Defense Of Marriage Act

Correction: An earlier version of this story misattributed some comments made by Chief Justice John Roberts to Justice Antonin Scalia. The story has been corrected. A majority of the Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared ready to strike down a key section of a law that withholds federal benefits from gay married couples, as the justices concluded two days of hearings that showed them to be as divided as the rest of the nation over same-sex marriage. Justice Anthony M....

Advocates of gay marriage seem to have the upper hand after two days of arguments over the issue at the Supreme Court. At the same time, legal subtleties about the justice's authority in the case may prevent an expansive ruling: A majority of the Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and whether it created unequal classes of married couples by extending federal benefits only to...

Advocates of gay marriage seem to have the upper hand after two days of arguments over the issue at the Supreme Court. At the same time, legal subtleties about the justice's authority in the case may prevent an expansive ruling: A majority of the Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and whether it created unequal classes of married couples by extending federal benefits only to...

Then there were 10. No, wait. Nine. In the past month, the rapid rise in public support for same-sex marriage has left Supreme Court justices perplexed and some political veterans, such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, struggling to keep up. But there may be no better measure of this historic change and its disorienting speed than what has happened among the Democrats of the U.S. Senate. They are often representatives of an urban party in rural places. That makes them the zebras of Washington's...

The writer is the 42nd president of the United States. I n 1996, I signed the Defense of Marriage Act. Although that was only 17 years ago, it was a very different time. In no state in the union was same-sex marriage recognized, much less available as a legal right, but some were moving in that direction. Washington, as a result, was swirling with all manner of possible responses, some quite draconian. As a bipartisan group of former senators stated in their March 1 amicus brief to the Supreme Court, many supporters of the bill known as DOMA...

A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because it denies equal rights for legally married same-sex couples, making it likely that the Supreme Court will consider the politically divisive issue for the first time in its next term. The unanimous decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in Boston was a big win for President Obama, who recently said he supported states allowing gay men and lesbians to...

President Obama made clear Monday that he favors the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, and intends to ask Congress to repeal the 13-year-old law that denies benefits to domestic partners of federal employees and allows states to reject same-sex marriages performed in other states. Obama has long opposed the law, which he has called discriminatory. But his Justice Department has angered the gay community, which favored Obama by a wide margin in last year's election, by defending the law in court.

The law firm hired to mount the legal defense of the federal government's ban on recognizing same-sex marriage has withdrawn from the case, the firm announced Monday, after it was sharply criticized by gay rights groups. The decision by King and Spalding has led Paul D. Clement, the partner who had been selected as the lead attorney on the case, to resign. On Monday, Clement — a solicitor general under President George W. Bush — said he will continue to defend the constitutionality of the...

Current and retired federal employees who have been on the offense against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) can't taste victory yet, but its scent is growing stronger now that the Supreme Court has decided to review the law. Federal workers and retirees have been on the vanguard against DOMA. Yet, though the court did not choose one of their cases, the one picked this month certainly will have implications for the federal workforce. DOMA defines marriage for federal...

"[U]nder the Constitution, the regulation and control of marital and family relationships are reserved to the States. " — U.S. Supreme Court, Sherrer v. Sherrer (1948) The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is an exception to the rule that a law's title is as uninformative about the law's purpose as the titles of Marx Brothers movies ("Duck Soup," "Horse Feathers," "Animal Crackers") are about those movies' contents. DOMA's purpose is precisely what its title says.

A routine House Judiciary Committee report backing the Defense of Marriage Act helped sway Congress in its favor 17 years ago. But on Wednesday, that same report drew gasps when Justice Elena Kagan read key excerpts. "Congress decided to ‘reflect and honor a collective moral judgment' and to express ‘moral disapproval of homosexuality,' " Kagan said , provoking an audible reaction from the audience. It was a dramatic moment in the closely watched deliberations over a key section of the...

WASHINGTON — In nearly two hours of arguments on Wednesday (March 27), the Supreme Court heard many of the expected cases for and against recognizing gay marriage: that refusing to do so is blatant discrimination, that gay marriage is a social experiment that the court should not preempt, that Washington has no role in state marriage laws. Yet it was arcane arguments over matters of legal standing that seemed to most animate the justices, reflecting what seemed to be a desire to find a way for the...

Correction: An earlier version of this story misattributed some comments made by Chief Justice John Roberts to Justice Antonin Scalia. The story has been corrected. A majority of the Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared ready to strike down a key section of a law that withholds federal benefits from gay married couples, as the justices concluded two days of hearings that showed them to be as divided as the rest of the nation over same-sex...

Jeff Chu is the author of " Does Jesus Really Love Me? A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America . " All eyes are on the Supreme Court this week as oral arguments take place in two of the year's most anticipated cases , involving same-sex marriage in California and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Pundits will parse the justices' questions for clues. Churches will pray, and activists on both sides will rally. But whatever the court decides, it won't matter.

LAST THURSDAY, people started spending nights in the ticket line outside the Supreme Court , and we can't blame them. Over the next two days, the justices will consider two of the weightiest civil rights cases in years, both about the continuing struggle of gay men and lesbians to obtain equal recognition under the law. On Tuesday, the court will consider the constitutionality of Proposition 8, a California initiative that banned same-sex marriage...

"[U]nder the Constitution, the regulation and control of marital and family relationships are reserved to the States. " — U.S. Supreme Court, Sherrer v. Sherrer (1948) The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is an exception to the rule that a law's title is as uninformative about the law's purpose as the titles of Marx Brothers movies ("Duck Soup," "Horse Feathers," "Animal Crackers") are about those movies' contents. DOMA's purpose is precisely what its title says.

LAST THURSDAY, people started spending nights in the ticket line outside the Supreme Court , and we can't blame them. Over the next two days, the justices will consider two of the weightiest civil rights cases in years, both about the continuing struggle of gay men and lesbians to obtain equal recognition under the law. On Tuesday, the court will consider the constitutionality of Proposition 8, a California initiative that banned same-sex marriage...

A routine House Judiciary Committee report backing the Defense of Marriage Act helped sway Congress in its favor 17 years ago. But on Wednesday, that same report drew gasps when Justice Elena Kagan read key excerpts. "Congress decided to ‘reflect and honor a collective moral judgment' and to express ‘moral disapproval of homosexuality,' " Kagan said , provoking an audible reaction from the audience. It was a dramatic moment in the closely watched deliberations over a key...

Support for same-sex marriage among Americans has jumped significantly in the past year to an all-time high of 58 percent, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll . That number reflects a remarkable — and remarkably fast — turnabout in American public opinion on one of the most emotionally raw and politically divisive issues of the past decade. As recently as 2010 , opponents of same-sex marriage outnumbered supporters. As recently as 2006, they outnumbered them by a double-digit margin, 58...