On February 24, the Department of Justice notified the First Circuit Court of Appeals that it would "cease to defend" "Gill" and "Massachusetts" as well. On July 1, 2011, the DOJ, with a filing in "Golinski", intervened for the first time on behalf of a plaintiff seeking to have DOMA Section 3 ruled unconstitutional, arguing that laws that use sexual orientation as a classification need to pass the court's intermediate scrutiny standard of review. The DOJ made similar arguments in a filing in "Gill" on July 7.