A California Bankruptcy Court Rejects U.S. Law Barring Same-Sex Marriage

A bankruptcy court in California has declared that the 1996 law barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, increasing pressure against the law.

“In this court’s judgment, no legally married couple should be entitled to fewer bankruptcy rights than any other legally married couple,” wrote Judge Thomas B. Donovan of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California. In an unusual move, 19 other judges — nearly all of the 24 judges of the central district — also signed the decision.

The impact of the opinion could be limited, since the decision of the court is specific to the bankruptcy of the couple, Gene Douglas Balas and Carlos A. Morales. But the other judges’ signatures suggest that as a matter of policy they would rule similarly.

It is not the first blow to the law known as the Defense of Marriage Act. A federal judge in Boston declared the law unconstitutional last July, and that case is working its way through the legal system. The Department of Justice, however, is not driving that appeals process. In February, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced in a letter to members of Congress that while the Obama administration would continue to enforce the law, it would no longer defend it in court and that classifications based on sexual orientation should be subjected to a tough legal test intended to block unfair discrimination.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/us/politics/15bankruptcy.html?_r=1&ref=us