Symposium Foreword to Defense of Marriage Act: Law, Policy, and the Future of Marriage

Abstract

On March 30, 2012, the Fordham Law Review held a daylong conference on the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a statute enacted in 1996 with large majorities in both the House and Senate and signed into law by President Clinton. The Symposium could not have come at a better time: there have been extraordinary changes in the political dynamics surrounding relationship rights since DOMA’s enactment in 1996, when same-sex couples could not marry in any U.S. or foreign jurisdiction.