Marriage Equality Goes To The Supreme Court Once Again: Viacom Joins 378 Employers And Organizations In A Submission To The Court
Back in 2013, the Supreme Court considered whether a federal law called the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional. DOMA said that, for purposes of federal benefits that go to married couples, only opposite-sex married couples were entitled to those benefits even if a same-sex couple had married in a state that recognized such marriages. Viacom and 277 other companies and organizations made a submission to the Court arguing that it was unfair to companies and their same-sex married employees to require that they be treated differently from opposite-sex married employees when it came to federal benefits relating to health insurance, protected leave, retirement and other things. In June of that year in a case called Windsor, the Court held that DOMA denied same-sex married couples equal protection under the law and so was unconstitutional. We were proud to have had a small part in making that decision possible.