Florida Agenda

MONTPELIER, VERMONT — The state of Vermont has joined Connecticut and New York in asking that the federal law defining marriage as between a man and a woman be ruled unconstitutional.

On Friday, Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell said that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) discriminates against same-sex couples, and unfairly denies the, federal benefits.

“These married couples— our friends and neighbors in Vermont—have every right to fair and equal treatment by the federal government,” said Sorrell. “Instead, they are denied Social Security benefits, tax exemptions, and health and retirement benefits.”

The three states filed their briefs in the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case brought by a New York woman who was required to pay $350,000 in estate taxes when her partner died. Last year, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department would no longer defend DOMA in court, and several federal judges—including a number appointed by Republican presidents—have ruled the law to be unconstitutional. In June, a federal judge in New York ruled DOMA to be unconstitutional because it intrudes upon the states’ business of regulating domestic relations.

Currently, same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.H.

By Rory Barbarossa

SAN?FRANCISCO, CA – The top members of the House Republican leadership have filed an appeal with the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, to overturn the decision of a lower court that declared the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law prohibiting the federal government from recognizing gay marriages, to be unconstitutional.

On Friday, Feb. 24, attorneys for the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group notified the lower court that they are requesting a review by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of a ruling made last week by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White. In that decision, White told the federal Office of Personnel Management that it could not use DOMA to deny medical coverage to a gay attorney who had enrolled her wife in a family health insurance plan.

Last year, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) appointed the five-member advisory group to defend DOMA against legal challenges. This came after Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. said that Justice Department would no longer defend the law in court because the President Barack Obama had announced that it violates the civil rights of LGBT Americans.

Boehner was joined by the other Republican members of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor  (R-Virginia), and Majority Chief Deputy Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-California)  in bringing the appeal. The two Democratic House members of the advisory group, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland), refused to take part.

Last year, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) introduced separate  bills to repeal DOMA. So far, the Republican leadership has brought neither to a floor vote.

Dean Trantalis, a Wilton Manors-based attorney, LGBT rights activist, and former Vice Mayor of Fort Lauderdale, said of the GOP triumvirate’s actions: “Once again government interference in private lives rears its ugly head.”

“Hypocrisy seems to be the Republican theme in this presidential year,” added Trantalis, who co-authored the 1995 Broward County Human Rights Ordinance and the 1999 Broward County Domestic Partnership Ordinance, both seen as public
policy landmarks which helped set the stage for this decade’s battles for marriage equality.

SAN DIEGO, CA – San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican whose decision in 2007 to drop his opposition to same-sex marriage, put him at odds with the GOP, has joined California Governor Jerry Brown and the mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco, all Democrats, in urging Congress to overturn a law denying recognition of such marriages.

According to the LA Times, Sanders, Brown, LA Mayor Antonio Villaragoisa and San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee signed a letter urging members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance legislation that would overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

By Bob Kecskemety

Microsoft has joined dozens of corporations, organizations and governments in support of a challenge on the constitutional grounds of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The friend-of-the-court brief Microsoft, and 70 other organizations filed late last week points out the significant costs and administrative burdens DOMA imposes on employers as well as the ways DOMA interferes with employers’ efforts to promote diversity and equal opportunity in the workplace and harms their ability to attract and retain talent.

The businesses and organizations, which include Starbucks, Google, Time Warner, CBS, Nike along with several cities, filed the brief in the case of Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. US Department of Health and Human Services. It is one of two consolidated cases from Massachusetts challenging the constitutionality of DOMA.

In 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It bars the federal government from treating same-sex marriage as legal or granting gay couples federal benefits. This means that same-sex couples, who get married where same-sex marriage is legal, aren’t eligible for the benefits that come with federally recognized marriage such as filing joint federal tax returns or social security and immigration law benefits.

Same-sex marriage is only currently legal in the states of Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Washington DC and Vermont.

There are about a dozen cases around the country challenging DOMA. The joined Massachusetts cases, currently before the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, are the first to reach the federal appellate level, just one step down from the U.S. Supreme Court, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

The friend-of-the-court brief said in part:

“Our enterprises are located in states, including the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, that recognize the marriages of our employees and colleagues to same-sex spouses.

At the same time, we are subject to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which precludes federal recognition of these marriages.”

Companies have complained that when a same-sex couple legally gets married, it requires them to maintain two sets of books because the couple is considered married under state law but not married under federal law. The double entries, they say, ripple through human resources, payroll and benefit administration.

In a major shift in policy, earlier this year, President Obama directed the US Justice Department to stop defending DOMA and Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to Congress to inform them that the Justice Department will now take the position that DOMA should be struck down as a violation of a gay couples’ right to equal protection under the law.

“The President and I have concluded that classifications based on sexual orientation warrant heightened scrutiny and that, as applied to same-sex couples legally married under state law, a crucial provision of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional,” Holder wrote.

