I realize I haven’t been completely objective (not that I ever claimed to be), and for a while there, I was a member of the Obama cheer-leading squad, but I’ve got to say, for me at least, the honeymoon is now officially over. Its not that I expected the new administration to do everything right, especially considering the seemingly insurmountable trouble they are faced with; its just, I never thought they would do something so clearly wrong.
To be fair, lets give a little context.
The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA as it is known, was a bill signed into law by President Clinton – NOT President Bush — on September 21, 1996. It basically says that no state can be forced to recognize other state’s same-sex marriages and that the federal government is required not to. So yeah, its pretty bad.
No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ’spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife
Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer, a gay couple who were married in California before Proposition 8 and had taken the two bans on marriage to Federal Court, were fought by the Obama Administration’s Justice Department. While it is rare for an administration not to defend the current laws (though not unheard of), whether or not they agree with them, it makes matters worse that Justice Department has written a brief which makes arguments comparing gay marriage to incestuous relationships.
The brief insists it is reasonable for states to favor heterosexual marriages because they are the “traditional and universally recognized form of marriage.” In arguing that other states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages under the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause, the Justice Department cites decades-old cases ruling that states do not have to recognize marriages between cousins or an uncle and a niece.
This is not a direction I expected this president to go in. For someone who travels the globe, preaching tolerance and understanding, he should make more of an effort to practice it at home.
#1 by Nick - June 17th, 2009 at 10:41
Yeah, Obama has really screwed the pooch on this one. Frankly, I’m just confused how he can spew rhetoric about post-anything America but still pull shit like this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/politics/17gays.html?hp
I mean, he’s basically legislating for gays to be second class citizens. Disgusting.
#2 by Will - July 15th, 2009 at 08:45
This is a States rights issue, not Obama’s attempt to take the gay-marriage debate to a federal level. This is actually a strength of our democracy - freedom from tyranny. If the people in one state want to vote a particular way on an issue, it is their right to do so. If the people living in the next State over don’t agree with their neighbors, they are FREE to disagree. This is America, not mother Russia… Freedom is individual and all-encompassing here. My freedom to be gay or straight is no more or less important than your freedom to have an opinion about it.
That said, the whole hospital visitation rights thing is a joke. I can understand how there could be a debate about the tax-law side of the gay marriage issue, but the rest of the stuff is just old fashioned bigotry.
#3 by zoboxrox - July 15th, 2009 at 11:15
Its not about the legal aspects of the brief — its about the wording. If Obama wants to follow the law that was written before him, that’s a good thing.
Its in his comparison of gay marriage to incest that the trouble begins. I mean, come on! This guy understands every nuance to every word he uses… you’d think he’d be a little more sensitive.
Also, you have to be careful when it comes to “opinions” — remember, separate but equal — its not the way we do things here.