DOJ Defends Anti-Gay Marriage Law, But Indicates Disapproval

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The U.S. Justice Department is defending—but not endorsing—a federal law that says marriage is a union between a man and a woman.

In court documents filed today, the department says the law is “constitutionally permissible,” although it disagrees with the statute as a policy matter, the Boston Globe reports. The filing says the law should be repealed because it is discriminatory. The statute is being challenged by six same-sex couples and three men whose husbands have died.

The law bars federal recognition of gay unions and denies gay couples access to Social Security benefits available to heterosexual couples, as well as health insurance programs for federal employees and the ability to file joint tax returns. The Associated Press also has the story.

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Obama admin: dismiss gay couple benefits lawsuit

The Obama administration filed a brief in federal court defending a law that President Obama has urged Congress to repeal. The lawsuit challenges the Defense of Marriage Act, which Congress passed in 1996 and which restricts the federal benefits available to same-sex couples. Since the law was passed, six states have decided to permit gay marriage. The group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders filed the case, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, in Massachusetts in March on behalf of seven married couples and three surviving spouses. The lawsuit, and a similar case in California, put the Obama administration in a delicate position, as the government’s brief makes clear: It states that the Department of Justice must defend laws under legal challenge “as long as reasonable arguments can be made in support of their constitutionality,” even if the department “disagrees with a particular statute as a policy matter, as it does here.” Robert Raben, a legislative consultant who worked at the Justice Department during the Clinton administration, called the brief “a really startling political and policy statement” that, while seemingly in conflict with itself, rightly promotes legal stability.