The Colorado Independent » Defense of Marriage Act

Udall joins growing list of lawmakers in support of marriage equality

John Tomasic — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:22:57 +0000

Colorado U.S. Senator Mark Udall at a gay-rights event this weekend in Denver said he supports marriage equality for all Americans. Udall joins a growing list of lawmakers who have gone on record in support of ending the era where the federal Defense of Marriage Act and where constitutional bans like Colorado’s Amendment 43 blocked LGBT couples from the legal protections and advantages provided by the state through marriage. Udall is the 18th sitting U.S. Senator to state publicly that he supports efforts to make gay marriage legal.

At the “Ally Awards” hosted by gay rights group OneColorado Saturday evening, Udall told activist Sunnyvie Brydum that the snowballing incremental approach moving across the nation is the right way to build consensus and change the law.

“I support marriage equality. We have work to do. Let’s go do it,” he said. “I think the way [marriage equality] is unfolding has lessons for all of us. Let’s work in our states. Let’s work on our neighbors. Let’s work with our communities. Let’s work with our elected officials.

“I have no doubt we’ll reach marriage equality in the states and across the nation.”

The awards ceremony celebrated straight people who have worked to advance the civil rights of LGBT Coloradans. Award recipients included Veronica Barela at NEWSED, Bruce DeBoskey of the DeBoskey Group, Jean Hodges of PFLAG and former state Representative Wilma Webb.

In introducing Hodges, Udall related the story of the lesbian and gay service members who came to Washington last December to testify in the hearings that effectively ended the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, which banned gay soldiers from serving openly. Udall spearheaded the move to lift the policy, calling it anachronistic, discriminatory and a waste of valuable human and financial resources.

Udall said that he felt the tide turned in favor of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, when the Joint Chiefs asked the soldiers what they would do if the policy were lifted. They all said they would rejoin the military, a sign of dedication that sealed the deal, Udall said.

“Truly I could never forget that testimony… Opponents were chortling. The repeal was in doubt up until the last minute,” Udall said. “Their country had rejected them, but [those soldiers] said they would re-enlist, reapply for their officer commissions.”

The awards ceremony, held at the Botanic Gardens at the center of Denver, impressed in part for the crowd it drew. Udall was joined by U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, state Senate President Brandon Shaffer, state Representative Mark Ferrandino, Lt Governor Joe Garcia, State Senator Jean White, former state senator now head of the state’s office of tourism Al White, former Colorado Springs Mayor Mary Lou Makepeace and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.

Stories told by speakers Saturday night underlined how far the movement for gay rights has come over the last decade, from a marginal movement led by a very few cutting-edge civil rights leaders to the kind of movement that draws the support of major mainstream public figures.

OneColorado has only been fully operational in the state for 18 months.

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Obama announces support of bill to end DOMA

Todd A. Heywood — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:11:31 +0000

The White House announced this week that President Barack Obama was throwing his support behind legislation which would effectively kill the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

The Respect for Marriage Act (RMA) would repeal all three sections of DOMA — which federally defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman — including section 1, which is the name; section 2, which instructs states not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states; and section 3, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing legally performed same-sex marriages.

Change.org quotes White House spokesman Shin Inouye on Obama’s endorsement of the legislation:

“The President has long called for a legislative repeal of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act,” which continues to have a real impact on the lives of real people – our families, friends and neighbors,” Inouye said. “He is proud to support the Respect for Marriage Act, introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Jerrold Nadler, which would take DOMA off the books once and for all. This legislation would uphold the principle that the federal government should not deny gay and lesbian couples the same rights and legal protections as straight couples.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney also said the same thing.

The announcement comes on the eve of historic Senate hearings on the bill and could signal Obama’s continuing “evolution” on the issue of marriage equality. Obama said in an interview in December that his opinion on the matter is changing from his 2008 statements that he believes marriage was between a man and a woman, to possibly endorsing marriage equality for LGBT citizens. That move drove activists to demand Obama “evolve already” in protests the day before the New York legislature approved marriage equality — which goes into effect Sunday.

Gay right groups were quick to praise Obama’s endorsement.

