Wednesday’s Top Headlines: Supreme Court Sets its Sights on DOMA
For Immediate Release
March 27, 2013
Contact: Respect For Marriage Coalition Office / 202-567-5720
[email protected]
Washington, D.C.– After oral argument in a historic case challenging California’s discriminatory Prop 8 legislation yesterday, today, the U.S. Supreme Court will set its sights on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). A media kit with background on United States v. Windsor, and downloadable photos of plaintiff Edie Windsor is available here: http://bit.ly/YuK77x.
Here’s a look at Wednesday’s top headlines:
NPR: 'It's Bad For Business': Employers Side With DOMA Opponents: “Nearly 300 companies have filed a brief arguing that the law — called DOMA for short — hits them where it counts: their bottom lines. Boston lawyer Sabin Willett smiles, remembering when he sent the brief to be printed at a shop in New York. "The printer, he said: 'All these pages and pages of corporations,' he says, 'you know what that's going to cost? My God,' he says, 'You have to list them all?!' I said, 'That's the whole point!' " Willet recalls. On the list are Johnson & Johnson, Starbucks and Citigroup. There's Apple, Nike and Morgan Stanley, too. And it even includes municipal employers — Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles, and some counties and chambers of commerce. So many signed up — 278 in all — that the appendix listing them is longer than the written argument itself. [NPR, 3/26/13]
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER OPED BY JOE SESTAK: Military needs DOMA repeal: “However, until the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is repealed, the peace of mind for members of our armed forces that undergirds military readiness cannot be enjoyed by all military families equitably. Under DOMA, which defines marriage for federal purposes as "between one man and one woman," more than 100 crucial benefits, from health care to survivor benefits, are denied to gay and lesbian military spouses. This means that the families of service members - the people who are legally serving our nation - are treated differently. It's wrong, it's unconstitutional, and it erodes military readiness. No American should support the fact that one of our own, who is serving our country during wartime, cannot list his or her spouse as "next of kin" for notification in the event of injury or death. Yet that is presently the case under DOMA. It's not right that we fail to retain and recruit the very best of all segments of America's youth because same-sex spouses are denied, for example, health-care coverage in our military.” [Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/27/13]
THE WASHINGTON POST: Same-sex marriage can’t be stopped by courts: “To see the future of gay marriage, you didn’t have to set foot in the Supreme Court chamber Tuesday morning as the justices took up the first of two landmark cases on the issue.
You needed only to stand in the plaza in front of the court and gaze upon the sea of rainbow flags and the signs demanding marriage equality. A thousand or more demonstrators were in this festival, chanting and cheering the gay-rights speakers — crowding out the few dozen opponents of gay marriage who stood, sullen and surrounded, on the other side of First Street NE. Only nine states and the District of Columbia allow gay marriage, and the majority of Americans favoring gay marriage is a narrow one, but there can be no mistaking which side has the energy. The most the Supreme Court can do is slow the inevitable march toward an idea whose time has come.” [The Washington Post, 3/27/2013]
USA TODAY OPED BY NANCY PELOSI: Why I support gay marriage: “Citizens across the country have risen up to challenge DOMA, and on Wednesday I will proudly join two of those Americans, my constituents Karen Golinski and Amy Cunninghis, to hear oral arguments before the Supreme Court. They have the support of President Obama, who ordered his administration to stop defending this measure in our legal system, and members of Congress, who have signed amicus briefs reaffirming our belief in marriage equality. The only national leaders still standing on the wrong side of history are House Republicans, who have used taxpayer dollars to pay outside counsel to defend discrimination. The Republican-approved lawyers have lost in every case and appealed each ruling. So the fight goes on.” [USA Today, 3/26/13]
NEW YORK TIMES: Polls Show Consistent Gains in Support for Same-Sex Marriage: “A CBS News poll released Tuesday showed that 53 percent of Americans say it should be legal for same-sex couples to marry, up from 46 percent in a New York Times/CBS News poll last July. The poll found that a third of Americans who support legal marriages for same-sex couples said they did not always feel that way and had changed their thinking for a variety of reasons. Among those who changed their minds, one in five said that personally knowing someone who is gay or lesbian influenced them. Other reasons volunteered by respondents included increased tolerance (17 percent) or education (17 percent) and that support for same-sex marriage is the modern way of thinking about the issue (12 percent). [New York Times, 3/26/13]
