The NAACP Legal Defense and Education
Fund (NAACP LDF) has called on the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down
the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), saying that the 1996 law
“perpetuates a social hierarchy” similar to the “separate but
equal” system of segregation, also known as Jim Crow laws.
The NAACP LDF makes the argument in an
amicus brief filed in support of plaintiffs in United States
v. Windsor.
The case set to be heard later this
month challenges DOMA's restriction on the federal government to
recognize the legal marriages of gay and lesbian couples.
“DOMA's denial of marital benefits
under federal law to gays and lesbians subordinates them within the
institution of marriage. And like early laws that were designed to
oppress African Americans, DOMA relegates gays and lesbians to an
unequal and inferior status as a group,” the
brief states.
“Of course, the nature of
discrimination against gays and lesbians differs fundamentally from
de jure racial segregation, just as racial discrimination differs
from discrimination based on sex and other suspect classifications to
which heightened scrutiny applies.”
“But DOMA and other laws that
purposefully infringe on the rights of gay people are analogous to
the racial caste system effectuated under 'separate but equal' in an
important respect: they create and perpetuate a social hierarchy that
is premised on the superiority of one group over another.”
The NAACP LDF originated in the legal
department of the NAACP in the 1930s. It broke off from the NAACP in
1939.