Defense of Marriage Act

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman, and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. The act's provisions were ruled unconstitutional or left effectively unenforceable by Supreme Court decisions in the cases of United States v. Windsor (2013) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). Same-sex marriage emerged as an issue in the late 1980s, drawing opposition especially from socially conservative groups. Congressman Bob Barr and Senator Don Nickles, both members of the Republican Party, introduced the bill that became DOMA in May 1996. It passed both houses of Congress by large, veto-proof majorities, with opposition coming from approximately one-third of the Democratic caucus in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Clinton criticized the law as 'divisive and unnecessary,' but nonetheless signed it into law in September 1996. Section 2 of the act allowed states to deny recognition of same-sex marriages conducted by other states. Section 3 codified non-recognition of same-sex marriages for all federal purposes, including insurance benefits for government employees, social security survivors' benefits, immigration, bankruptcy, and the filing of joint tax returns. It also excluded same-sex spouses from the scope of laws protecting families of federal officers laws evaluating financial aid eligibility, and federal ethics laws applicable to opposite-sex spouses.:23–24 After its passage, DOMA was subject to numerous lawsuits and repeal efforts. In United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause, thereby requiring the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages conducted by the states. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Court held that same-sex marriage was a fundamental right protected by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause. The ruling requires all states to perform and recognize the marriages of same-sex couples, leaving Section 2 of DOMA as superseded and unenforceable. The issue of legal recognition of same-sex marriage attracted mainstream attention infrequently until the 1980s. A sympathetic reporter heard several gay men raise the issue in 1967 and described it as 'high among the deviate's hopes'. In one early incident, gay activist Jack Baker brought suit against the state of Minnesota in 1970 after being denied a marriage license to marry another man; the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled (in Baker v. Nelson) that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples did not violate the Constitution. Baker later changed his legal name to Pat Lynn McConnell and married his male partner in 1971, but the marriage was not legally recognized. A 1972 off-Broadway play, Nightride, depicted 'a black–white homosexual marriage'. In 1979, IntegrityUSA, an organization of gay Episcopalians, raised the issue when the U.S. Episcopal Church considered a ban on the ordination of homosexuals as priests. The New York Times said the question was 'all but dormant' until the late 1980s when, according to gay activists, 'the AIDS epidemic... brought questions of inheritance and death benefits to many people's minds.' In May 1989, Denmark established registered partnerships that granted same-sex couples many of the rights associated with marriage. In the same year, New York's highest court ruled that two homosexual men qualified as a family for the purposes of New York City's rent-control regulations. Within the movement for gay and lesbian rights, a debate between advocates of sexual liberation and of social integration was taking shape, with Andrew Sullivan publishing an essay 'Here Comes the Groom' in The New Republic in August 1989 arguing for same-sex marriage: 'A need to rebel has quietly ceded to a desire to belong.' In September 1989, the State Bar Association of California urged recognition of marriages between homosexuals even before gay rights advocates adopted the issue. Gary Bauer, head of the socially conservative Family Research Council, predicted the issue would be 'a major battleground in the 1990s'. In 1991, Georgia Attorney General Michael J. Bowers withdrew a job offer to a lesbian who planned to marry another woman in a Jewish wedding ceremony. In 1993, a committee of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America released a report asking Lutherans to consider blessing same-sex marriages and stating that lifelong abstinence was harmful to same-sex couples. The Conference of Bishops responded, 'There is basis neither in Scripture nor tradition for the establishment of an official ceremony by this church for the blessing of a homosexual relationship.' In a critique of radicalism in the gay liberation movement, Bruce Bawer's A Place at the Table (1993) advocated the legalization of same-sex marriage. In Baehr v. Miike (1993), the Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled that the state must show a compelling interest in prohibiting same-sex marriage. This finding prompted concern among opponents of same-sex marriage, who feared that same-sex marriage might become legal in Hawaii and that other states would recognize or be compelled to recognize those marriages under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution. The House Judiciary Committee's 1996 Report called for DOMA as a response to Baehr, because 'a redefinition of marriage in Hawaii to include homosexual couples could make such couples eligible for a whole range of federal rights and benefits'.