Birds on the Brain

The Obama administration is squarely taking on the Defense of Marriage Act, asking the U.S. Supreme Court today to review a pair of cases challenging the constitutionality of the federal definition of “marriage” contained in the 1996 law while continuing to argue that law should be struck down.

In Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management, the California-based case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, DOJ is asking for the Supreme Court to take the case before the appeals court, which is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case in September, even decides the case.

DOJ also is asking the Supreme Court to take review of another case, Massachusetts v. Department of Health and Human Services, that was decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on May 31. The House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, led by the House Republican leadership, had sought review of the case this past Friday, June 29.

In the filings to the Supreme Court, called petitions for a writ of certiorari, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., the DOJ’s top appellate litigator, argues that a single question is presented by the cases, which the Supreme Court should accept the cases to answer: “Whether Section 3 of DOMA violates the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws as applied to persons of the same sex who are legally married under the laws of their State.”