Daily Star Home  

<%-- Page Title--%> Law column <%-- End Page Title--%>

  <%-- Page Title--%> Issue No 160 <%-- End Page Title--%>  

October 3, 2004 

  <%-- Page Title--%> <%-- Navigation Bar--%>
<%-- Navigation Bar--%>
 

Justice defends defence of Marriage Act

Adrian Sainz

MIAMI -- The U.S. Justice Department asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging an 8-year-old law banning gay marriage, making it the federal government's first direct legal defence of the Defence of Marriage Act.

Attorney General John Ashcroft is fighting a lawsuit filed by four same-sex couples who argue the 1996 Defence of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. The law defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman and lets states refuse to recognise gay marriages from other states.

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said it was the federal government's first direct legal defence of the Defence of Marriage Act.

The issue of gay marriages has become a theme of the presidential race, with President Bush calling for a ban of same-sex marriages in a constitutional amendment, which Democratic challenger John Kerry opposes.

Kerry also opposes gay marriage, but defends a gay couple's rights to the same legal protections as those conferred in marriage.

The Justice Department's motion to dismiss, filed in Miami district court, argues that the couples have no constitutional standing to challenge the federal law because they are not married in any state and the law wasn't being applied to them. The law is consistent with due process and equal protection provisions of the constitution, the motion said.

"As far as the federal defendant is aware, every court to address this question -- including the Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit -- has rejected federal constitutional challenges," the motion said.

The motion also said that the nation's high court has "defined the right to marry consistent with traditional understandings."

The author is an Associated Press Writer
Source: The St. Augustine Record









      (C) Copyright The Daily Star. The Daily Star Internet Edition, is published by The Daily Star