WASHINGTON, DC — On March 1, 212 Members of Congress—Democrats all—filed a Friend of the Court brief in the case of U.S. v. Edith Schlain Windsor, the landmark challenge to Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which is begin heard by the U.S. Supreme Court later this month.

The case concerns Edith Windsor, whom the federal government taxed more than $363,000 when her spouse, Thea Spyer, died in 2009. The couple married in 2007 after an engagement that lasted more than 40 years. Windsor, 83, challenged DOMA, and a federal district court and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in her favor, holding that DOMA violates the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee.

Section 3 of DOMA defines marriage, for purposes of federal law, as “only a legal union between one man and one woman,” excluding same-sex couples from all marriage-based federal responsibilities and rights.

A total of 172 Members of the House and 40 Members of the Senate signed onto the brief, which urges the Supreme Court to uphold the Second Circuit’s decision. It includes signatures from some Members who voted in favor of DOMA, but now consider it to be unconstitutional.

According to the brief, “The goal of maximizing the financial well-being and independence of widows is not furthered by depriving Edie Windsor and others like her of the estate-tax exemption that other married Americans receive. The policy of encouraging employers to provide family health benefits is not served either by denying to employers the tax deduction for providing those benefits to married gay and lesbian couples or by refusing to cover spouses of gay and lesbian federal employees.”

It continued, “Our national security is undermined by denying spousal benefits to gay and lesbian servicemembers, especially during periods of armed conflict. Our veterans are dishonored when we deny them the right to have their spouses buried alongside them in our national cemeteries.”