Human Right Campaign President Joe Solmonese had this to say in a statement:

“We thank the President for his support of the Respect for Marriage Act. He has repeatedly expressed his desire to see the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act repealed and his Justice Department has taken the historic step of ending its defense of that odious law in court. By supporting this legislation, the President continues to demonstrate his commitment to ending federal discrimination against tens of thousands of lawfully married same-sex couples.”

Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued this statement:

“President Obama did the right thing today by announcing his support of the Respect for Marriage Act. In doing so, he joins the large and growing chorus urging for an end to DOMA, a discriminatory, unjust and far-reaching law. There is no sound defense of the indefensible DOMA, which singles out and selectively denies fundamental rights to legally married same-sex couples. We thank the president for his support on the eve of the historic congressional hearing to repeal DOMA. We thank him and the many House and Senate members who recognize that DOMA has no place on the books and support its full, swift repeal. DOMA has only served to belittle our country’s deeply held values of freedom and fairness. It has only served to hurt families, not help. This must end now.”

And Evan Wolfson, president and founder of Freedom to Marry issued this statement:

“Freedom to Marry applauds President Obama’s strong endorsement of the Respect for Marriage Act and the repeal of so-called ‘DOMA.’ The federal government should not be picking and choosing which marriages it will honor and which it will disregard when it comes to the important federal protections that come with marriage, such as Social Security, health coverage, fair tax treatment, and immigration rights. Congress should follow the President’s lead and return the federal government to its traditional practice of honoring all lawful marriages equally – without the ‘gay exception’ of DOMA.”

Wolfson will be testifying Wednesday in support of the legislation.

VIDEO: Franken grills Focus on the Family head during DOMA repeal hearing

Andy Birkey — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:27:20 +0000

At a hearing on the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, Sen. Al Franken took issue with the testimony of Tom Minnery, the head of Focus on the Family’s political arm, CitizenLink. After Minnery cited a government study he said showed that the children of married gay and lesbian couples fared worse than married opposite-sex couples, Franken flatly stated that Minnery was wrong and called into question any further testimony from Minnery.

Franken said, “The Defense of Marriage Act is an injustice. It is an immoral and discriminatory law. Our nation is founded on the premise that all people are created equal, and that’s why I am an original cosponsor of this bill.”

He said, “Repealing DOMA will be a great day in this country, akin to the enacting of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution,” which guaranteed women the right to vote.

Franken addressed Minnery, who had testified that children raised in families with parents of the opposite sex are better off, citing a 2010 Department of Health and Human Services study.

“I checked the study out,” Franken said. “It doesn’t actually say what you said it says. It says ‘nuclear families’ not ‘opposite-sex couples.’”

He continued, “Isn’t it true, Mr. Minnery, that a same-sex couples would fall under the definition of nuclear family?”

Minnery responded, “I would assume it would mean a family with husband and wife.”

“It doesn’t,” Franken said, pausing to allow laughter in the room to subside. “I frankly don’t know how we can trust the rest of your testimony if you are reading studies this way.”

Franken is correct in his reading of the study (PDF). HHS defines a nuclear family as one that consists of “one or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are each biological or adoptive parents to all children in the family.”

The study doesn’t make a distinction regarding the gender of both partners in a marriage and never mentioned same-sex marriage.

Watch it:

Justice Department ratchets up gay rights defense with anti-DOMA Golinski brief

John Tomasic — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:51:17 +0000

The battle between the Obama Administration and House Republicans over the Defense of Marriage Act (which has come to include GOP state attorneys general like Colorado’s John Suthers) took an historic turn last week. Responding to a filing brought by lawyers on behalf of House Republicans and led by conservative legal eagle Paul Clement, the Department of Justice clearly sought to bury a stake deep into the heart of the the act, delivering an expansive brief outlining for the first time the federal government’s role in singling out gay and lesbian Americans for discrimination (pdf). Chris Geidner, writing legal analysis at MetroWeekly’s progay PoliGlot blog, called the brief a “must read” and “instantly historic” and “the single-most persuasive legal argument ever advanced by the United States government in support of equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people.”

