On Tuesday, the Office of General Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives filed its merits briefing to the Supreme Court for the upcoming hearing on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. These filings are helpful in understanding the cases argued before the courts. What this filing reveals, per the House’s legal counsel, bodes poorly for their attempt to overturn the lower courts rulings against DOMA.

They start off with a description of what the filing calls “traditional marriage.” In brief:

To be sure, the federal government also has the option of borrowing state-law definitions, as it did during the long period when the states uniformly employed the traditional definition.