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发帖数: 4174 | 1 Posted on Advocate.com June 14, 2011 02:35:00 PM ET
Bankruptcy Court Says DOMA is Unconstitutional
By Michelle Garcia
U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California Los Angeles
x390 (fair) | ADVOCATE.COM
A federal bankruptcy court in Los Angeles ruled Monday that the Defense of
Marriage Act is unconstitutional in relation to a case involving a gay
couple who filed for bankruptcy in February.
The ruling was signed by 20 of the 25 judges in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court
for the Central District of California in Los Angeles.
Metro Weekly reports that Gene Balas and Carlos Morales, who were legally
married in California in 2008, filed for bankruptcy protection under Title
11 of the U.S. Code. The couple had been struggling financially after
dealing with serious illnesses and unemployment. The United States Trustee
moved to dismiss this case, citing DOMA.
Under the direction of President Obama, the U.S. Department of Justice
announced the day before Balas and Morales's bankruptcy filing that it would
no longer defend DOMA in court. While the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory
Group has decided to defend DOMA in court on the government's behalf, it did
not intervene in this case.
"In the court’s final analysis, the government’s only basis for supporting
DOMA comes down to an apparent belief that the moral views of the majority
may properly be enacted as the law of the land in regard to state-sanctioned
same-sex marriage in disregard of the personal status and living conditions
of a significant segment of our pluralistic society," the court wrote. "
Such a view is not consistent with the evidence or the law as embodied in
the Fifth Amendment with respect to the thoughts expressed in this decision.
The court has no doubt about its conclusion: the Debtors have made their
case persuasively that DOMA deprives them of the equal protection of the law
to which they are entitled." | m******1
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