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Defense of Marriage Act provoking anger and confusion among gays.
Married couple Tim Smulian, of South Africa, left, and Edwin Blesch, an American, of Long Island, spend half the year abroad so Smulian can abide by the terms of tourist visas.
AP FILE PHOTO
NEW YORK — These are frustrating, tantalizing days for many of the same-sex couples who seized the chance to marry in recent years.
The law that prohibits federal recognition of their unions is under assault in the courts. The Obama administration has repudiated it and taken piecemeal steps to weaken its effects.
Yet for now, the Defense of Marriage Act remains very much in force — provoking anger, impatience and confusion among gay couples.
Because of DOMA, some binational couples still worry about deportation of the non-citizen spouse. Survivor benefits aren’t granted after one spouse dies. And couples filing joint tax returns in the states allowing same-sex marriage must still file separately this month with the IRS.
When DOMA was passed overwhelmingly by Congress in 1996, and signed by President Bill Clinton, it was a pre-emptive strike. There were no legally married same-sex couples in the United States.
Since 2004, however, thousands of gays and lesbians have married as Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Iowa and the District of Columbia legalized same-sex unions. Many others have wed in foreign countries.
“What was once theoretical now has practical effects that people can see, that can’t be explained other than as discrimination,” said Jon Davidson, legal director of the gay-rights group Lambda Legal. The controversy around DOMA creates an emotional rollercoaster for same-sex couples.
Last July, for example, many of them rejoiced when a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that the act was an unconstitutional infringement on equality for same-sex couples.
There was more elation in February, when President Barack Obama ordered his administration to stop defending the law in the still-pending Massachusetts case and several other lawsuits. Yet no one knows when these cases will finally be resolved.