A divided federal appeals court in Manhattan struck down the Defense of Marriage Act Thursday as unconstitutional, joining an appeals court in Boston in rejecting the law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman, WORLD Magazine reports. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its 2-to-1 ruling just weeks after hearing arguments Sept. 27 on a lower court judge's ruling that DOMA was unconstitutional. The majority opinion, written by judge Dennis Jacobs, rejected a section of the law that defined "marriage" as only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife and "spouse" as only a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. The Supreme Court is expected to take up the case in the next year.
