DOMA down!

On Thursday, May 31, 2012, the First Circuit Court ruled that the government's ban on gay marriage, called the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), violates the Constitution and should be struck down. It stopped short of arguing that gay people have a constitutionally protected right to legal marriage, saying that only the Supreme Court could navigate difficult and thorny precedents.

This is a HUGE win for LGBT rights, and DOMA encompasses about 1,000 federal laws tangentially related to marriage and affects 100,000 couples in this country.

"Many Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today," the First Circuit wrote. "One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage. Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest."

The case maintains the rights of individual states to decide if gay couples can legal marry. Currently there are only six states that allow same-sex unions: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, plus Washington, D.C. and Oregon's Coquille and Washington state's Suquamish Indian tribes. Illinois is currently working on joining the list, with multiple suits being filed.