Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Connecticut Federal Judge Rules DOMA Is Unconstitutional

Today was another bad day for the Christofascists and their political prostitutes in the GOP who continue to support DOMA as part of their agenda to keep LGBT relationships stigmatized and subject to legal discrimination solely because we dare to refuse to conform to Christianists religious beliefs.  Yet another federal judge - this time in Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management - has ruled that DOMA violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.  The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are pictured above.  No doubt folks like Maggie Gallagher and Tony Perkins are whining once again about "activist judges" when it is they themselves who seek to subvert the Constitution.  The Advocate has details.  Here are some excerpts:

A federal judge in Connecticut has ruled against the Defense of Marriage Act in a challenge brought by married same-sex couples.

Judge Vanessa Bryant ruled in the case, Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management, that the 1996 law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages violates the Equal Protection Clause found in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The plaintiffs are being represented by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, while the House Republican-controlled Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) has intervened to defend DOMA.

In the ruling that ran more than 100 pages, Judge Bryant, a George W. Bush appointee, concluded that, “having considered the purported rational bases proffered by both BLAG and Congress and concluded that such objectives bear no rational relationship to Section 3 of DOMA as a legislative scheme, the Court finds that no conceivable rational basis exists for the provision.  The provision therefore violates the equal protection principles incorporated in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
  
As I have said many times before the only thing that supports DOMA is religious based discrimination - something that is illegal and unconstitutional.  The special rights granted to conservative Christianity need to end.

No comments: