From AMERICAblog:
Friday, June 12, 2009
Obama defends DOMA in federal court.
Says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget. Invokes incest and marrying children.
by John Aravosis (DC) on 6/12/2009 09:44:00 AM
UPDATE: Obama spokesman caught lying to Politico.
Joe and I have been trying since last night to get a copy of the government's brief just filed in this case. This is not the GLAD case that we've written about previously, it's another in California.
We just got the brief from reader Lavi Soloway. It's pretty despicable, and gratuitously homophobic. It reads as if it were written by one of George Bush's top political appointees. I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn't just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn't motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn't be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles). He argued that DOMA doesn't discriminate against us because it also discriminates about straight unmarried couples (ignoring the fact that they can get married and we can't).
He actually argued that the courts shouldn't consider Loving v. Virginia, the miscegenation case in which the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban interracial marriages, when looking at gay civil rights cases. He told the court, in essence, that blacks deserve more civil rights than gays, that our civil rights are not on the same level.
And before Obama claims he didn't have a choice, he had a choice. Bush, Reagan and Clinton all filed briefs in court opposing current federal law as being unconstitutional (we'll be posting more about that later). Obama could have done the same. But instead he chose to defend DOMA, denigrate our civil rights, go back on his promises, and contradict his own statements that DOMA was "abhorrent." Folks, Obama's lawyers are even trying to diminish the impact of Roemer and Lawrence, our only two big Supreme Court victories. Obama is quite literally destroying our civil rights gains with this brief. He's taking us down for his own benefit.
Holy cow. Obama invoked incest and people marrying children.
The courts have followed this principle, moreover, in relation to the validity of marriages performed in other States. Both the First and Second Restatements of Conflict of Laws recognize that State courts may refuse to give effect to a marriage, or to certain incidents of a marriage, that contravene the forum State's policy. See Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws § 134; Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 284.5 And the courts have widely held that certain marriages performed elsewhere need not be given effect, because they conflicted with the public policy of the forum. See, e.g., Catalano v. Catalano, 170 A.2d 726, 728-29 (Conn. 1961) (marriage of uncle to niece, "though valid in Italy under its laws, was not valid in Connecticut because it contravened the public policy of th[at] state"); Wilkins v. Zelichowski, 140 A.2d 65, 67-68 (N.J. 1958) (marriage of 16-year-old female held invalid in New Jersey, regardless of validity in Indiana where performed, in light of N.J. policy reflected in statute permitting adult female to secure annulment of her underage marriage); In re Mortenson's Estate, 316 P.2d 1106 (Ariz. 1957) (marriage of first cousins held invalid in Arizona, though lawfully performed in New Mexico, given Arizona policy reflected in statute declaring such marriages "prohibited and void").
Then in the next paragraph, they argue that the incest and child rape cases therefore make DOMA constitutional:
The fact that States have long had the authority to decline to give effect to marriages performed in other States based on the forum State's public policy strongly supports the constitutionality of Congress's exercise of its authority in DOMA.
Rest of article at link above.
Another article on this issue over at Pam's House Blend.
This was a political blunder by The President. Please explain to me how it isn't.
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1 comment:
Advice from outside the country...
Whatever ya do, don't use this as an excuse to throw up your hands in apathy, "oh politicians can't be trusted," "in 4 years I'll vote for Nader/Ron Paul" and forget about this. That's not how anything gets done. You need to hold Obama's feet to the fire. Scream your bloody heads off. Flood his office with phone calls and emails, march on Washington, follow him around asking "why aren't you keeping your promise" relentlessly, alert the media, keep up the media pressure, go on strike if you can. You have to make such a stink--make this the summer of gay rights, become the Gay Noise Machine--that it becomes a public embarrassment for Obama.
Good news is I do think he's susceptible to public pressure/humiliation because he isn't an ideologue. There is no perfect candidate, and America isn't going to get anyone left-er than milquetoast centrism of Obama, so don't sit on your ass waiting for somebody better in 4 years. Now is the time. Take your rights.
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