Proud to be from Massachusetts

DOMA and same-sex marriage was the recent topic on the old ology board, and I’m glad to be the first to post the most recent development.

Mass. Attorney General, Martha Coakley, has just filed suit with the Federal Government, with a major portion of their claim being that declaration of marital status was “the exclusive prerogative of the states.” 

Back in the ology blog, I broke DOMA (poorly) into two major sections. The first is the argument against full-faith, and the second, the section defining marriage federally – which I considered the weaker of the two.  It appears that Martha Coakley agrees, since the bulk of the lawsuit is being directed at the section defining marriage.

Of course, my prediction is that DOMA will fail on the federal definition, but the full-faith argument will be allowed to stand based on case law and precedent.  So even if this lawsuit does succeed, and that’s a big if considering the current SCOTUS, same-sex marriage will still be legal in only a handful of states.  But in those states, it will be truly and completely legal, which is still a victory worth celebrating.