U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Al Franken and most of the Minnesota Democrats in the House have signed on to an amicus (friend of the court) brief urging the Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, as
unconstitutional. The brief, signed by 212 members of Congress, argues that the 1996 federal law violates individuals' right to equal protection by denying federal benefits to same-sex couples and their children. In the House, the brief was signed by Minnesota Democrats Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Tim Walz and Rick Nolan. The brief, led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,was filed in the case of U.S. v. Edith Schlain Windsor, a challenge to Section 3 of DOMA, which defines marriage for purposes of federal law as "only a legal union between one man and one woman." The filing comes a day after the Obama administration filed a similar Supreme Court brief challenging California's ban on same sex marriage, which came about from a voter initiative known as Proposition 8.
