Feds won't defend laws denying benefits to gay military spouses

The Advocate reports: The U.S. Department of Justice will no longer defend laws that prevent legal same-sex spouses of military personnel from receiving the benefits available to opposite-sex spouses, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder said Friday.

There is no reason to treat these laws any differently than the Defense of Marriage Act, which Holder’s department is also no longer defending, he said in a letter to Congress on Friday. Military-specific sections of the U.S. Code that exclude same-sex partners from the definition of spouse, “as applied to same-sex couples who are legally married under state law, violate the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution, Holder wrote in the letter.

The military benefits are the subject of a lawsuit filed by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network last October on behalf of Maj. Shannon McLaughlin of the Massachusetts National Guard and her wife, Casey. The Justice Department had until February 28 to respond to the suit. SLDN executive director Aubrey Sarvis, who is leaving that post in a few months, predicted in a January interview with The Advocate that the department would decline to defend those discriminatory laws.

The laws have the effect of denying same-sex spouses of military members the medical and dental insurance, survivor benefits, housing allowances, hospital visitation rights, and other benefits that opposite-sex spouses receive.

Holder said Congress would have the opportunity to defend those laws, as it is doing in DOMA cases. Holder and President Obama announced a year ago that they considered DOMA unconstitutional and would no longer defend it in court.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sunny von Bulow dies after 28 years in coma

Image
After spending nearly 28 years in an irreversible coma, heiress and socialite Martha "Sunny" von Bulow died Saturday in a New York nursing home, according to a family statement. She was 76. Von Bulow was subject of one of the nation's most sensational criminal cases during the 1980s. Her husband, Claus, was accused of trying to kill her with an overdose of insulin, which prosecutors alleged sent her into the coma. He was convicted of making two attempts on her life, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. He was acquitted in a second trial. His retrial in 1985 received national attention. (Via CNN )
Read more

Ric Alonso resigns from pageant association after porn revelation

Image
Kevin Hogan wasn't the only person this week ambushed out of a job for his participation in the gay adult film industry. FOX News reports : Ric Alonso and his partner of 21 years, Ernie Koneck, have both been both prominent power players in the Southern California Scholarship Association — an incorporated not-for-profit association — which produces the Miss Hollywood pageant, an official preliminary to Miss California, and a feeder to Miss America. Alonso is listed as the first “major sponsor” for 2011 scholarship donations, while partner Koneck has been the pageantry point of contact and is featured in photographs alongside the smiling young sashed pageant contestants. On Tuesday, Alonso was exposed by RadarOnline as adult film actor and producer "Jake Cruise". FOX News adds: Following the revelation, Koneck announced his resignation Tuesday as Executive Director of the Southern California Scholarship Association, and said Alonso was in no way involved in the Miss Holl
Read more

Make Jerry Curl Great Again

Image
You can't consider yourself a writer if you don't write. In recent years, I have probably said those words to myself so often that they could be considered a mantra; a mantra that I don't want to embody but one that is nonetheless true. I don't write anymore. I don't write to faraway friends. I don't write to remember. I don't write for pleasure. I don't write for release. I don't even Tweet. At a recent job interview (for another job I didn't really want), I was asked what I would do for a living if I could do anything. Without even thinking about it, I said I would be a writer. But that was a stock answer. It's the answer I've always given to that question. But this time the answer felt phony. It felt forced. It didn't feel like me anymore. The real, ugly, scary truth is that I don't know if I still got the right stuff to be the writer I wanted to be. While I have always questioned the validity of my own voice (my
Read more