The U.S. bishops' Office of General Counsel said the Obama administration's decision to no longer support the Defense of Marriage Act in legal challenges ahead "represents an abdication" of its "constitutional obligation to ensure that laws of the United States are faithfully executed."
"Marriage has been understood for millennia and across cultures as the union of one man and one woman," the office said in a statement issued Feb. 23 after President Barack Obama instructed the Justice Department to stop defending the federal law passed by Congress and signed into law in 1996 by President Bill Clinton. [source]
Brian Brown is quoted later in the article as well.
Maggie and Brian, as well as Matt Staver of Liberty Council, are quoted in this article from LifeSiteNews:
Matt Staver of Liberty Counsel called the decision “outrageous and unthinkable” and added that the president has “betrayed the American people by his refusal to defend the federal law that affirms what many courts upheld as constitutional, namely, that marriage is between one man and one woman.”
Brian Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) said in response, “we have not yet begun to fight for marriage.”
“The Democrats are responding to their election loss with a series of extraordinary, extra-constitutional end runs around democracy, whether it’s fleeing the state in Wisconsin and Indiana to prevent a vote, or unilaterally declaring homosexuals a protected class under our Constitution, as President Obama just did,” Brown said in a press release. “We call on the House to intervene to protect DOMA, and to tell the Obama administration they have to respect the limits on their power. This fight is not over, it has only begun!”
However, NOM chairman Maggie Gallagher says she sees a benefit to the pro-marriage movement in the decision.
“The Obama administration was throwing this case in court anyway,” she said. “The good news is this now clears the way for the House to intervene and to get lawyers in the court room who actually want to defend the law, and not please their powerful political special interest.” [source]
From Professor Orin Kerr of George Washington Law, who blogs at the Volokh Conspiracy (one of the top legal blogs):
I can understand the intense political pressure on the Obama Administration not to defend DOMA. Presumably Obama and pretty much every significant lawyer in the Obama Administration opposes DOMA, whether or not they can take that position on the record. For what it’s worth, I oppose it, too. At the same time, I worry that the decision may have serious long-term effects on the role of the executive branch and executive power. In this post, I want to explain my concerns, and then I’ll open it up for reader comments on whether my concerns are justified. [Continue Reading]
Many people are tired of the culture war. They'd like to throw in the towel and go back to "normal."
There's only one problem: The culture war will always be ongoing because the left is never going to stop waging it. You can never "give in" and be done with it -- they will simply move on to the next item. [Continue reading]
"The good news is this now clears the way for the House to intervene and to get lawyers in the court room who actually want to defend the law, and not please their powerful political special interests," Gallagher said.
Maggie Gallagher, chairman of the National Organization of Marriage, called the decision a "truly shocking extra-constitutional power grab" and a "defection of duty" by the President. But she also said the administration had not been forcefully defending the law in court for some time.
Bill Duncan of the Marriage Law Foundation writes:
When Eric Holder wrote to Speaker Boehner to inform him of President Obama's decision that DOMA was unconstitutional, he said it was unconstitutional under the "equal protection" provisions of the Fifth Amendment.
Huh? Why the Fifth Amendment, which does not mention equal protection at all--but does contain a "due process" clause?
There is a reason.
When the Supreme Court decided racial segregation in schools violates our Constitution in Brown v. Board of Education, the 14th Amendment applied to the states, but not to federal territory. That would leave D.C. schools segregated, since the District is federal territory. So the Court did a backflip in a companion case called Bolling v. Sharpe that held the 14th amendment's equal protection guarantees were now incorporated into the Fifth Amendment's due process guarantees.
On race, we can understand why a Court would do a backflip. But this underscores how much President Obama has just attempted to re-classify sexual orientation as the constitutional equivalent of race--without any backing by Congress or by the Court.
Maggie Gallagher, chairwoman of the National Organization for Marriage, said that if somebody from the House steps in to defend the law, it could actually be "good news" for Defense of Marriage Act supporters.
"This fight is not over yet. It's really just begun," she told Fox News.
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE CONDEMNS PRESIDENT OBAMA’S EXTRAORDINARY EFFORT TO SABOTAGE DOMA DEFENSE
NOM Calls on House of Representatives to Intervene to Defend Law
WASHINGTON – The National Organization for Marriage responded to President Obama calling upon the Department of Justice to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act:
“We have not yet begun to fight for marriage,” said Brian Brown, president of NOM.
“The Democrats are responding to their election loss with a series of extraordinary, extra-constitutional end runs around democracy, whether it’s fleeing the state in Wisconsin and Indiana to prevent a vote, or unilaterally declaring homosexuals a protected class under our Constitution, as President Obama just did,” said Brown. “We call on the House to intervene to protect DOMA, and to tell the Obama administration they have to respect the limits on their power. This fight is not over, it has only begun!”
