Several Medical Associations File Brief in Favor of DOMA Challenge

The American Psychological Association, the California Psychological Association, The American Psychiatric Association, The National Association of Social Workers and its CA chapter), The American Medical Association, The American Acedemy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychoanalytic Association filed a “friend of the court” brief today in the case  Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management.  This is one of two cases that referred to the Supreme Court by the Department of Justice.  This case involves providing  federal benefits for same-sex partners.

You can read a few excerpts over at Towle Road and the entire brief here.  But I wanted to include the conclusion here, because I think it is a beautiful summary of what DOMA is:

“The foregoing shows that the attitudes towards and beliefs about lesbians and gay men relied on by Congress in enacting DOMA – about their capacity for committed, long lasting relationships, and their ability to raise healthy well-adjusted children – are contradicted by the scientific evidence and instead reflect an unreasoned antipathy towards an identifiable minority. Amici accordingly support the judgment of Judge White that § 3 of DOMA appears to be based on an explicit animus against gay men and lesbians. In institutionalizing greater access by heterosexuals than gay men and lesbians to the many federal resources and benefits accorded married couples and their children, the Act conveys the federal government’s judgment that committed intimate relationships between people of the same sex – even when recognized as legal marriages by the couple’s state – are inferior to heterosexual relationships.”

Yeah, what they said!