Come on down and collect your prize:
BOSTON — A U.S. judge in Boston has ruled that a federal gay
marriage ban is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right
of a state to define marriage.U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro
on Thursday ruled in favor of gay couples’ rights in two separate
challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA.The
state had argued the law denied benefits such as Medicaid to gay
married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal
since 2004.Tauro agreed, and said the act forces Massachusetts to discriminate against its own citizens.
“The
federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches
upon the firmly entrenched province of the state, and in doing so,
offends the Tenth Amendment. For that reason, the statute is invalid,”
Tauro wrote in a ruling in a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Martha
Coakley.
Coakley may have been a shit candidate for Senate, but damn if she didn’t do a job here.
A.