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| In this photo taken Monday, Nov. 12, 2012, Amy Cunninghis, left, and Karen Golinski, right, walk down a street near their home in San Francisco. All Golinski wanted was to enroll her spouse in her employer-sponsored health plan. Four years later, her request still is being debated. Because Golinski is married to another woman and she works for the federal government, her personal personnel problem has morphed into a multi-pronged legal attack by gay rights activists to overturn the 1996 law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. |
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Like a lot of newlyweds, Karen Golinski was eager to enjoy the financial fruits of marriage. Within weeks of her wedding, she applied to add her spouse to her employer-sponsored health care plan, a move that would save the couple thousands of dollars a year.
Her
ordinarily routine request still is being debated more than four years
later, and by the likes of former attorneys general, a slew of senators,
the Obama administration and possibly this week, the U.S. Supreme
Court.
Because Golinski is married to another
woman and works for the U.S. government, her claim for benefits has
morphed into a multi-layered legal challenge to a 1996 law that
prohibits the federal government from recognizing unions like hers.
The
high court has scheduled a closed-door conference for Friday to review
Golinski's case and four others that also seek to overturn the Defense
of Marriage Act overwhelmingly approved by Congress and signed by
President Bill Clinton.
The purpose of the meeting is to decide which, if any, to put on the court's schedule for arguments next year.
The
outcome carries economic and social consequences for gay, lesbian and
bisexual couples, who now are unable to access Social Security survivor
benefits, file joint income taxes, inherit a deceased spouse's pension
or obtain family health insurance.
The other
plaintiffs in the cases pending before the court include the state of
Massachusetts, 13 couples and five widows and widowers.
"It's
pretty monumental and it's an honor," said Golinski, a staff lawyer for
the federal appeals court based in San Francisco who married her
partner of 23 years, Amy Cunninghis, during the brief 2008 window when
same-sex marriages were legal in California.
The
federal trial courts that heard the cases all ruled the act violates
the civil rights of legally married gays and lesbians. Two appellate
courts agreed, making it highly likely the high court will agree to hear
at least one of the appeals, Lambda Legal Executive Director Jon
Davidson said.
"I don't think we've ever had
an occasion where the Supreme Court has had so many gay rights cases
knocking at its door," said Davidson, whose gay legal advocacy group
represents Golinski. "That in and of itself shows how far we've come."
The
Supreme Court also is scheduled to discuss Friday whether it should
take two more long-simmering cases dealing with relationship recognition
for same-sex couples.
One is an appeal of two
lower court rulings that struck down California's voter-approved ban on
same-sex marriage. The other is a challenge to an Arizona law that made
state employees in same-sex relationships ineligible for domestic
partner benefits.
The last time the court
confronted a gay rights case was in 2010, when the justices voted 5-4 to
let stand lower court rulings holding that a California law school
could deny recognition to a Christian student group that does not allow
gay members.
The time before that was the
court's landmark 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, which declared state
anti-sodomy laws to be an unconstitutional violation of personal
privacy.
Brigham Young University law
professor Lynn Wardle, who testified before Congress when lawmakers were
considering the Defense of Marriage Act 16 years ago, said he still
thinks the law passes constitutional muster.
"Congress
has the power to define for itself domestic relationships, including
defining relationships for purposes of federal programs," Wardle said.
At
the same time, he said, the gay rights landscape has shifted radically
since 1996, citing this month's election of the first sitting president
to declare support for same-sex marriage and four state ballot measures
being decided in favor of gay rights activists.
"This
is the gay moment, momentum is building," Wardle said. "The politics
are profound, and politics influence what the court does."
For Golinski and Cunninghis, getting this far has been a long, sometimes frustrating and sometimes heartening journey.
Citing
the act, known as DOMA, the Office of Personnel Management, the federal
government's human relations arm, initially denied Golinski's attempt
to enroll Cunninghis in the medical coverage she had selected for
herself and the couple's son, now 10.
"I got a
phone call from OPM in Washington, D.C., asking me to confirm that Amy
Cunninghis was female, and I said, `Yes, she is,' and they said, `We
won't be able to add her to your health plan," Golinski recalled.
Golinski
knew that her employer, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, had a
policy prohibiting discrimination against gay workers, so she filed an
employee grievance and won a hearing before the court's dispute
resolution officer, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski.
As
a lawyer for the court, she felt awkward about pursuing the issue, but
she was also angry. Lambda Legal and a San Francisco law firm offered to
represent her.
"I had been working for the
courts since 1990, and I feel, like everybody, I work hard and I'm a
valuable employee, and I'm not getting paid the same amount if I have to
pay for a whole separate plan for Amy," she said. "It was really
hurting our family."
Kozinski ruled that
Golinski was entitled to full spousal benefits, but federal officials
ordered Golinski's insurer not to process her application, prompting the
chief judge to issue a scathing opinion on her behalf.
After the government refused to budge, Golinski sued in January 2010.
The
couple had joked about whether they "would make a federal case" out of
their situation. Cunninghis noted that their genders would not have been
an issue had Golinski worked in the private sector or in state or local
government where domestic partnerships are offered.
Because of DOMA, she said, "we don't get access to a whole slew of benefits."
The
Department of Justice originally opposed Golinski in court but changed
course last year after President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric
Holder said they would no longer defend the law.
Republican
members of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, which oversees legal
activities of the House of Representatives, voted to hire an outside
lawyer first to back the act in Golinski's case and the four others, and
to then appeal the rulings on its unconstitutionality.
U.S.
District Judge Jeffrey White handed Cunninghis and Golinski an
unequivocal victory in February, finding that anti-gay sentiment
motivated Congress to pass DOMA.
In ordering
the government to allow Golinski to enroll her wife in a family health
plan, White rejected all of the House group's arguments, including that
the law was necessary to foster stable unions among men and women.
A
group of 10 U.S. senators who voted for DOMA in 1996 have filed a brief
with the Supreme Court angrily denouncing the judge's opinion and
urging the high court to overturn it.
"It is
one thing for the District Court to conclude that traditional moral
views, standing alone, do not justify the enactment of DOMA; it is quite
another to find that legislators who hold or express such moral views
somehow taint the constitutionality of the statute," they said.
Former
U.S. Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Edwin Meese also weighed in,
telling the court that Obama had failed in his duty and set a dangerous
precedent by declining to defend DOMA.
As a result of White's ruling, Cunninghis was allowed in March to be added to Golinski's health plan.
Golinski
so far is the only gay American who has been allowed to begin receiving
federal benefits while DOMA remains in effect, a development that could
be reversed if the Supreme Court upholds DOMA.
Until then, the couple said they are going to trust that the tide of history is moving toward gay rights.
"It
seems so simple to us: just put me on the family health plan,"
Cunninghis said. "It's much bigger than that obviously, yet it isn't."