DOMA defines marriage for federal purposes as one man and one woman, and clarifies that states do not have to recognize gay marriage performed in other states. It was passed in 1996 by bi-partisan majorities and signed into law by President Clinton. The practical effect of Pres. Obama’s failure to defend DOMA would be to leave a federal trial court’s decision unreviewable by higher courts.
“On the one hand this is a truly shocking extra-constitutional power grab in declaring gay people are a protected class, and it’s also a defection of duty on the part of the President Obama,” said Maggie Gallagher, Chairman of NOM, “On the other hand, the Obama administration was throwing this case in court anyway. The good news is this now clears the way for the House to intervene and to get lawyers in the court room who actually want to defend the law, and not please their powerful political special interests.”
We’re seeing a pattern to how Democrats respond to election losses: do an end-run around democracy. You can’t block a union bill? Flee the chambers. You can’t repeal DOMA? Declare orientation a protected class all on your own. This tactic may backfire, however: it opens up the pathway for the House to intervene to defend the law.
This also shows how much they don’t believe they have the Supreme Court votes to win yet.
There is something about the marriage issue that provokes an “any means necessary” approach from its proponents (among whom I believe we can count the president, notwithstanding campaign rhetoric to the contrary).
Dan Foster adds:
● The DOJ (and the president) are attempting to unilaterally amend the Constitution to add a sexual-orientation discrimination clause.
● Over the last decade, most of the courts that have weighed in on the issue have found marriage laws to be consistent with the federal Constitution or the relevant state constitution, but the DOJ does not even mention these decisions.
● If the “equal protection component” of the 5th Amendment means that Congress can’t define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, how could the states do so under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?
● Can the letter’s assertion that gay and lesbian activists lack political power really be take seriously, given this very decision, the repeal of DADT, etc.?
One of the most insidious practices of the insidious Obama Justice Department the sabotaging of litigation — i.e., DOJ purports to defend some statute or government policy so that it can appear to be moderate, but uses its resulting control over how the case gets litigated to forfeit some of the best legal arguments supporting the statute/policy. This way, DOJ can steer the case toward the radical outcome the Obama base desires rather than the outcome DOJ is ostensibly pursuing.
While the DOJ was nominally defending the statute [up to today], it was, as a result of political interference, already taking a dive. It was the sort of thing that a Republican administration would have been excoriated for. Today’s announcement at least has the advantage of admitting what was already the case.
Our own Maggie Gallagher has a few initial thoughts here.
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE RELEASES NEW VIDEO: “Organized Chicago Protesters Denounce Catholics as Bigots During Mass: Coming to a Church Near You?” --Brian Brown
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) today released a new video documenting the organized protests in Chicago by the Gay Liberation Network in front of Holy Name Cathedral on Sunday, February 13 during their religious services.
After the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) intervened, the Chicago City Council announced that the police would refuse to enforce an injunction forbidding protests in front of religious services on this particular occasion.
“It’s outrageous that the city of Chicago stepped in and basically told police not to enforce a law for this one occasion. Gay Liberation Network is not above the law. If the city believed the ordinance was unconstitutional they should either repeal it for everyone, or go to court to get a determination. What happened instead was indefensible: Stripping Catholics of their legal right to attend religious services peacefully ---just so the Gay Liberation Network could conduct a protest during mass before Valentine’s Day,” said Brian Brown, president of NOM. “We don’t know yet if this signals a new phase in the gay marriage movement: organized protests at churches nationwide.”
The Gay Liberation Network targeted Holy Name Cathedral because of Cardinal George’s outspoken opposition to same-sex marriage and civil unions.
“The theme of the protesters was ‘It’s Time to Stop Being Nice to Anti-Gay Bigots’,” points out Brown. “The Gay Liberation Network has an aggressive new agenda that includes stripping Catholic schools and charities of ‘tax dollars’ unless the Church caves in to their ideology.”
To schedule an interview with Brian Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage, or Maggie Gallagher, Chairman of the Board, please contact Mary Beth Hutchins, [email protected], at 703-683-5004 ext. 105 or Elizabeth Ray, [email protected], at 703-683-5004 ext. 130.
Here is an excerpt from the Attorney General's letter:
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. [source]
For evidence of how biased the Iowa judicial nominating process has become, check out this video - the nominating committee asks: how can we get around the Iowa Constitution?
Aly Hindi, an outspoken imam at Salaheddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough, Ont., said there are more than 200 polygamous Muslim marriages in the Greater Toronto Area alone. The figure is impossible to verify as polygamy among Muslim and other immigrant groups in Canada is often shrouded in mystery.
Hindi believes banning polygamy is harmful to women.
"If the three adults -- the husband, the first wife and (the other) women -- have consent, I don't think the government should interfere in this," Hindi said in a telephone interview.
