National Post
Obama: Defense of Marriage Act a violation of gay rights
By Sheldon Alberts
WASHINGTON — In a major victory for the U.S. gay rights movement, President Barack Obama has directed the Justice Department to stop defending legislation banning federal recognition of same-sex marriage in America.
The decision comes just two months after Congress, at Mr. Obama’s urging, repealed the 17-year-old ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ law that prevented gays from serving openly in the American military.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Defense of Marriage Act can no longer be defended as constitutional because it applies to a group that has a “documented history of discrimination” and therefore requires a “heightened standard of scrutiny” than it has in the past.
“This is a monumental decision for the thousands of same-sex couples and their families who want nothing more than the same rights and dignity afforded to other married couples,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group.
Mr. Obama’s decision to abandon support of the Defense of Marriage Act is almost certain to produce an uproar among social conservatives and now stands to become a campaign issue with Republican candidates seeking the White House in 2012.
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins called Mr. Obama’s decision “appalling” and said Republicans in Congress must now take up the legal fight to protect the Defense of Marriage Act.
“Marriage as a male-female union has been easily defended in court and overwhelmingly supported by the American people,” Mr. Perkins said. “There is absolutely no excuse beyond pandering to his liberal political base for President Obama’s decision to abandon his constitutional role to defend a federal law enacted overwhelmingly by Congress.”
The 1996 law defined marriage as a “legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and said the word ‘spouse’ is reserved only for “a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” The legislation prevents the U.S. government from recognizing gay marriages sanctioned in individual states. It also says a same-sex union considered legal by one state does not need to be recognized by another.
Since taking office in early 2009, Mr. Obama has said repeatedly he considers the act to be a bad law.
The Justice Department has, until now, defended the law against constitutional challenges because they were launched in jurisdictions where existing legal precedent established a “rational basis” to single out people based on sexual orientation.
But the latest challenges to the law are being filed in an appeals court — where no legal precedent guides judges on how to evaluate claims of discrimination against gays.
That created a legal opening for Mr. Obama administration lawyers to argue the Defense of Marriage Act needed to meet “a more rigorous standard, under which laws targeting minority groups with a history of discrimination are viewed with suspicion by the courts.”
Mr. Obama has concluded that the law “as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional,” Mr. Holder said.
Holder said the Justice Department will no longer defend Section 3 of the law, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing gay marriages.
In a separate letter to House Speaker John Boehner, Mr. Holder said social attitudes toward homosexuality have changed substantially in the 15 years since the Defense of Marriage Act was passed. Mr. Holder cited the recent repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and several lower court rulings against the act.
“There is, regrettably, a significant history of purposeful discrimination against gay and lesbian people, by governmental as well as private entities, based on prejudice and stereotypes that continue to have ramifications today,” Mr. Holder said.
Mr. Obama said during the 2008 presidential campaign that he was personally opposed to gay marriage but supported civil unions for homosexual couples. He subsequently came under persistent pressure from gays and lesbians — a key demographic for Democrats — for not advocating strongly enough on their behalf.
At a December news conference following the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ in the military, Mr. Obama described his feelings about gay marriage as “constantly evolving” as he learned more about the issue.
“I struggle with this,” Mr. Obama said then.
“My baseline is a strong civil union that provides them the protections and the legal rights that married couples have . . . But I recognize that from their perspective it is not enough.”
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday Mr. Obama’s personal view on gay marriage was “distinct” from the legal decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
Notwithstanding the administration’s decision, the Defense of Marriage Act will continue to be enforced until U.S. courts “can make the final determination about its constitutionality,” Mr. Carney said.
“The president is constitutionally bound to enforce the laws.”
http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/02/23/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-a-violation-of-gay-rights/
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