On January 5, 2012, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago decided the suit of a same-sex binational couple. Demos Revelis and Marcel Maas, married in Iowa in 2010, sought to prevent the USCIS from applying Section 3 of DOMA to Revelis's application for a permanent residence visa for Maas and, in the court's words, "that their petition be reviewed and decided on the same basis as other married couples." Judge Harry D. Leinenweber, a Reagan appointee, denied the government's motion to dismiss. BLAG has argued for the suit to be dismissed. In July the court stayed proceedings until mid-October because the USCIS was considering denying the plaintiffs' request on grounds unrelated to DOMA.