Some sentences in the brief will become staples of every filing in every lawsuit attempting to advance sexual orientation nondiscrimination, most notably when the Justice Department acknowledged, “The federal government has played a significant and regrettable role in the history of discrimination against gay and lesbian individuals.” The Justice Department goes on to spend two pages detailing the specifics of that discrimination, including efforts by the State Department, FBI and U.S. Postal Service to seek out or track those who were thought to be gay.

Gedner wrote that as part of a near breathless post today, the second he has written on the brief since Friday.

Karen Golinski is a federal court employee in San Francisco who sued the government for denying her access to equal health benefits for her wife.

The House Republican Defense of Marriage legal team filed a suit in June asking the San Francisco court to throw out the lawsuit.

The Department of Justice brief responding to that request for dismissal is signed by Christopher Hall. It lays out the case in detail for why the Obama Administration believes DOMA is unconstitutional and so decided to stop defending the act in court earlier this year. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner in February announcing the decision but making a comparatively cursory statement as to why.

Now that letter almost appears as bait that Boehner and Republicans latched onto for political advantage without seriously considering that the administration had committed itself to the historic move based on a trove of material well combed over and perhaps held in reserve to make a more lasting and deadly case in court.

As Geidner put it,

Today’s filing does more than acknowledge the federal government’s role in discrimination, going on to detail specific instances of anti-gay and anti-lesbian discrimination, including the 1950 Senate resolution seeking an “investigation” into “homosexuals and other sexual perverts” in government employement and President Dwight Eisenhower’s executive order adding “sexual perversion” as a ground for “possible dismissal from government service,” in the brief’s words. It also details the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Postal Service in investigations seeking information about government employees suspected of such “perversion” … The brief goes on to describe anti-gay and anti-lesbian state and local discrimination, as well as private discrimination…

“[T]he official legislative record makes plain that DOMA Section 3 was motivated in substantial part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships, and Congress identified no other interest that is materially advanced by Section 3. Section 3 of DOMA is therefore unconstitutional.”

Geidner lauds Obama for holding back referring to this brief over the last weeks as the New York gay marriage law was being debated and as Obama was being grilled on his “evolving” stance on the topic. Obama refused to taint the brief, Geidner argues, by using it as a shield and deserves credit for leaving the brief to come out in its proper context and deliver greater punch as a result.

[T]his brief was being researched and written as Obama himself was taking some pretty hard hits – and repeated questions – about his commitment to equality due in large part to his ”evolving” status and unwillingness to publicly embrace marriage equality. By not trotting out the brief in the midst of that criticism and waiting until after the White House LGBT Pride Month Reception to file, however, the administration made a strong statement that this brief was just that – a legal filing removed from and independent of the political debate.

No major press has yet to report reactions from Boehner or the House GOP DOMA-defending legal team.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has asked Boehner detailed questions about the contract arranged between House Republicans and the attorneys they hired to defend DOMA. She asked whether the contract was reviewed by the ethics committee, how costs were determined and how the $520 an hour rate of pay was agreed upon. Boehner had earler asked Pelosi to support Congress redirecting funds from the justice department to pay for the DOMA lawyers.

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Bennet co-sponsors bill to repeal DOMA

Scot Kersgaard — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:21:47 +0000

Senator Michael Bennet today signed on as a co-sponsor of a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

President Obama announced in February that his administration would no longer defend the Act–calling it indefensible. Shortly after that, a bill was introduced to repeal the Act, with Rep. Jared Polis as an original co-sponsor. Then Speaker of the House John Boehner announced that he was leading a group to defend the Act with private funds.

“The federal government should no longer pick and choose which legal marriages to recognize,” Bennet said. “Married same-sex couples deserve the same federal marriage benefits that my wife and I enjoy. No married couples should be denied these marriage benefits, and they should not have to worry that their spouses will be denied Social Security surviving spouse benefits or equal family health benefits.”

The Respect for Marriage Act would allow married same-sex couples to receive federal marriage benefits, including filing joint federal income taxes, Social Security spousal benefits, family health and pension benefits for federal employees and other benefits heterosexual married couples enjoy.

