FLA. COURT UPHOLDS DOMA: From the San Francisco Chronicle

In the first known ruling of its kind, a federal judge in Florida on Wednesday upheld a federal law that lets states refuse to recognize marriages between same-sex couples who were legally wed in Massachusetts.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Moody comes less than a week after President Bush told the Washington Post he would not lobby aggressively for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage because it had no chance of passing unless the federal law -- the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act -- was struck down.

Bush's position, which contradicted his stance during the presidential campaign last year, angered some conservative groups that had worked for his victory. The White House quickly issued clarifying statements stressing that the amendment remained on the president's agenda.

The federal law authorizes states to refuse to recognize a same-sex couple's marriage that was performed in a state or nation where the marriage was legal. Massachusetts is the only state that has legalized such marriages.

The Defense of Marriage Act is being challenged in numerous states, including California, under a constitutional provision requiring states to give "full faith and credit" to other states' laws and court judgments. ...

The law was challenged by a Tampa couple, Nancy Wilson and Paula Schoenwether, who have been together for 27 years. They went to Massachusetts in July to get married after Massachusetts' highest court issued a ruling legalizing same-sex marriages under state law. The couple returned home and sued for recognition of marital status in Florida. ...

A suit that "seeks to force an unwilling state to recognize the marriage" has little chance of winning and is likely to galvanize support for a federal constitutional amendment, said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco. She said challenges should instead be directed at the section of the 1996 law that denies federal benefits to same-sex couples.

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the ruling is here (PDF)
posted by Eve at 1:42 AM VOTE

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