Current Affairs

Connecticut, New York and Vermont to challenge anti-equality law

Sep 08 2012
Written by Joseph McCormick

Vermont is the latest US state to sign a legal bid requesting an appeals court to rule that the legal definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.

Vermont Attorney General, William Sorrell, said that Connecticut and New York also signed the bid, which deems the Defence of Marriage Act as being against the US constitution, because it unfairly discriminates against same-sex couples.

He said that the brief was filed in a case where a lesbian, who had married in Canada, was charged $350,000 in estate taxes after her partner died, as their marriage was not recognsed.

The ACLU filed the petition, a writ of certiorari, on behalf of 83-year-old Edith Windsor, who was treated in law as if she and her late wife Thea Spyer were strangers.

Ms Windsor, speaking earlier this year, said of her 44-year relationship with Ms Spyer: “It’s thrilling to have a court finally recognise how unfair it is for the government to have treated us as though we were strangers.”