So this is a pretty big deal.

A few days ago, the Department of Justice sent a letter notifying Congress that it has concluded Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is violates the constitution, and that the DoJ will not defend the Act in two current federal lawsuits. The DoJ will also notify the courts in those cases that it believes a higher level of scrutiny should be applied to laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Now Congress gets to decide whether it wants to embarrass itself by stepping into the DoJ's place and defending a wildly unconstitutional law.

Enforcement of the law will continue until the Defense of Marriage Act is repealed by Congress or nullified by court ruling.

Links:
The letter
Text of DOMA

Awesome news! Thanks for sharing.

Someone explain this to me in simpler terms, with some backstory

I don't know any backstory, but the short of it:

DOMA prevented gay marraige.

There's really no defense for keeping DOMA in that regard, really.

A bunch of states had already practiced their nullification powers and legalized gay marriage anyhow.

At any rate, lets watch a bunch of *******s use homophobia to convince old people to vote for them.

i cant wait until my grandkids are like "grandpa, we heard when you were 20 that gay people still werent allowed to vote, thats so silly"

and ill be like "well, its sort of like how now we arent allowed to marry beings from the planet xaralius, but anyway, yeah, you couldnt drink out of a gay drinking fountain and they wouldnt dare to drink out of yours"

US law says that states are required to recognize marriages from other states. Section 3 of DOMA says that other states are not required to recognize gay marriages, but they aren't prohibited from doing so.

This move is interesting.

Unfortunately I don't know enough about US constitutional law to understand the implications of this order, or the role of the executive in making decisions about the constitutionality of existing laws. Does the defense of a law by the DOJ even mean anything? It can't be like a tort case, where the judge issues a default judgement just because someone got stuck in traffic, right?

A lot of the (layperson) commentaries are treating this like the law is already repealed, with either celebration or rage depending on the coin the person flipped when they turned 18. It's crazy.

I think it's interesting that Clinton signed that bill originally.

If it's at the supreme court, there is no default judgment; they can still rule either way. However, when they hear the case, they're only going to hear one side. There will be no one from the DOJ to defend the federal law.

Sorry if my initial post was too technical or left out information. Jon's explanation is good.



Well, you're right, there wouldn't be a default judgment. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a person other than the party being sued can "intervene" in a case under certain circumstances. In the Prop. 8 case in California, a group of proponents for Prop. 8 (none of whom was part of the California government) was able to intervene to defend that law, and Congress, or someone else, could probably do the same. (Whether they could appeal if they lost is a different and very complicated question that has also come up in the Prop. 8 case.)

sorry, this is a little confusing. is states having to recognize marriages from other states also part of the DOMA which is no longer being defended? or just that states are not required to recognize gay marriages?

This is from Article 4, Section 1 of the US Constitution. I expect this is specifically documented in the USC but I'm not familiar enough with it (nobody alive is, really.)