In the July 13 Daily Caller, NOM President Brian Brown highlights the Obama Administration’s “sabotage” of DOMA. Unable to repeal DOMA legislatively, the Obama Justice Department is cutting the legs out from under DOMA in the courts:
President Obama and Elena Kagan Sabotage DOMA Defense
Last Thursday, Judge Joseph Tauro, in an absurdly poorly written opinion, struck down portions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In striking down DOMA, Judge Tauro overturned a law that was passed by large bipartisan majorities, was signed into law by Pres. Clinton, and that merely clarified and codified the law of marriage.
In the process, Judge Tauro also struck a dagger into the heart of our democratic processes and our constitutional system of government.
Congress passed DOMA because of a credible threat that courts were going to impose gay marriage over the will of the voters. Judge Tauro’s outrageous ruling certainly validates this basic concern of the legislators.
But if there is any excuse for Judge Tauro’s ruling, it lies in this fact: no-one in that courtroom in front of him tried to defend the law. President Obama’s Justice Department (with Elena Kagan’s participation as Solicitor General) pretended to defend DOMA, while actually sabotaging the law and ensuring its overthrow by the courts.
President Obama is afraid he cannot deliver on his promise to overturn DOMA in Congress, so he’s bringing in courts to do his dirty work. It was an underhanded trick, a sham trial, by folks who have sworn to uphold the law of the land. If the Justice Department lawyers couldn’t defend the law, they could have at least stepped aside. To pretend to defend, while actually undercutting DOMA, was and is a low blow.
How did President Obama’s Justice Department, with Elena Kagan as solicitor general, sabotage DOMA? Let me count the ways.
