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Justice Department Files Appellate Brief Defending DOMA

By Howard M. Friedman

On Thursday, the federal government filed its much anticipated appellate brief (full text) in Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a companion case defending the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, even though President Obama supports repeal of the law. A Massachusetts federal district court struck down the law last July, and the government appealed. (See prior posting.) The brief in the 1st Circuit appeal explains:

The Department of Justice has long followed the practice of defending federal statutes as long as reasonable arguments can be made in support of their constitutionality, even if the Administration disagrees with a particular statute as a policy matter, as it does here. This longstanding and bipartisan tradition accords the respect appropriately due to a coequal branch of government and helps ensure that the Executive Branch will faithfully defend laws with which an Administration may disagree on policy grounds.

CBS News reports that the Justice Department consulted with gay rights groups to avoid arguments in its brief that are particularly offensive to gays and lesbians. The brief argues that DOMA "is rationally related to legitimate governmental interests" of maintaining a uniform status quo at the national level while states experiment with different approaches to same-sex marriage.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 15, 2011 (boomark / email).