This One's for Glenn...

Mr. Reynolds, if you're nasty.

(*ahem*): FASTER please ...

BOSTON — A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday found that a law barring the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, ruling that gay and lesbian couples deserve the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples.

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Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California, Irvine, School of Law, was more supportive of the logic of the two opinions, and said they worked together to establish a broad right of marriage for same-sex couples.

The key issue in this case, and in all litigation about marriage equality for gays and lesbians, is: ‘Does the government have a rational basis for treating same-sex couples differently from heterosexual couples?’ Here, the court says there is no rational basis for treating same-sex couples differently from homosexual couples. Therefore, DOMA is unconstitutional, and conditioning federal funding on compliance with DOMA is unconstitutional,” he said.

A central issue in the fight over the constitutionality of California’s same-sex marriage ban is whether laws restricting gay rights should be held to a tougher standard of review than the “rational basis” test, and so Judge Tauro’s decision takes a different path that would eliminate the need for that line of argument, Professor Chemerinsky said. “There’s no need to get to higher scrutiny if it fails rational basis review,” he said.