Also earlier this year, it was rumored that Coca Cola pressured its law firm, King & Spalding, from defending DOMA in court. King & Spalding were hired by the Republican-held Congress to defend DOMA in court. However, Coca Cola is one of King & Spalding’s largest corporate clients. Coca Cola is not one of the 70 organizations which filed the brief in the U.S. Circuit Court.

The companies that joined in the friend-of-the-court brief filing before the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston are:

ABT Associates, Aetna, Inc., Akamai Technologies, Inc., Alere Inc., Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, Biogen Idec, Inc., Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mass., Inc., Boston Community Capital, Inc., Boston Medical Center Corp., Bright Horizons Children’s Centers LLC, Calvert Investments, Inc., CBS Corporation, The Chubb Corporation, Communispace Corp., Constellation Energy Group, Inc., Diageo North America, Inc., Eastern Bank Corp., Exelon Corp., FitCorp Healthcare Centers, Inc., Gammelgaden, LLC, Google Inc., Integrated Archive Systems, Inc., Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, LLC, Levi Strauss & Co., Loring, Wolcott & Coolidge Trust, LLC, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., Massachusetts Envelope Company, Inc., Massachusetts Financial Services Company, Microsoft Corp., National Grid USA, Inc., Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc., New England Cryogenic Center, Inc., NIKE, Inc., The Ogilvy Group, Inc., Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Partners HealthCare System, Inc., Reproductive Science Center of New England, Skyworks Solutions, Inc., Starbucks Corp., State Street Bank and Trust Co., Stonyfield Farm, Inc., Sun Life Financial (US) Services Co., Inc., Time Warner Cable, Inc., Trillium Asset Management Corp., W/S Development Associates LLC, Xerox Corp., Zipcar, Inc., Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, The Boston Foundation, Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, Inc., The National Fire Protection Association, Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, Retailers Association of Massachusetts and by the following cities: The City of Boston, MA, The City of Cambridge, MA, The City of New York, NY.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a written statement, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy announced last week that he intend s

to schedule Committee consideration of the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), in November.

“The march for equality continues, and now is the time to ensure equality for gay and lesbian Americans who are lawfully married,” said Leahy, who is a cosponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act. “Next month, I will call up the Respect for Marriage Act for debate and a vote in the Judiciary Committee. The Respect for Marriage Act would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents thousands of American families from being protected by laws that help secure other American families. This is part of the nation’s continuing fight for civil rights for all Americans.”

In July, Leahy chaired the first-ever congressional hearing on proposals to repeal DOMA. The Obama administration has announced the President’s support for the Respect for Marriage Act.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Earlier this year, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced that the U.S. taxpayers will be paying attorney Paul Clement to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to the tune of $520/hour for up to $500.000. Clement was President George W.

Bush’s Solicitor General.

However, defending DOMA appears to be more expensive than originally anticipated because, according to Think Progress, Clement has already reached his $500,000 cap so the House G.O.P. has increased his budget by another $1-million from the American people.

By James Michaels

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Fifteen years ago this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The bill, which defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman under Federal law, passed by a vote of 342-67 — an outcome that roughly reflected public opinion at the time. But, according to ThirdWay.org, over the past decade and a half, our society has undergone a seismic shift in how it recognizes and accepts the relationships of gay and lesbian couples. This report provides a snapshot of this dramatic transformation and illustrates the crystallizing consensus in favor of legal relationship recognition for gay and lesbian couples, extending all the way to marriage in many parts of the country. In 1996, DOMA was thought to have ended the debate on marriage.

But it seems to have been only the beginning of a more profound shift in favor of gay and lesbian couples.

WAS HI

NGTON, D.C. – The editorial board of the Washington Post has  called on President Obama’s Justice Department to halt the deportation of foreign nationals in legal same-sex  marriages. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., announced in February that the Justice Department would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. However, no final determination has been made about bi-national couples legally married in countries where same-sex marriage is legal.

Response to Murky IRS Laws for Legally Married Gay Couples

By Alex Vaughn

The Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) not only denies legally married gay couples the 1138 legal protections and benefits of marriage, but the IRS also uses DOMA as a justification for telling couples to disavow their spouses.

A new grassroots campaign called “Refuse to Lie” has been launched to assist legally married gay couples who plan to ignore the government’s requirement that they lie on their taxes by filing as “single.”

“Refuse to Lie is a grassroots campaign that aims to make visible the impossible choice gay married couples have in choosing between the truth and the law,” said Nadine Smith, one of the organizers and the executive director of Equality Florida.

“As long as we quietly comply, our friends, neighbors, families and co-workers have no idea what is being done to us in their name,” said Smith. “As long as we are silent, they won’t understand how humiliating, dehumanizing and plain wrong it is to force legally married couples who are gay to lie and deny our spouses.”

On the website for the campaign, Smith illustrates her story with her partner Andrea, whom she married in Vermont, saying in response to the IRS asking couples to claim to be single, “It would be both dishonest and deeply humiliating to now disavow each other or our marriage and declare ourselves single on our tax form.” She continued saying “We are expecting a son this spring. What will we teach him? Should we raise him to be honest and have integrity in his dealings with other people, but show him that his mothers tell lies that make a mockery of our family when required to do so by the government?”

