A challenge to both the state and federal law governing same-sex marriage should be decided without reaching the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the U.S. Attorney General’s Office said in a statement of interest declining to intervene.
A couple who had been married in Massachusetts and were unable to have their union recognized when they later moved to Pennsylvania brought a challenge in federal court in Philadelphia in September, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in June that struck down the provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, that defined a marriage as being only between a man and a woman. The provision of that law, Section 2, which allows states to decide whether or not they will recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, still stands.
