Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is the short title of a federal law of the United States passed on September 21, 1996 as Public Law No. 104-199, 110 Stat. 2419. Its provisions are codified at 1 U.S.C. § 7 and 28 U.S.C. § 1738C. The law has two effects:

-No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) needs to treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.

-The federal government defines marriage as a legal union exclusively between one man and one woman.

The bill was passed by Congress by a vote of 85-14 in the Senate[1] and a vote of 342-67 in the House of Representatives, and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996.

Coquille Tribe

In 2008 the Coquille Tribe legalized same-sex marriage, with the law going into effect in May 2009. The law approving same-sex marriage was adopted 5-2 by the Coquille Tribal Council and extends all of the tribal benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. To marry under Coquille law, at least one of the spouses must be a member of the tribe. In the 2000 Census, 576 people defined themselves as belonging to the Coquille Nation.

Although the Oregon voters approved an amendment to the Oregon Constitution in 2004 to prohibit same-sex marriages, the Coquille are a federally recognized sovereign nation, and thus not bound by the Oregon Constitution. On May 24, 2009, the first same-sex couple married under the Coquille jurisdiction.



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