Defense of Marriage Act and Ending Federal Discrimination in Marriage
Strategy for overturning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA): Confidential Briefing on GLAD’s Roadmap to Success.
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By Lee Swislow | Contact
Lee Swislow, GLAD's Executive Director since 2005 has deepened GLAD's work throughout New England and strengthened GLAD's presence and impact on national work and strategy.
Before joining GLAD Lee was executive director for the Sidney Borum, Jr. Health Center (serving LGBT youth), chief operating officer and chief nursing officer at the Cambridge Health Alliance, a two hospital and 14 health center system. As a registered nurse, Lee served on the frontlines in the early years of the AIDS crisis as head nurse of Boston City Hospital's AIDS Clinics (1985-1989).
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The road to marriage equality has been--and continues to be--uneven. Eleven years ago, when GLAD ("Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders") filed Baker v. State of Vermont, the case that led to the first-ever civil unions, there were no state-wide relationship recognition measures in place.
Today, more than four years after GLAD's watershed case Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health that established equal marriage in Massachusetts, ten states now have some sort of state-wide protections: marriage in Massachusetts, civil union (even if called something else) in Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Oregon, California, and New Jersey, and more modest domestic partnership laws in Hawaii, Maine and Washington state. The New York courts recently ruled that valid marriages from elsewhere will be respected. Depending on whether it's appealed, New Yorkers may now have access to marriage through the back door.
The political debate in a growing number of other states is no longer whether lesbian and gay couples deserve legal recognition, but about what type of legal recognition we deserve.
CHALLENGING FEDERAL DISCRIMINATION IN MARRIAGE
Despite growing public support for some kind of recognition for same sex relationships, the federal government continues with its pervasive and overwhelming discrimination toward legally married same sex couples. One part of federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) denies married same sex couples access to the 1,138 federal rights and benefits in which marital status is a factor. As GLAD and others continue the fight for marriage equality state by state, we are also committed to full equality on the federal level.
EDITOR'S NOTE
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) has been very successful in achieving gay marriage in Massachusetts (marriage equality). GLAD has a bold strategy on how to end the denial of Federal rights and benefits to married same-sex couples, including overturning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
For obvious reasons, this strategy can only be presented to Registered Members. Registration is free and your information is not given to anyone, but your affiliations are verified. Click here to register. Also, comments on this article are only allowed on the exclusive section of the article or in the Discussion Network.
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