No Hopey Changey for You: Despite Talk, Obama Admin Defends DOMA Again in Action
posted 2nd November 2009 in Barack Obama, Democrats, Legislation, Liberty, Politics, Sex and Gender by Jim
When President Barack Obama declared to the Human Rights Campaign gala banquet and a nation of television watchers that “I’ve called on Congress to repeal the so-called DOMA,” I believed that he would actually keep his campaign promise to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act. The Defense of Marriage Act, for those of you who have been asleep since 1996, is a law signed by Bill Clinton that made it legal for the federal government to recognize marriages in various states between members of the opposite sex, but illegal for the federal government to recognize marriages in any state between members of the same sex.
I was surprised and shocked when President Obama reiterated his campaign promise, considering the work of his administration in June of 2009 to defend DOMA in federal court. The arguments made by the Obama administration in defending the Defense of Marriage Act included — I kid you not — comparisons between same-sex marriage to incest and pedophilia.
But Barack Obama sure did make his promise on October 10 before the Human Rights Campaign gala banquet, and the room roared its approval.
Then the Obama administration turned around and defended the Defense of Marriage Act again in federal court at the end of October, while HRC staffers were still basking in the afterglow.
Some people are going to argue that the Department of Justice has no choice but to defend the laws on the books, to pretend they are constitutional even if they are not (and how does a law that recognizes the legal state marriages of some people but not the legal state marriages of other people possibly square with the 14th Amendment to the Constitution?). But as a former top Justice Department lawyer notes, this argument is bull. For one thing, the Department of Justice has always reserved the right to acknowledge in court that laws passed by Congress are unconstitutional. The Obama Department of Justice has chosen not to bother in the case of DOMA. The Obama Department of Justice has gone the other direction, choosing to make wild, extreme arguments declaring that gay marriage is equivalent to incest, that there is no right to equal treatment under law if you’re not straight, and that discrimination under law is a constitutional act, Loving v. Virginia be damned. The Obama Department of Justice has felt perfectly free to leave plenty of other federal laws undefended in court — such as federal torture statute, federal wiretapping statutes, and the Freedom of Information Act. The Obama Department of Justice kicks these laws to the curb and refuses to recognize their authority. Why does it feel the need to declare discrimination against gay people to be kosher, and gay people to be equal to child rapists, in federal court?
In its words, the Obama administration makes promises, promises, promises to the gay and lesbian community regarding the Defense of Marriage Act. Its practices do not follow its promises.
Tags: 14th Amendment, Barack Obama, defense of marriage act, doma, equal rights, equality, federal court, gay, lesbian, lgbt, promises
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More and more signs that Obama is a big disappointment.
All his soothing words about the economy are also to be doubted as the Fed and Wall Street continue to draw tax payer money to support insolvent banks and insurance companies, more fictitious money is printed daily, and our debt balloons ever higher. This too will end badly (probably when he’s out of office).
Well this is totally off the original topic (which was a valid critique), but, Tom, the government is already making money back off the banks it bailed out.
Since March:
Signature Bank of New York said on Tuesday that it had repaid $120 million to the Treasury Department. Old National Bancorp of Indiana returned $100 million, Iberiabank of Louisiana paid back $90 million, and Bank of Marin Bancorp of Novato, Calif., repaid $28 million. All of the banks paid 5 percent interest on the money they had received.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/business/01bank.html
And continuing in June:
The Treasury Department granted permission to 10 of the nation’s largest financial institutions to repay $68 billion in government-bailout cash, showing that the industry is rebounding from losses that sank some firms and caused the world economy to buckle last year.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124455528999797923.html
“We have this very strange situation today in America where we have given banks hundreds of billions of dollars and the president has to beg the banks to lend and they refuse. What we did was the wrong thing. It has weakened the economy and has increased our deficit, making it more difficult for the future.”
-Joseph Stiglitz
meanwhile, gays and transgenders have to get it on in the back seat just like teenagers do. can’t get mom and pop to let ‘em have a place of their own. when will we grow up?
not to make light of the topic (well,a little light), but, there are some really big issues obama is facing. maybe we could wait until the pie is out of the oven before we taste it and call it sour.
i love mixing metaphors!