'neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.'"

"Despite the expressed animus against gay men and lesbians within the legislative history of DOMA, Congress also specifically identified four governmental interests to be advanced by the statute: (1) encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing; (2) defending and nurturing the institution of traditional, heterosexual marriage; (3) defending traditional notions of morality; and (4) preserving scarce government resources."

"to the extent Congress was interested merely in encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing by opposite-sex married couples, a desire to encourage opposite sex couples to procreate and raise their own children well would not provide a legitimate reason for denying federal recognition of same-sex marriages. The denial of recognition and withholding of marital benefits to same-sex couples does nothing to support opposite-sex parenting, but rather merely serves to endanger children of same-sex parents by denying them '"the immeasurable advantages that flow from the assurance of a stable family structure," when afforded equal recognition under federal law.'"

"DOMA does nothing to encourage same-sex married individuals to marry members of the opposite sex because they are already married to a member of the same sex."

"Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate governmental interest under the Equal Protection Clause because legal classifications must not be 'drawn for the purpose of disadvantaging the group burdened by the law.'"

"there is no evidence in the record to demonstrate that the provision of federal benefits to same-sex married couples would adversely affect the government fisc. In addition, the preservation of government resources cannot, as a matter of law, justify barring some arbitrarily chosen group from a government program."

In arguing its defense of DOMA, BLAG, for the most part, eschews the justifications proffered by Congress for the legislation. However, the group does reiterate the legislative justifications of encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing and the government's interest in defending and nurturing the institution of traditional, heterosexual marriage.

The Court does not find the justification of encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing survives rational basis scrutiny. Even if the Court were to accept as true, which it does not, that opposite-sex parenting is somehow superior to same-sex parenting, DOMA is not rationally related to this alleged governmental interest.

Under rational basis review, although the fit between the classification and the stated government interest need not be perfect, the classification must be "narrow enough in scope and grounded in sufficient factual context ... to ascertain some relation between the classification and the purpose it serve[s]."

DOMA has no effect on who may become a parent under federal or state law. Moreover, whether a same-sex couple is entitled to marriage benefits has no rational relation to that couple's or an opposite-sex couple's ability to procreate. Significantly, to reiterate, the ability to procreate has never been a precondition to marriage in any jurisdiction. ... Here, there is simply no connection between the ability (or capacity) to become a parent and the designation of federal entitlements based on a definition of marriage that excludes legally married couples who are capable of becoming parents.

Denying federal benefits to same-sex married couples has no rational effect on the procreation and child-rearing practices of opposite-sex married (or unmarried) couples.

"BLAG argues, but does not explain how denying marriage benefits only to same-sex couples will somehow make marriage between opposite-sex couples better. The proffered justification may derive from strongly-held religious or fundamentally traditional beliefs, but still does not provide a legally recognizable rational basis for sustaining a law that actively discriminates against legally married couples. The exclusion of same-sex couples from the federal definition of marriage does nothing to encourage or strengthen opposite-sex marriages."

"DOMA does not preserve the status quo. The passage of DOMA marks a stark departure from tradition and a blatant disregard of the well-accepted concept of federalism in the area of domestic relations. See Gill, 699 F. Supp. 2d at 392 (finding that DOMA 'mark[ed] the first time the federal government has ever attempted to legislatively mandate a uniform federal definition of marriage – or any other core concept of domestic relations, for that matter')"

"The passage of DOMA actually undermined administrative consistency by requiring that the federal government, for the first time, discern which state definitions of marriage are entitled to federal recognition and which are not."

Covering all his bases, Judge Jeffrey White even cites Marbury v. Madison: "The judicial branch is tasked with determining whether this federal law is unconstitutional. That is the courts' authority and responsibility. 'It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is' and, where it is so, to declare legislation unconstitutional."

"In this matter, the Court finds that DOMA, as applied to Ms. Golinski, violates her right to equal protection of the law under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution by, without substantial justification or rational basis, refusing to recognize her lawful marriage to prevent provision of health insurance coverage to her spouse."

Judge Jeffrey S. White was appointed by George W. Bush in 2002. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice in Maryland in the 1970s and had a private practice in San Francisco from 1978 to 2002.

In February 2008 he ordered the shut down of an ISP for an American mirror of Wikileaks. The decision was widely criticized as improper prior restraint and ineffective. He vacated the injunction in the same month.