TENNESSEE GUERILLA WOMEN

Friday, June 12, 2009

Obama DOJ Defends DOMA


More bad news. The Fierce Advocate for the rights of gays and lesbians defends the deplorable Defense of Marriage Act:

The U.S. Department of Justice Thursday night filed a motion to dismiss a legal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. . . To read the brief as an LGBT person is to be disheartened. John Aravosis at Americablog has a nice point-by-point breakdown of the arguments. But chief among them are two that strike at heart of the gay marriage dilemma:

1) In terms of federal benefits, LGBT people are not deemed a protected class of citizen and, as such, are undeserving of the same level of considerations that other minorities might get. . .

2) As it pertains to same-sex marriage, Justice argues that it's completely constitutional for Congress to take a “go-slow” approach to recognizing certain kinds of marriages, thereby excluding certain people from the federal rights that others enjoy.