GLAD Responds to U.S. Motion to Dismiss DOMA Suit
Seeks Final Ruling in Favor of Plaintiff Couples
Stepping up its litigation challenging Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, GLAD today filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts both an opposition to the federal government’s motion to dismiss Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, and a motion for summary judgment seeking a final ruling on the law in favor of the plaintiffs.
“Both sides agree that our plaintiffs have taken on the commitments of marriage, played by the rules, paid into the system, and been denied benefits because of DOMA,” says GLAD Legal Director Gary Buseck. “Now we’re asking the court to say once and for all that the federal government must end its blatant double standard of providing rights and protections to all married couples except gay and lesbian married couples.”
“While the government has rightly abandoned the reasons Congress relied on in passing DOMA in 1996, it now seeks to dismiss our case by arguing that DOMA “maintains the status quo,”” says Mary L. Bonauto, GLAD Civil Rights Project Director. “The reality is that DOMA itself radically changed the status quo by which the federal government recognized and accepted state determinations of who is married. There is no valid excuse for the federal discrimination imposed by DOMA and this can be resolved now and without a trial.”
Read the Motion for Summary Judgment and supporting materials