MSNBC: The 81%: How young adults are reshaping the marriage equality debate: “In 1996, two different events set processes in motion that helped to bring us to the remarkable showdown inside and outside the Supreme Court this week. On September 21st, President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the centerpiece of this week’s arguments. And that spring, students at the University of Virginia marked the first Day of Silence, a day of non-violent protest of the silencing effect of anti-LGBT violence and bias. Seventeen years later, the movement for LGBT equality and marriage rights for same-sex couples has built toward direct challenges to DOMA with state-by-state legislative battles, years of work in the court of public opinion, and the critical building blocks of numerous court cases. There are many heroes in that movement, and many amazing organizations that have pushed the cause forward.” [MSNBC, 3/26/13]
SALON: Jon Tester backs gay marriage: “Joining a slew of Democratic senators, Montana Sen. Jon Tester announced Tuesday that he also supports gay marriage. “Montanans believe in the right to make a good life for their families,” Tester wrote on his Facebook page. “How they define a family should be their business and their business alone. I’m proud to support marriage equality because no one should be able to tell a Montanan or any American who they can love and who they can marry.” Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., Tim Johnson, D-S.D. and Mark Begich, D-Alaska, all endorsed same-sex marriages earlier this week.” [Salon, 3/26/13]
POLITICO: It’s not just a marriage issue; it’s the insurance: “Research suggests that private-sector companies are increasingly providing health insurance to same-sex partners, but those couples, even when legally married, are stuck with higher tax bills. That’s because DOMA prevents the federal government from treating their marriages under the same tax rules as heterosexual ones — which means their spouses’ insurance gets treated like taxable income. “On one level, the disparities are shrinking as more employers offer health care benefits to same-sex domestic partners,” said M.V. Lee Badgett, director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. “On another big level though, … that extra taxation probably discourages some couples from signing up a partner for financial reasons, leaving them uninsured and vulnerable.”” [Politico, 3/27/13]
THE NEW YORKER: Why DOMA Is Doomed: “Under DOMA, even if same-sex couples could legally marry in all fifty states, the federal government could still pretend they weren’t spouses. That is a problem in terms of both states’ rights and federalism. At a certain point—one we are already past, given the number of states that have legalized same-sex marriage—even judges who have reservations about same-sex marriage should recognize that either DOMA is unconstitutional or that the more than eleven hundred federal laws, from inheritance to immigration, that rely on a definition of marriage that DOMA has straightjacketed are. And since DOMA makes them nearly impossible to fix, it amounts to the same thing.” [The New Yorker, 3/25/13]
NBC NEWS: Supreme Court tackles federal Defense of Marriage Act: “[T]he Justice Department and lawyers for Edie Windsor each urge the court to find that DOMA amounts to unconstitutional discrimination because it lacks a legally sufficient government purpose. “’Denying federal protections to married gay couples will not affect whether straight couples marry or have children who are biologically related to both parents,’ argues Roberta Kaplan, a New York lawyer representing Edie Windsor. ‘No straight couple would call off their wedding if Ms. Windsor receives a tax refund,’ she says. The Obama administration urges the court to find that two of the other justifications cited by Congress in passing DOMA -- defending traditional notions of morality and of marriage -- cannot carry the law over the constitutional hurdle. ‘Moral opposition to homosexuality, though it may reflect deeply-held personal views, is not a legitimate policy objective that can justify unequal treatment of gay and lesbian people,’ the Justice Department says.” [NBC News, 3/27/13]
Carol Rose for WBUR: How The Supreme Court Should Rule On DOMA: “Edie’s case is about ensuring fairness and ending discrimination. Under DOMA, the federal government denies legally married same-sex couples the same benefits and protections that other married couples and their families count on. These include the ability to participate in health care plans without incurring additional taxes, take family medical leave to care for your spouse, receive Social Security survivor benefits, and inherit property, including the home you shared as a married couple, without having to pay enormous taxes when your spouse dies. Same-sex couples pay taxes, vote, serve in the military, and run businesses. They work hard and pay into the same system as everyone else. So when those same couples take on the responsibility and commitment of marriage, it’s wrong for the federal government to discriminate against them. If Edie prevails in her case, this pernicious form of discrimination against legally married same-sex couples will be lifted.” [WBUR, 3/26/13]
# # #
The Respect for Marriage Coalition is a partnership of more than 100 civil rights, faith, health, labor, business, legal, LGBT, student, and women's organizations working together to end the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and grow support for the freedom to marry. The Coalition is co-chaired by Freedom to Marry and the Human Rights Campaign.