“While it is certainly true that many,perhaps most, married couples have children together (assisted or unassisted), it is the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting of children, that is the sine qua non of civil marriage.”

]“Permitting same-sex couples to marry will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect the stability of opposite-sex marriages.”

“[M]oral condemnation of homosexuality [does not] provide the requisite justification for the DOMA’s section three. The ‘bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group’ is not a legitimate [governmental] interest.”

The condemnation of homosexuality as immoral has been shaped by religious beliefs, conceptions of right and acceptable behavior, and respect for the traditional family. For many persons these are not trivial concerns but profound and deep convictions accepted as ethical and moral principles to which they aspire and which thus determine the course of their lives. ... The issue is whether the majority may use the power of the [government] to enforce these views on the whole society through operation of the ... law. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 571. The Court concludes it can not. The imposition of subjective moral
beliefs of a majority upon a minority cannot provide a justification for the legislation. The obligation of the Court is “to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.”

[T]he fact that the governing majority ... has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice; neither history nor tradition could save a law prohibiting miscegenation from constitutional attack.”

The Court has already addressed the four interests proffered by Congress during the passage of DOMA and found them not to be substantially related to an important governmental objective. Similarly, under the rational basis review, the Court finds that none of Congress’
proffered justifications constitute a rational relation in furtherance of some legitimate governmental end.

Specifically, the Court finds that Congress’ justification of promoting traditional notions of morality does not satisfy rational basis scrutiny. See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 582 (holding that “[m]oral disapproval of [homosexuals], like a bare desire to harm the group, is an interest that is insufficient to satisfy rational basis review under the Equal Protection Clause.”) Also, if the denial of benefits is designed to defend traditional notions of morality by discouraging same-sex marriage, “it does so only by punishing same-sex couples who exercise their rights under state law, and thus exhibits the ‘bare desire to harm’ same-sex couples.” In re Levenson, 587 F.3d at 932 (emphasis in original). This is forbidden by the Constitution. See Romer, 517 U.S. at 634-35. “Discouraging gay marriage serves only to force gay couples to live in a ‘state of sin’ rather than in a lawfully-recognized ‘state of connubial bliss’ that encourages a long-enduring permanent relationship that, in turn, serves as the basis of a state-recognized family.” In re Levenson, 587 F.3d at 932. The promotion of morality is not a cognizable governmental interest furthered by the denial of federal benefits and protections.

Similarly, the Court does not find the justification of preserving the government fisc satisfies rational basis review. See Lyng v. International Union, 485 U.S. 360, 376-77 (1988) (holding that previous cases make “clear that something more than an invocation of the public fisc is necessary to demonstrate the rationality of selecting [one group], rather than some other group, to suffer the burden of cost-cutting legislation.”). Ostensible savings to the government fisc that depends upon “distinguishing between homosexual and heterosexual [couples], similarly situated, ... cannot survive rational basis review.” See Diaz, 656 F.3d at 1014.8

The Court does not find the justification of encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing survives rational basis scrutiny. Even if the Court were to accept as true, which it does not, that opposite-sex parenting is somehow superior to same-sex parenting, DOMA is not rationally related to this alleged governmental interest.
[...]
DOMA has no effect on who may become a parent under federal or state law. Moreover, whether a same-sex couple is entitled to marriage benefits has no rational relation to that couple’s or an opposite-sex couple’s ability to procreate. Significantly, to reiterate, the ability to procreate has never been a precondition to marriage in any jurisdiction. See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 605 (Scalia, J. dissenting).9 Here, there is simply no connection between the ability (or capacity) to become a parent and the designation of federal entitlements based on a definition of marriage that excludes legally married couples who are capable of becoming parents.

Denying federal benefits to same-sex married couples has no rational effect on the procreation and child-rearing practices of opposite-sex married (or unmarried) couples.

Again, the argument that the definition of marriage should remain the same for the definition’s sake is a circular argument, not a rational justification. Simply stating what has always been does not address the reasons for it. The mere fact that prior law, history, tradition, the dictionary and the Bible have defined a term does not give that definition a rational basis, it merely states what has been. Tradition, standing alone, does not provide a rational basis for the law. Williams, 399 U.S. at 239. Simply, the “ancient lineage” of the law does not render it rational. See Heller, 509 U.S. at 327.

BLAG contends that Congress could have had a rational basis for the passage of DOMA by preserving the status quo in the federal definition of marriage while waiting for the states to “tinker with the substantive centuries-old definition of marriage.” (BLAG Opp. Br. on Motion for Summary Judgment at 22.) To the extent this argument is premised upon preserving a traditional definition of marriage for its own sake, the Court has already rejected this argument. As the court found in Gill, “[s]taying the course is not an end in and of itself, but rather a means to an end.” Gill, 699 F. Supp. 2d at 390-94. The long history of discrimination against gay men and lesbians does not provide a rational basis for continuing it.

Here, too, this Court finds that Congress cannot, like an ostrich, merely bury its head in the sand and wait for danger to pass, especially at the risk of permitting continued constitutional injury upon legally married couples. The fact that the issue is socially divisive does nothing to relieve the judiciary of its obligation to examine the constitutionality of the discriminating classifications in the law. Accordingly, the Court finds that Congressional caution in the area of social divisiveness does not constitute a rational basis.

The Court finds that neither Congress’ claimed legislative justifications nor any of the proposed reasons proffered by BLAG constitute bases rationally related to any of the alleged governmental interests. Further, after concluding that neither the law nor the record can sustain any of the interests suggested, the Court, having tried on its own, cannot conceive of any additional interests that DOMA might further.