By Kathleen Gilbert
CHICAGO, August 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Policymakers at the American Bar Association (ABA) overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the abolition of Section 3 in the national Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which reserves federal marital benefits for marriages between a man and a woman.
The ABA, America's largest bar association and the world's largest voluntary professional association, provides accreditation for law schools across the country and is considered the authority on ethical standards for the legal field.
Passed in the ABA's House of Delegates Monday on a voice vote, the new measure urges Washington to recognize spousal benefits for “married” same-sex couples. The ABA said the current law “disrespects the traditional authority of the states, territories and tribal governments to determine who may marry within their jurisdictions by denying federal marital benefits and protections to lawfully married same-sex spouses.”
“This is a very modest recommendation, some would even say a conservative recommendation,” said Estelle Rogers, a lawyer who is a consultant on civil rights and civil liberties issues in Washington, D.C., in the ABA Journal. The recommendation passed without objection.
The resolution claims it “neither favors nor opposes civil marriage for same-sex couples,” but “merely seeks to ensure that state decisions to recognize such marriages are respected.”
However, the ABA recommendation goes on to criticize laws treating marriage benefits as pertinent only to the union of a man and a woman, because such laws rob homosexual couples wishing to marry of “the rights and protections which all married couples have a right to expect.”
Not granting federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples, say the lawyers, “imposes unfair and inequitable burdens on legally married same-sex couples and their children,” and subjects the couples to a broad range of disadvantages in comparison to heterosexual married couples and their families.
“The enactment of DOMA Section 3 has deprived thousands of lawfully married same-sex spouses of the range of federal protections they would otherwise receive,” state the lawyers, “making it difficult for them to provide for one another and subjecting them to financial hardship and uncertainty.
“By establishing a federal definition of marriage that disrespects valid same-sex marriages licensed and certified by the states, DOMA Section 3 substantially diminishes the rights and protections which all married couples have a right to expect.”
The lawyers conclude by urging the federal government to grant benefits according to individual states' definitions of marriage “so that all who choose to marry may enjoy equal treatment under federal law.”
President Obama assured the homosexualist lobby during his presidential campaign that he would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, though he has said he prefers to do so through the legislative process rather than by executive fiat.