"Wouldn't it be Nice" - Beach Boys
This Statement by the Attorney General regarding the Obama Administration's decision that it can no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act is, as the title of the post indicates, a big fucking deal. I actually think people are not really grasping how big a deal as it is -- perhaps because expectations on this front have grown so exponentially. A friend of mine emailed a pretty ho-hum "well I guess they're gearing up for 2012." Okay -- let's say that they are. That means the President of the United States has decided that it will be politically advantageous for him to campaign to facilitate the recognition of gay marriages across the United States. Think about that.
DOMA was passed in 1996, a mere fifteen years ago and was largely a tactical move by the Clinton Administration to fend off a possible constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Again, consider the journey that this represents -- only a decade and a half ago a Democratic president felt the need to throw a sop to anti-gay legislators in the hope that it would leave the U.S. Constitution unscathed -- and now we are talking about the possibility that the next Democratic President, elected just eight years after the sginer of the bill left office, could take political advantage by not defending this law. I view that as a pretty profound development.
I also think the text of the Attorney General's Statement is worth looking at:
After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination. Consequently, the Department will not defend the constitutionality of Section 3 of DOMA as applied to same-sex married couples in the two cases filed in the Second Circuit.
The Statement goes on to say:
Furthermore, pursuant to the President ’ s instructions, and upon further notification to Congress, I will instruct Department attorneys to advise courts in other pending DOMA litigation of the President's and my conclusions that a heightened standard should apply, that Section 3 is unconstitutional under that standard and that the Department will cease defense of Section 3.
I think that this is pretty epic stuff.
I always cringed a bit during the campaign when Obama (and the other major Democratic candidates for the presidency) asserted his opposition to gay marriage. It felt contrived and, momentarily, expedient. I always felt a better line, if one wanted to duck the issue, was to proclaim it a matter best left to state law. It seems now that the White House has made this move that it would only be logical for the President to take the next step and endorse gay marriage, which, it appears, should be legal in Maryland within the next few weeks.
Anyway, I think we should celebrate this. (Thanks to kathy a. for bringing this to our attention.)
What else is happening? It seems like our rhetoric on Libya is sharpening -- interesting times.
