(Miami, Florida) The U.S. Justice Department Friday asked a Federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act. 

Attorney General John Ashcroft is fighting a lawsuit filed by four same-sex marriages who argue the Defense of Marriage Act, which was enacted by Congress in 1996 and signed by President Clinton, is unconstitutional. 

The law defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman and allows states to refuse to recognize gay marriages from other states.

Friday's action is the federal government's first direct legal defense of DOMA.

The suit is one of two filed in Federal court in Florida by Ellis Rubin, who is representing two same-sex couples.

One suit was filed on behalf of a Tampa Bay lesbian couple who married in Canada but whose marriage is not recognized in the US.

Rev. Phyllis E. Hunt and her spouse, Vilia Corvision, were married last month in Toronto. Hunt is the pastor of Metropolitan Community Church, in Tampa, Corvision, is of Cuban descent. They have been together over 11 years.

The other suit also involves an MCC pastor, the Rev. Nancy Wilson, and her spouse Paula Schoenwether, a family marriage counselor.

Wilson and Schoenwether have been together for 27 years and were married July 2 in Massachusetts, the only US state where same-sex marriages are recognized.

The issue of same-sex marriages has become a theme of the presidential race, with President Bush calling call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, which Democratic challenger John Kerry opposes.

Kerry also opposes gay marriage, but defends a gay couple's rights to the same legal protections as those conferred in marriage.

©365Gay.com® 2004

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