House Democrats File Amicus Brief Against DOMA, Argue Law ‘Undermines Child Welfare’
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 132 House Democrats have filed an amicus brief against the Defense of Marriage Act in the consolidated case of Massachusetts v. Dept. of Health and Human Services and Gill vs. Office of Personnel Management. The case is currently in the First Circuit Court of Appeals after a federal district court found Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional.
The members argue, in part, that the ‘pervasive history of discrimination’ against gays and lesbians ‘confirms the need for a more exacting standard of [constitutional] review which the law cannot pass and explain how denying federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples ‘unjustifiably harms married gay and lesbian couples and their children’: