Tag: Defense of Marriage Act
Republicans Flip-Flop on Federal Power: No on Obamacare Last Week, Yes on DOMA This Week
Andrew Cohen at the Atlantic:
Congress has no constitutional authority to punish people who don’t want to have health insurance, Paul Clement argued last week before the United States Supreme Court. This week? The heralded attorney is arguing, to another panel of federal judges, that Congress has plenty of constitutional authority to punish people who don’t want to marry someone of the opposite sex. Last week, Clement defended states’ rights and labeled as “unprecedented” the federal health care policy. This week, he says that Congress can dictate terms of a federal marriage policy over the objections of states which have legalized same-sex marriage.
Welcome to the forlorn world of the Defense of Marriage Act, the teetering federal law which defines marriage as solely that between a man and a woman and thus deprives same-sex married couples of certain federal rights and privileges.
During DOMA Hearing, Sen. Franken Catches Anti-Gay ‘Expert’ Citing False Data
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) took on a representative of the conservative group Focus on the Family for mischaracterizing a study on “nuclear families” at a hearing on a bill which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Franken noted that the group’s testimony listed the benefits of children “living with their biological and/or adopted mothers and fathers” as surpassing those of children “living in any other family form.” He observed they listed a Department of Health and Human Services study as backing that up.
“I actually checked it out,” Franken said in reference to the study FOF’s Thomas Minnery has cited. He then observed it uses the term “nuclear families” without specifically mentioning “opposite sex married families.”
“Isn’t it true, Mr. Minnery, that a married same-sex couple that has had or adopted kids would fall under the definition of a nuclear family in the study that you cite?” Franken asked.
“I think that the study, when it cites nuclear families would mean a family headed by a husband and wife,” Minnery said.
Talking Points Memo on Facebook“It doesn’t,” Franken said, getting laughs from the audience.
Countdown: Newt’s Hypocrisy on the Defense of Marriage Act Wins Him a ‘Worst Person’ Nod
It was gratifying to see that Newt Gingrich made the “bronze” in the Worst Person segment on “Countdown” earlier this week because he’d touted his support for Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Gingrich made the cut because — as we reported here first — he was cheating on his second wife at the time:
Most people know by now that, in the mid-1990s, then-Speaker Gingrich was cheating on his second wife, Marianne, with a staffer, his current wife Callista, at the same time he led the drive to impeach Pres. Clinton over a lie about his affair with a staffer, Monica Lewinsky.
It is not as widely known, however, that two years before the impeachment Speaker Gingrich was also cheating on Marianne with Callista when he led the passage of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.
Clinton Supports Same-Sex Marriage
Our nation’s permanent mission is to form a ‘more perfect union’ – deepening the meaning of freedom, broadening the reach of opportunity, strengthening the bonds of community. That mission has inspired and empowered us to extend rights to people previously denied them. Every time we have done that, it has strengthened our nation. Now we should do it again, in New York, with marriage equality.
— Former Pres. Bill Clinton, supporting same-sex marriage. Both the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy were codified under Clinton.
An Offensive Defense
Eric Holder says the Defense of Marriage Act isn’t sensible.
Others say it’s constitutionally reprehensible.
So in order to preserve it,
The House hired lawyers to defend it.
But they quit, saying, defensively, it’s indefensible.
