GLAD Files For Summary Judgment In DOMA Case

GLAD Files Motion for Summary Judgment in 2nd Circuit DOMA Challenge, Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management

Plaintiffs Ask Court for Heightened Scrutiny

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) filed a motion for summary judgment in Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management, its 2^nd Circuit challenge to the federal so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

GLAD argues that the equal protection claims of the plaintiffs, six married couples and one widower fromConnecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire, require heightened scrutiny from the court. The brief shows how DOMA fails heightened scrutiny, or even a rational basis review.

“No interest advanced to defend DOMA can in fact withstand any level of scrutiny,” the brief reads.  “The reasons offered by Congress at the time of DOMA’s passage are either nonsensical or just another way of saying that Congress wanted to denounce and harm those gay men and lesbians who form long-term relationships and seek to have those relationships recognized and respected through civil marriage.”

GLAD also filed supporting affidavits from experts Michael Lamb, Ph.D, Gary Segura, Ph.D, Lititia Anne Peplau, Ph.D, George Chauncey, Ph.D, and Nancy F. Cott, Ph.D.

The next step is for Congress to respond to GLAD’s motion for summary judgment on or by August 15, 2011.

GLAD filed Pedersen v. OPM in Hartford, CT on November 8, 2010.  GLAD’s DOMA challenge Gill v. OPM won a July 8, 2010 ruling in Massachusetts federal district court that DOMA is unconstitutional.  That case is now on appeal. 

Co-operating counsel on Pedersen are Jenner & Block LLP (Washington, DC), Horton, Shields & Knox (Hartford), and Sullivan & Worcester LLP (Boston).  Co-counsel in the Gill case are Foley Hoag LLP, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Jenner & Block LLP, and Kator, Parks & Weiser, PLLC.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders is New England’s leading legal organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status, and gender identity and expression.

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Nate Silver Declares Marriage Equality Opponents In Minority

Good news! Polling guru Nate Silver has crunched the latest poll numbers (which I posted about yesterday) and has announced that he is confident that opposition to marriage equality is no longer a majority position. that fact is reflected in the graphic displayed above. It's still a bit too soon to say whether support for marriage equality is a majority or even plurality position thanks to the margin of error in the polls but the trend lines are VERY clear.

Nate ends his post at The New York Times with a cautionary note to Republicans:

But Republican candidates, who have placed less emphasis on gay marriage in recent years, probably cannot expect their opposition to it to be a net electoral positive for them except in select circumstances. If support for gay marriage were to continue accelerating as fast as it has in the past two years, supporters would outnumber opponents roughly 56-40 in the general population by November 2012. 

Past trends, of course, are no guarantee of future ones, and it’s always possible that the momentum toward increasing support for gay marriage could flatten out or even reverse itself. 

But this does put Republicans in a tricky position. Their traditional position on gay marriage is becoming less popular. But to the extent they disengage from the issue, they may lose even more ground. One way to read the trends of the past few years is that we have passed an inflection point wherein it is no longer politically advantageous for candidates to oppose same-sex marriage, which in turn softens opposition to it among the general public, creating a sort of feedback loop and accelerating the trend.

It should be interesting to see how heterosexual supremacists who are opposed to marriage equality, especially Republican presidential contenders, deal with these poll results, especially since the first two primary states, New Hampshire and Iowa, both have legalized marriage equality.