The Obama Administration Department of Justice continues its charade of defending the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court filings, while at the same time President Obama himself increases his support for same-sex marriage, and Vice President Biden says that "gay marriage" is inevitable.
The DOJ writes, "When DOMA was enacted, the institution of marriage had long been understood as a formal relationship between a man and a woman, and state and federal law had been built on that understanding. But our society is evolving. Over the years, the prevailing concept of marriage has been challenged as unfair to a significant element of the population. Recently there has been a growing recognition that the prevailing regime is harmful to gay and lesbian members of our society."
UPDATE 4/21/11: President Obama promises homosexualists that if re-elected his "evolution process" on same-sex "marriage" will come to fruition.
-- From "Gay Rights Groups Angered by Justice Department's DOMA Defense" by Stephanie Condon, CBS News 1/14/11
The gay rights community is pressing President Obama to take a bolder stance in favor of gay marriage after the Justice Department on Thursday filed a brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
Mr. Obama says he is opposed to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages, and the Justice Department has explicitly stated that the president maintains that position. However, after a district judge ruled in July that DOMA is unconstitutional, the Justice Department announced it would appeal the ruling because it has an obligation to defend all federal laws.
In its brief, the Justice Department argues that the federal government should maintain its current laws on marriage while the states experiment with their own marriage laws.
The appeal explicitly addresses Mr. Obama's opposition to the law.
"Indeed, the President supports repeal of DOMA and has taken the position that Congress should extend federal benefits to individuals in same-sex marriages," the Justice Department says. "But a consensus behind that approach has not yet developed, and Congress could properly take notice of the divergent views regarding same-sex marriage across the states."
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From "Justice Dept. appeals judge's decision on same-sex marriage" by Sandhya Somashekhar, Washington Post Staff Writer 1/15/11
Gay groups had pleaded with President Obama to let the judge's ruling stand, but on Thursday, the Justice Department officially filed its appeal to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. Gay groups responded that they were ready to take the case to the next level.
Obama has said in the past that he does not support the right of gay couples to marry, though he said last month that his views are "evolving." His administration has shepherded through several reforms recently that expand the rights of gay couples to visit their ailing spouses in the hospital and recognize gay parents on passports. With Obama's backing, Congress in December voted to lift the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.
The Justice Department has said it has little choice but to defend the law. "The Justice Department is defending the statute, as it traditionally does when acts of Congress are challenged in court," spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said in a statement.
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From "Same-sex marriage.Gay groups criticize Justice Department brief" by Ben Smith, Politico 1/13/11
Gay groups are furious with a Justice Department brief defending — though in quite narrow terms — the Defense of Marriage Act, which candidate Obama, unlike even his Democratic rivals, had pledged to repeal in full.
"DOMA is supported by rationales that constitute a sufficient rational basis for the law. For example, as explained below, it is supported by an interest in maintaining the status quo and uniformity on the federal level and preserving room for the development of policy in the states," says the government's brief (.pdf) in two cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. The brief focuses solely on the virtues of keeping the federal law while states experiment, and not the underlying question of marriage.
The half-heartedness of that defense didn't offer much solace to activists who — despite the Justice Department's traditional role defending federal laws — are demanding that Obama return to the full support for same-sex marriage that he advocated in the 1990s.
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From "What DOJ Thinks of the Defense of Marriage Act Doesn't Matter Much" by Andrew Cohen, The Atlantic 1/16/11
Here . . . is one passage in the Administration's brief. Federal lawyers want to reassure the appellate court that there is no "animus" in the DOMA and that there is perfectly rational reason for its enactment. They wrote:
"DOMA, which implicates over 1000 federal laws, reflects Congress reasonable response to this sill-evolving debate among the states regarding same-sex marriage. The Constitution permitted Congress to enact DOMA as a means to preserve the status quo, ensure consistency in the distribution of federal marriage-based benefits, and respect policy developments in the states without implicating other states or the United States, pending the resolution of the debate taking place in the states over whether to permit same-sex marriage."
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