DOMA Decision Challenged: Arizona-based Group Seeks Reversal

The DOMA decision to allow gay marriage has been challenged by a group in Arizona. The group is seeking a reversal of the Supreme Courts ruling.

The Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage is being challenged by lawyers from Arizona, who filed an emergency petition on Saturday. They are acting for a group called ‘Alliance Defending Freedom.’

Senior Counsel, Austin Nimocks, said that his clients have 22 days to ask the court to reconsider its verdict. Also, the losing side has 25 days to request a rehearing. The appeal is based on the legal powers of the Supreme Court, and its relationship to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

The issue is complex, but the general feeling is that it will not succeed. Vikram Amar, a constitutional law professor in the University of California, said “It was within the 9th circuit’s power to do what it did.”

However, Nimocks claims that the court was unfair, acted prematurely, and that the decision is not legally binding. He is seeking an immediate restoration of the previous ban because his clients learned that 81 same sex couples have already received licenses to marry.

Immediately following the decision, the San Francisco city office worked over the weekend to process applications. Coincidentally, the local Gay Pride Parade was taking place at the same time.

Perhaps the most visually striking images among the applicants were those in military uniform. One of whom was Michael Potoczniak, 38, an officer in the National Guard who will now be able to marry his partner of 10 years, Todd Saunders, 47.

It is only 2 years since the repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay service allowed Potoczniak to enlist. Now, he wants to make the point that servicemen and women have always married in uniform, so why not he and his partner?

He is just one amongst hundreds, soon to be thousands, of same sex couples who hope and pray (if they do) that the Arizona ploy will fail.