Supreme Court Asked to Review DOMA

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The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to determine the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

A bipartisan legal advisory group of Congress filed a petition with the high court on June 29, asking the justices to review a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The court ruled that Section 3 of the federal DOMA is unconstitutional. The federal DOMA was passed by bipartisan majorities of both the House and Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. Section 3 of DOMA states that for the purposes of federal law “the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”

On May 31, the First Circuit ruled that Section 3 of DOMA violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.