DOMA Ruled Unconstitutional

A U.S. appeals court in New York last week ruled that defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman unconstitutionally denies federal benefits to lawfully married same-sex couples.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found a central part of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. Appeals in several cases are currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two members of a three-judge panel ruled in favor of Edith Windsor, an 83-year-old woman who argued that the law discriminates against gay couples in violation of the U.S. Constitution. They found that gays and lesbians are entitled to heightened protection from the courts, based on alleged discrimination the group has suffered.

One member of the panel, Judge Chester Straub, dissented, arguing that the federal definition of marriage should be left to the political process.

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Matthew 19:4-6 – And [Jesus] answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made[a] them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”