SAN FRANCISCO – U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White has ruled the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional, in Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management, Karen Golinski’s challenge to the denial of her request for equal health insurance benefits for her wife. Golinski, a federal court employee, brought suit after her request was denied. Judge White declared that the discriminatory federal statute violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equality. Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster LLP brought the case on behalf of Karen Golinski.
“This ruling, the first to come after the Justice Department announced it would no longer defend this discriminatory statute in court, spells doom for DOMA,” said Tara Borelli, staff attorney in Lambda Legal’s Western Regional Office in Los Angeles. “The Court recognized the clear fact that a law that denies one class of individuals the rights and benefits available to all others because of their sexual orientation violates the constitutional guarantee of equality embodied in the Fifth Amendment. The court agreed with us that sexual orientation discrimination by the government should receive heightened scrutiny under the Constitution. It then concluded that DOMA could not meet that standard, and that there was not even a rational justification to deny Karen Golinski the same spousal health care benefits that her heterosexual co-workers receive.”
Judge White’s ruling is the latest victory in a battle that began in 2008, when Golinski, a 20-year employee of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sought to enroll her wife, Amy Cunninghis, in the employee health plan. It is the first DOMA-related ruling since U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice had determined DOMA was unconstitutional and would no longer defend it, and the majority leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives hired outside counsel to defend the discriminatory statute. A similar ruling holding DOMA unconstitutional in a separate case is on appeal in the First Circuit.
