In a major victory for marriage equality advocates, a federal judge in Boston ruled on Thursday in two separate cases that a critical portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.

In one challenge brought by the state of Massachusetts, U.S. district judge Joseph Tauro ruled that Congress violated the constitution when it passed DOMA and took from the states decisions concerning which couples can be considered married.

In the other, Tauro ruled that DOMA violates equal protection principles of the constitution as embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. That case, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, was brought by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), the group that won the landmark gay marriage decision in 2003 before the Massachusetts Supreme Court. GLAD represents seven married couples and three widowers in the suit who claim DOMA renders serious harm to same-sex couples by denying them federal marriage-based benefits afforded to opposite-sex couples.

"In the wake of DOMA, it is only sexual orientation that differentiates a married couple entitled to federal marriage-based benefits from one not so entitled," Tauro wrote. "And this court can conceive of no way in which such a difference might be relevant to the provision of the benefits at issue."

Largely overshadowed by the federal challenge to California's Proposition 8 currently before a San Francisco judge, the two DOMA lawsuits are precise attack on the 1996 law, targeting just one portion, known as Section 3, that limits the definition of marriage, for all federal purposes, to one man and one woman. Attorneys challenging Prop. 8 have made more broader claims  regarding the fundamental right to marriage and the unconstitutional nature of laws that bar marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Read the rest of the story from Advocate.com here.

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