Another federal judge has struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), finding the law unconstitutional.
The victory comes in the case of Edie Windsor, who was seeking a refund of the federal estate tax paid by the estate of her late wife. From the ruling:
The Court declares that section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional as applied to the Plaintiff. Plaintiff is awarded judgment in the amount of $353,053.00, plus interest and costs allowed by law.
It’s another loss for Paul Clement and House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives (“BLAG”), who had claimed that her homosexuality was a “choice.”
Windsor’s attorneys had argued that “DOMA violates the Equal Protection principles of the U.S. Constitution because it recognizes existing marriages of heterosexual couples, but not of same-sex couples, despite the fact that New York State treats all marriages the same.”
Update:
More from the ruling: “It does not follow from the exclusion of one group from federal benefits (same-sex married persons) that another group of people (opposite-sex married couples) will be incentivized to take any action, whether that is marriage or procreations.”