Currently, five states and the District of Columbia grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples and provide equal state benefits to all legally married couples. The bill would not require states that do not recognize same-sex marriages to do so. But legally married same-sex couples living in states not recognizing their marriage would still receive federal marriage benefits.

AZ Rep. Franks prepares secretive hearing on Defense of Marriage Act

Andy Kopsa — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:50:52 +0000

The U.S. House Subcommittee on the Constitution is scheduled to hold a hearing Friday titled “Defending Marriage,” called by subcommittee chairman Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), who has recently called for the impeachment of President Barack Obama because of his decision to order his administration to no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

The witness list is now posted on the Judiciary Committee’s website.

People For the American Way Senior Fellow Peter Montgomery predicts Franks’ hearing will be a parade of “extremists.”

Montgomery told TAI during a phone interview that Rep. Franks is “at the far-right fringe of the far right.” Montgomery also assumed the only purpose of the Franks Defending Marriage hearing would be “To promote that far-right agenda and provide them propaganda against the administration from here until 2012.”

Franks is the founder of an official Focus on the Family affiliate called the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP). Formerly known as the Arizona Family Research Institute, the CAP was instrumental in the passage of Arizona’s Prop 102 adding an amendment to Arizona’s constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

Montgomery would not speculate on who would be called as witnesses. But according to a recent article in The Washington Blade, Maggie Gallagher, chair of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM) said that she would appreciate the chance to speak at a hearing on DOMA. (Update: Gallagher is scheduled to appear at the hearing.) Gallagher has testified on marriage laws before the Subcommittee on the Constitution previously and recently before the New Hampshire and Maryland legislatures. The Maryland legislature unexpectedly shelved a bill to legalize same-sex marriage last month that was believed to have broad support.

Montgomery told TAI he experienced Franks’ views first hand at the Take Back America conference in St. Louis in 2009. In a speech at the event, Franks called President Obama, “An enemy of humanity.” During the conference, Franks also staked claim on his belief in the “birther” conspiracy.

“This is the kind of ranting you would expect to hear from a talk show host, not a subcommittee chair,” Montgomery said of Franks’ statements.

But the statements made at the 2009 conference are just a sample of Franks’ far right positions.

Franks, along with other representatives, claimed a Muslim civil rights group was using congressional interns to spy on Congress. Franks also aligned himself with a movement that believes abortion policy is committing genocide against African Americans going so far as to introduce legislation barring so-called “race-based” abortion — a bill that led the chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation to praise Franks for being “a trailblazer.”

Franks’ co-sponsor of that bill was fellow Judiciary subcommittee member, Vice-Chair Mike Pence (R-Ind.). Pence has been in the national spotlight since introducing the eponymous Pence Amendment aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood –- an issue that nearly caused a government shutdown last week.

TAI recently reported on Pence’s connection to Focus on the Family affiliate — the Indiana Family Institute — that led the successful effort to pass an anti-gay marriage amendment in the Indiana Senate last month.

A call for comment to Representative Franks’ office was not returned.

Troy Ard, College Republicans Chair, throws support behind Colorado civil unions bill

John Tomasic — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:43:57 +0000

Openly gay Chairman of the Colorado Federation of College Republicans Troy Ard is lobbying colleagues and friends to support Senator Pat Steadman’s same-sex civil unions bill making its way through the state legislature. Ard’s support for the bill is personal, political and ideological. He wants to enjoy equal rights under the law as a gay American; he believes the Republican brand would benefit enormously by embracing gay rights; and he believes Americans should always be pushing their government to expand individual liberties.

“I’m not speaking for the organization at this point,” Ard told the Colorado Independent, “but I will be personally encouraging people I know to support civil unions, to contact their legislators and tell them what they think.”

The ‘Glee’ generation

Ard said his generation of Republicans can lead on gay rights. He said he has been out and in a relationship and taking his boyfriend around to College Republican functions and has “never met with anything other than acceptance and kindness.” He was elected to the chairmanship unanimously last year.

“The Republican Party is undergoing a fairly rapid change on this issue,” he said. “It has been eight years since I got involved in politics and the climate has totally changed.”

