In 1996, former US Senators Bill Bradley, Tom Daschle, Christopher Dodd and Alan Simpson gave their vote to the Defense of Marriage Act. Now they are telling the Supreme Court the law needs to be stricken down.

The group of senators filed a brief in support of Edith Windsor’s challenge to the law. The country’s highest court will hear oral arguments in her case on 27 March.

‘DOMA is an especially poor candidate for any claim of deference to the constitutional judgment of the political branches,’ Bradley, Daschle, Dodd and Simpson wrote in their brief as reported by BuzzFeed. ‘It was enacted hastily, with little independent consideration of its constitutionality, against the backdrop of a constitutional jurisprudence this Court has since abandoned. It was premised in large part on fears that subsequent experience has proven unfounded. And it effects a discrimination that we now have come to recognize as incompatible with our constitutional commitment to equal treatment under the law.’

Pointing to changes in the military and across the country, the former politicians maintain there is no rational reason to continue discrimination against LGBT families.

‘In short, the suggestion that our country’s vital institutions need protection from gay families has been thoroughly discredited by our national experience.’

Windsor’s case is based on the lack of federal recognition of her marriage to Thea Clara Spyer. In 2009, Spyer died and Windsor was assessed a $350,000 federal tax bill (this would not have happened if Windsor and Spyer were married to straight men). Signed by then President Bill Clinton, the 1996 law prohibits any federal acknowledgement of LGBT marriages, even in states where such unions are legal. Gay and lesbian married couples cannot file joint income taxes or receive survivor benefits.

DOMA prevents the US government from recognizing same-sex marriages even in states where such marriages are legal so couples cannot file joint federal tax returns or receive survivor benefits if one spouse dies. It was passed by both houses of Congress by wide margins in 1996 and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton. – See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-schedules-oral-arguments-gay-marriage-cases070113#sthash.dJwrCwpO.dpufDOMA prohibits any federal recogntion og LGBT unions, even in states where such marriages are legal.

Clara Spyer, had died in 2009

a $350,000 federal estate tax bill

a $350,000 federal estate tax bill

a $350,000 federal estate tax bill

a $350,000 federal estate tax bill