DOMA Defense - National Organization for Marriage

DOMA Defense

House Ethics Committee Tries End Run on DOMA!

Just when it appears Congress will not attempt to repeal DOMA in an election year, we learn that a Congressional committee is already considering its own end run on DOMA.

New Congressional Ethics Rules obtained by Roll Call include a section entitled "Same-Sex Marriage," including same-sex marriages under rules governing spousal disclosures for members of Congress and their staff -- a clear violation of the Defense of Marriage Act.

When questioned about the matter by Roll Call, the draft rules quickly disappeared from the House Ethics Committee website.

At best, the draft rules violate long-standing federal law. And it looks like an intentional back-door effort to begin eviscerating DOMA without the political capital needed to repeal it.

Urge your Congressman today to oppose these new draft guidelines and any effort that would undermine the clear language of DOMA: "[T]he word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife."

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Dear (recipient name),

New House ethics rules obtained by Roll Call would recognize same-sex couples as "spouses" for purposes House disclosure requirements. This is a clear violation of the Defense of Marriage Act which defines spouse as "a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife" for all purposes of federal law.

Obviously, the Ethics Committee has no authority to contravene the plain language of DOMA, and the new rules were pulled from the Committee website after they were discovered by Roll Call.

I am writing as a concerned constituent, asking you to (1) oppose any rules or regulatory actions that would recognize same-sex marriages, and (2) take any available action to investigate the origin of these new rules. Given the political realities in Congress, this gives every indication of being a calculated, incremental, back-door effort to undermine DOMA, rather than an innocent mistake.

Marriage and respect for the law are both important fundamentals of our society. I thank you for your attention to this issue.

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