The risks of taking this stand are unclear and the rules murky. DOMA has been deemed unconstitutional by two trial courts and those decisions are being appealed. Recently, President Obama and the US Department of Justice announced that they, too, found portions of DOMA unconstitutional and would no longer defend the discriminatory law.

Nina E. Olson is the United States Taxpayer Advocate and is tasked with helping taxpayers solve their problems with the Internal Revenue Service. She is the only IRS employee authorized to make legislative proposals directly to Congress. In her annual report to Congress, Olson identified the confusion over legal filing requirements for gay couples as a major problem.

“The IRS has not provided answers to these questions, requiring many taxpayers to file returns without knowing which rules apply and potentially subjecting them to audits and penalties, as well as costs for tax advice.”

According Olsen’s report to Congress, the populations of individuals in same-gender marriages and domestic partnerships were 63,658 and 174,760, respectively, in 2008, when only three states authorized same-gender marriages and ten recognized domestic partnerships. Nationwide, more than a million individuals are estimated to be living as same-gender couples (whether or not registered), over 20 percent of whom are raising children.

In addition to highlighting this injustice, the Refuse to Lie campaign provides resources on what other couples might face if they to “refuse to lie” on their tax returns. The campaign also provides an opportunity for individuals and gay or straight married couples to sign a petition and stand in solidarity with those who are risking their freedom to demand their equality.

Visit www.RefuseToLie.org to sign the petition and learn more.

Nadine Smith, Executive Director  of Equality Florida
Photo courtesy, Nadine Smith

By ALEX VAUGHN

According to unofficial estimates, about 36,000 bi-national couples – usually, a US citizen and a foreign-born national whose visa has expired – currently reside in the United States, living just as married people everywhere do. However, like other immigrants who lack permanent legal status, the foreign-born marriage partner lives in constant fear of detection and possible deportation.

In New Jersey, Josh Vandiver was married last year in Connecticut, where same-sex marriage is legal, to Henry Velandia, a citizen of Venezuela. Velandia’s visitor visa expired, and he said he hasn’t been able to get a green card, or permanent resident status, through an employer. Because the federal government doesn’t recognize the couple’s marriage, Vandiver cannot sponsor Velandia as a heterosexual person could sponsor a spouse. Now Velandia is facing possible deportation and could be returned to his home country after a hearing May 6.

Many bi-national heterosexual couples face the same dilemma.

But, unlike their gay counterparts, they can apply for a US marriage visa, which confers automatic legal status on the foreign-born partner. Those visas are among the easiest to obtain. About 500,000 are granted annually on the assumption that married immigrants tend to be healthier and happier and, as studies show, tend to integrate more quickly into the American mainstream.

U.S. Rep. Rush Holt is pushing the Obama administration to halt deportation proceedings against the same-sex spouses of U.S. citizens. The Democrat wrote a letter to the federal Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday to make the request on behalf of the couple who live in his central New Jersey district. The case underscores the ambiguous status of the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman. Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder said the government would no longer defend the law in court. But the administration continues to enforce it.  “In light of Attorney General Holder’s new guidance, I am asking you to suspend the deportation of all spouses of citizens in a same-sex marriage until a decision is reached on DOMA,” Holt wrote in his letter. “This is the right thing to do for Henry, Josh and countless others who are being victimized by this discriminatory and unconstitutional law.”

His plea follows confusion last week over how visas should be handled. The government briefly allowed applications for immigrant benefits for same-sex couples, then backtracked days later after a review of the laws.

Lavi Soloway, the couple’s immigration lawyer said that if the Defense of Marriage law is struck down, same-sex couples legally married in any state will be recognized as married by the federal government.

In fact, legislation like the Dream Act is already pending for gay immigrants without legal status. Known as the Uniting American Families Act, or UAFA, the bill would revise the family visa system to allow “permanent partners,” as well as “spouses,” to be sponsored by US citizens for a green card. The beauty of the legislation is that it doesn’t even require that DOMA and the traditional definition of marriage be overturned. It simply says that those without traditional marriage bonds can also be sponsored and like the Dream Act, the bill still enjoys widespread congressional support, including more than 100 co-sponsors in the House, and 25 in Senate. Even some leading Senate Republicans, like Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, both strong gay rights backers, have indicated that they may support the UAFA.

Two major supporters of immigration reform, the US Catholic Church and the National Association of Evangelicals, oppose UAFA and support DOMA. This political influence contributed to the dramatic about-face of the DHS. For a president desperate to get an immigration bill passed, and also to get re-elected (young white evangelicals swung his way in 2008), backing off on gay immigrant rights must have seemed like an easy, if cynical, choice.

Congressman Gutierrez is launching a nationwide campaign to demand that Obama live up to the pledges on immigration reform he made during the 2008 campaign, and gay rights groups plan to file suit in federal court to overturn DOMA’s prejudicial application to gay immigrants.