Obama Shafts Gays
A while back I mentioned that in light of the passage of Proposition 8 here in California, and similar political debates around the US, I’d probably be keeping a political angle here for a while, then I went quiet and it didn’t really happen.
That changes today.
Today is the day the the Obama Adminstration, the Administration of a man who dared to call himself a “fierce advocate’ for LGBT equality, and pledged during his campaign to repeal the Defence of Marriage Act (the piece of legislation most responsible for, for example, The Mrs not being able to get a spousal visa and having to be humiliated by saying I ’support’ him financially), betrayed the LGBT community and the cause of equality in the most disgraceful manner imaginable.
The following is only skimming the surface of the story.
Arguing against a legal challenge to DOMA, President Obama’s Justice Department issued a brief which, among other things, connected gay marriage with incest and people marrying children, and basically created a framework on which to make ongoing defence of DOMA on their behalf almost obligatory.
Inexplicably, (and ironically given that today is the anniversary of the Virginia vs Loving decision), they argue that DOMA is not unconstitutional, because it doesn’t seek to discriminate against men or women. Essentially it reinforces the argument trotted out by bigots the world over (it was certainly a feature of the UK Parliamentary debate) that LGBT people can get married any time they like as long as it’s to someone of the opposite gender.
In amongst all this (and there’s a lot more that’s way over my head), the fact that DOMA saves the Federal Government money is trotted out as an argument. In a case involving equality of treatment for fuck’s sake.
By actively stating their support for DOMA as both constitutional and reasonable, Justice have surely made it impossible for the Administration to argue against it further down the line. And the worst of it is, they didn’t have to. They could have defended the current claim without needing to take one single step further in support of DOMA’s consitutionality. Someone, somewhere, in this “fierce advocate”’s team, decided that the Presidential position is unequivocally to support DOMA against all possible challenges, and to get its defence in first.
Oh, and by the way, there’s plenty of precedent from the last two administrations among others that means the DOJ is actually not required to defend cases against laws it believes to be unconstitutional, so they could have just not said ANYTHING. So first they decided that they would, then they decided to go a whole lot further than they needed to. There’s no way this isn’t a deliberate attack from the ‘fierce advocate’.
I’m somewhere beyond horrified and accelerating towards revolted.
Pam’s House Blend pulls it all together.
Amercablog’s John Aravosis on the brief (a comprehensive summary)
And in covering the DOJ’s attempt to claim (falsely) that they had to defend the case see this especially at the end:
You see, this is the problem with what Obama did to our community last night. He can talk all he wants about helping us get our civil rights (well, in fact, notice the Justice spokesman said nothing about Obama actually helping us get DOMA repealed), but the Obama administration’s own word will now be used against us, and against him, if he ever deigns to actually fulfill even one promise to our community.
Andrew Sullivan - Insult to injury
Equality California have an online ‘Letter to the President’ tool that I’d encourage any Americans reading please to use.