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Accountability * Integrity * Reliability
United States General Accounting Office
Washington, DC 20548
January 23, 2004
The Honorable Bill Frist
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Subject: Defense of Marriage Act: Update to Prior Report
Dear Senator Frist:
The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) provides definitions of marriage and spouse that
are to be used in construing the meaning of a federal law and, thus, affect the interpretation
of a wide variety of federal laws in which marital status is a factor.1 In 1997, we issued a
report identifying 1,049 federal statutory provisions classified to the United States Code in
which benefits, rights, and privileges are contingent on marital status or in which marital
status is a factor.2 In preparing the 1997 report, we limited our search to laws enacted prior
to September 21, 1996, the date DOMA was signed into law. Recently, you asked us to
update our 1997 compilation.
We have identified 120 statutory provisions involving marital status that were enacted
between September 21, 1996, and December 31, 2003. During the same period, 31 statutory
provisions involving marital status were repealed or amended in such a way as to eliminate
marital status as a factor. Consequently, as of December 31, 2003, our research identified a
total of 1,138 federal statutory provisions classified to the United States Code in which
marital status is a factor in determining or receiving benefits, rights, and privileges.
To prepare the updated list, we used the same research methods and legal databases that we
employed in 1997. Accordingly, the same caveats concerning the completeness of our
'The Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman
as husband and wife; it defines spouse as referring only to a person of the opposite sex who is a
husband or a wife. The Act requires that these definitions apply [i]n determining the meaning of any
Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus
and agencies of the United States. 1 U.S.C. § 7.
2 U.S. General Accounting Office, Defense of Marriage Act, GAO/OGC-97-16 (Washington, D.C.:
January 31, 1997).
GAO-04-353R Defense of Marriage Act](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.gao/gaobadxga0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)