Editorial
July 9, 2010
For 14 years, as states, courts and many Americans began to change their minds on the subject, the federal government has clung to its official definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman. On Thursday, a federal judge in Massachusetts finally stood up and said there was never a rational basis for that definition. Though we are a little wary of one path Judge Joseph L. Tauro took to declare the definition unconstitutional, the outcome he reached is long overdue.
The definition is contained in the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. At the time, there was no legal same-sex marriage in the United States, but now five states and the District of Columbia issue licenses to all couples. Because of the federal law, thousands of couples in those states cannot receive the same federal benefits as opposite-sex couples, including Social Security survivor payments and spousal burials in national military cemeteries.
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