Mother Jones: Did Obama Sabotage DOMA?

[marmar]

from MotherJones:



Did the Obama administration intentionally lose a major lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)? That's what gay-marriage foes seem to believe. On Thursday, a federal judge in Boston found that DOMA, which prohibits the federal government from extending pension and other employment benefits to same-sex couples, is unconstitutional. US District Judge Joseph Tauro, a Nixon appointee no less, said that DOMA violates the equal protection rights of those couples and tramples the rights of the states to regulate marriage in violation of the 10th Amendment. Tauro writes:

As irrational prejudice plainly never constitutes a legitimate government interest, this court must hold that Section 3 of DOMA as applied to Plaintiffs violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The case was one of those weird holdover lawsuits filed during the Bush administration, which would have fought for DOMA to the death, but then was limply defended by the Obama administration. Obama's Department of Justice was clearly holding its nose and defending DOMA out of established practice rather than belief in its merits. In its briefs, the DOJ even said that while it believed that DOMA was constitutional, "this Administration does not support DOMA as a matter of policy, believes that it is discriminatory, and supports its repeal." The agency also said it "does not believe that DOMA is rationally related to any legitimate government interests in procreation and child-rearing," gay-marriage foes' primary argument supporting the law. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/07/obama-sabotage-gay-marriage-case

[Robb]

1. Hyper-pan-dimensional-chess, with lasers?

Certainly possible.

[cliffordu]

2. Nope. Just good politics.

[Robb]

4. No, actually *damn* good politics if true.

I've never gone wrong betting with this administration on matters of political acumen.

[cliffordu]

5. And neither have I...He plays a MUCH longer game than I

can....

[Smashcut]

16. Bookmarked, for when they appeal

:)

[grantcart]

23. There is probably a much simpler explanation

Career DOJ attorneys were probably told to aggressively pursue the government's side in all of the cases that have been assigned to them, but also told that if they used idiotic arguments or arguments based on prejudice their careers would probably not progress in the way that they hoped.

Taking away the stupid it is difficult to defend these suits.

[bluestateguy]

3. I don't know

What I do know is that Obama is a better chess player than anybody here.

[HughMoran]

6. Now I've seen everything

Somebody unrecced this story :wtf:

[KonaKane]

9. Can't have Obama doing something right, now.....

Here at DU, no good deed goes unrecced.

[Unvanguard]

7. I don't think it was sabotage exactly.

But I do think they made an effort to not defend it with arguments that have broader implications for discrimination against gay people. So none of the "responsible procreation" nonsense. (Of course, the consequence was that they had to defend a minimal standard of scrutiny, which meant that they argued against heightened scrutiny, and made the disingenuous argument that DOMA doesn't actually discriminate against gay people... there were no truly good options here, though arguably the one they took was the least bad.)

[Pirate Smile]

8. I was just listening to Jonathan Alter's new book on Obama's first year while on a bike ride. He

mentioned Obama getting angry sometimes - the example he used was when Obama found out the Justice Department had defended a Bush Era wiretapping case by citing the State Secrets law (I don't have the specifics, that is the extent of the explanation he provided) - he said Obama read about it in the NYT and went off, yelling "What the Fuck.." I can't remember what exactly followed but he was obviously pissed off and not aware of it before hand.

I think this has happened with a few of those types of cases, along with gay rights issues, where the standard Justice Dept. attorneys (who weren't political appointees) just continued dealing with cases now in the same way they had under Bush. It just pisses me off what a concerted effort they made to burrow their political hacks into non-political positions where they are protected by civil servant protections and continue to pop up pushing their RW hackery.

edit to add - I would hope by now (like this case may show) that they have decided to pull out any of these types of cases from the standard Justice Dept. attorneys and deal with them/represent the Federal Government in a way more consistent with the policies and positions of the current Administration.

[TheWraith]

10. Maybe we're overthinking this.

Maybe Obama's lawyers, as opposed to the Bush holdouts we've seen in the past, simply couldn't make a strong anti-gay-marriage argument without busting out laughing at themselves. :D

[NYC_SKP]

11. "this Administration does not support DOMA as a matter of policy...

...believes that it is discriminatory, and supports its repeal."

:thumbsup:


:kick:

[Dogmudgeon]

12. If the Cons make the "charge" stick ...

... it's grounds for impeachment.

As it is now, it's only grounds for internet snark.

Which also answers the question, "Why can't Obama just give orders that will please us?"

--d!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

13. Come again?

:shrug:

[ruggerson]

14. The DOJ changed its tune because Obama responded to a tidal wave of anger ovoer the Smelt brief

And many of the people in this very thread argued fervently against that GLBT community anger here on DU.

This thread reads like the twilight zone.

[Hydra]

15. DU itself feels like the twilight zone

The number of people disconnecting from reality and grasping at straws is really beginning to worry me...just how widespread is this sort of thing in "normal" society?

[Unvanguard]

17. That's not correct. The briefs made essentially the same argument.

The main difference was the explicit mention in the Gill brief that Obama supported repeal. Neither relied on the original reasons provided by Congress for DOMA.

[TheWraith]

20. Once again, a brief written solely by arch-conservative Bush lawyers.

Contrast to the more recent example which seems to have been written by Obama's people.

[scarletlib]

18. I doubt it.

Constitutional lawyers commented that this was an unconstitutional law from the moment it was passed. It was just waiting for a challenge in the courts to be overturned.

[rucky]

19. The only way DOMA could be defended...

would have been to keep it out of the courts entirely. There's no valid legal rationale for it.

[treestar]

21. It is better to take it to court and have it lose than to just leave it

Many on DU act offended but they are not realizing if the government simply dropped the case, there would be not final ruling no the law being unconstitutional, so the law would stand - it's been passed and made into law.

Yet to keep the suit going, all the government can do is "defend" the law while the other side attacks it. Roll over and play dead and the law stands, as the plaintiff has nothing to attack.

[Name removed]

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