GLAD Files Forceful Replies to House in 2nd Circuit DOMA Case
Last night, GLAD responded to two August 15 filings by the U.S. House of Representatives, when the House both moved to dismiss the DOMA case Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management and responded to GLAD’s motion for summary judgment.
GLAD filed two briefs, an opposition to the House’s motion to dismiss and a reply to the House’s brief on summary judgment, along with supporting affidavits from experts Dr. Lisa Diamond, Dr. Michael Lamb and Dr. Letitia Anne Peplau.
Pedersen is the multi-plaintiff challenge to Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) pending in the federal district court for the District of Connecticut.
“The House seems confused about the central issue in Pedersen,” said Mary L. Bonauto, GLAD’s Civil Rights Project Director and co-lead attorney in Pedersen. “They are defending a marriage case while we are representing same-sex couples who are already married and are being treated disgracefully by their government. The House’s briefs repackage the same slippery, insidious, anti-gay arguments that we have heard for years from our opponents. But there should be no mistaking the glaring double standard DOMA imposes in erasing the marriages of same-sex couples under federal law.”