Obama will not fight suit for same-sex benefits - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Obama will not fight suit for same-sex benefits

The Obama administration will not oppose a lawsuit seeking military benefits for same-sex military couples because government lawyers believe the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits benefits for gay couples, is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit at issue was filed last year by current and former service members who were legally married in states that allow same-sex marriage.

The current and former troops are demanding benefits for their spouses such as medical and dental coverage, marriage-adjusted Basic Housing Allowance, family separation benefits, survivor benefits, military identification cards that permit access to military installations and visitation rights at military hospitals.

The White House’s decision will have no immediate impact on the Pentagon’s current policy that denies many military benefits to same-sex couples.

Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to Capitol Hill on Friday notifying them that the Justice Department will not fight the lawsuit because the 1996 federal law that defines “spouse” as “person of the opposite sex” is a violation of the Fifth Amendment right to equal protection under the law.

“The President and I have concluded that classification based on sexual orientation should be subject to a heightened standard of constitutional scrutiny under equal protection principals, and that [the current DOMA law] fails such scrutiny as applied to couples who are legally married under state law,” Holder wrote in the letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The Obama administration has previously refused to defend the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, but the announcement Friday was the first time the White House has addressed the law in a military context.

In a non-military challenge to the DOMA law last year, Congress appointed a legal team to defend the law in court. Those lawyers will likely defend the military case, rather than Justice Department attorneys.

The issue is likely to remain unresolved until the Supreme Court agrees to hear a DOMA case.