Legal Definitions - DOMA

DOMA stands for the Defense of Marriage Act.

DOMA was a federal law enacted in 1996 that had two primary effects:

• First, it defined marriage, for all federal purposes, as exclusively a legal union between one man and one woman. This meant that even if a state recognized same-sex marriage, the federal government would not, thereby denying same-sex couples access to a wide range of federal benefits and protections tied to marital status.
• Second, it allowed individual states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages that had been legally performed and recognized in other states. This created a situation where a marriage valid in one state might not be recognized in another.

The practical consequence of DOMA was that same-sex couples were denied numerous federal rights, benefits, and responsibilities that were automatically granted to opposite-sex married couples. These included things like Social Security survivor benefits, joint tax filing, immigration sponsorship for spouses, and access to a spouse's federal employment benefits.

Key sections of DOMA were later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2013, in the case of United States v. Windsor, the Court struck down the part of DOMA that defined marriage federally as only between a man and a woman. Then, in 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Court ruled that the Constitution guarantees the right to marry for same-sex couples, effectively invalidating the section of DOMA that allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.

Here are some examples illustrating the impact of DOMA before its key provisions were overturned:

• Example 1: Federal Tax Filing

  Imagine a couple, Alex and Ben, who legally married in Massachusetts in 2008. When it came time to file their federal income taxes, despite being legally married in their state, DOMA prevented the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from recognizing their union. This meant they could not file their federal taxes jointly as "married filing jointly" or "married filing separately," options available to opposite-sex married couples. Instead, they had to file as single individuals, potentially missing out on tax benefits or facing a higher tax burden that married couples could avoid.

  This example illustrates DOMA's federal definition of marriage, which denied same-sex couples access to federal benefits and recognition, even when their marriage was legal under state law.

• Example 2: Interstate Recognition and Healthcare Benefits

  Consider Sarah and Emily, who married in California in 2010. Emily worked for a large company with operations across the country and wanted to add Sarah to her employer-sponsored health insurance plan. However, their company's headquarters was in a state that, under DOMA, chose not to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. As a result, the company's federal benefits administrator, adhering to DOMA's provisions, denied Sarah coverage as Emily's spouse, even though their marriage was legal in California.

  This scenario demonstrates DOMA's provision that allowed states (and by extension, entities operating under federal guidelines or within states that did not recognize same-sex marriage) to refuse to acknowledge same-sex marriages legally performed in other states, impacting critical benefits like healthcare.

• Example 3: Immigration Sponsorship

  Suppose Maria, a U.S. citizen, married her partner, Sofia, a citizen of another country, in New York in 2011. Sofia wished to immigrate to the United States. Under federal immigration law, U.S. citizens can sponsor their spouses for a green card. However, because of DOMA's definition of marriage, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) did not recognize Maria and Sofia's marriage. This meant Maria could not sponsor Sofia for immigration as her spouse, a pathway that would have been available to an opposite-sex married couple, forcing them to explore other, often more difficult or lengthy, immigration options.

  This example highlights how DOMA's federal definition of marriage had far-reaching consequences, denying same-sex couples access to federal rights and processes, such as spousal immigration sponsorship, that were available to opposite-sex couples.