He said that, from what he sees on the ground, the reality is that the party used to have a position on gay rights and now it has a discussion.

“Every year the hard-line social issue stands have waned a little. Even the older generation is realizing that other issues are more important… The discussion was evolving in a way toward the kind of standoff we see on abortion, where there are two intractable sides, but that was a fluke. The history of the GOP is one of fairness. Republicans opposed [slavery].

“The Republican Party is not a monolith. You can be consistently conservative and be pro-gay rights. In fact, in order to be consistently conservative, you have to extend those beliefs to private lives and resolve to treat all citizens the same. A core conservative belief is that government’s purpose is to extend freedom. That’s the overwhelming opinion of my generation of Republicans. I’m seeing a shift in the older generation, too.”

A fake reality

Steadman’s bill, SB 172, would grant straight and gay couples the right to form state-recognized unions that bestow the legal protections and responsibilities now granted only to married couples. Couples entering into a civil union could share insurance and pension benefits and make medical and inheritance decisions for one another. They would also be able to adopt children more easily and be bound to pay alimony and child support should their relationships dissolve. Even though some of those rights are available to non-married couples now, they come with hefty legal price tags and home inspection visits from state workers.

In voting for the bill in committee a few weeks ago, Durango Republican Senator Ellen Roberts said the law would reckon with the reality that gay couples are living together and having families. Establishing statutes that take the couples and their children out of legal limbo is just the responsible thing to do, she said. Her Republican Senate colleague Kevin Lundberg disagreed, siding with the many witnesses who quoted scripture to the committee. Lundberg said that, in embracing civil unions, the state could “misdirect marriage.”

Ard said he respects the religious arguments against civil unions but doesn’t believe they meet constitutional standards. There’s denial at work in these arguments, he said, and it can’t last.

“I know more gay young Republicans than I know young gay Democrats,” Ard said. His reality exists and should be acknowledged because it’s not going away, he said.

“The way we can fix the Republican Party is to have more Republicans be honest with the party,” Ard said. “You have to take a risk. I took a risk. I know I’m saying who I am. I think we’re doing something powerful in expanding what it means to be conservative because it’s through discussion that we can come to terms with who we are as individuals and as a party.

“What has damaged our brand has been [the embrace of] a fake reality. It takes people brave enough to stand up and, by speaking out, shape that reality.”

Ard recently sent out a release opposing Republican efforts in Congress to defend the 15-year-old anti-gay marriage Defense of Marriage Act. The move by congressional Republicans came after President Obama said he thought the act was unconstitutional and directed the Justice Department to no longer defend it against court challenges.

Ard said it was important to take the power away from Democrats and to lead on a matter that’s about increasing personal liberty and reining in government control.

A Republican decision

In Colorado, as in most of the country, real movement on gay rights will come from the political right.

State Democratic lawmakers have lined up behind Steadman’s civil unions bill from the moment it was introduced on Valentine’s Day. It has passed through several Democrat-controlled Senate committees and it will likely pass on the Senate floor this week or next week.

Another not-fake reality concerning gay rights, one that Ard readily acknowledges, is that the GOP has long been the party of social conservative views and the religious right and that there is nowhere else for those constituents to go. Part of that reality is that those GOP constituents may dominate for at least a little while longer on this issue.

The House sponsor of the bill, Denver Democrat Mark Ferrandino, has said he is confident he has lined up enough Republican votes to pass the bill in the House, where Republicans hold a one-seat majority, but to get to the floor for a vote, the bill first has to make it past Republican-controlled House committees, where four or five hard-line social conservatives could kill it.

Indeed, gay rights group OneColorado has pivoted in its campaign for the bill, training recent outreach efforts on Colorado Republican voters. In a recent email to “fellow Republicans,” OneColorado underlined the way the bill seeks to bolster limited government and individual liberties.

The values of limited government and individual freedom are the core values of moderate and conservative voters in Colorado. Civil unions are consistent with these values, ensuring that the power of the government is not misused to limit the liberties of any Coloradan.

As Coloradans and Republicans, we are proud of our leadership in protecting individual liberties. The Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, must continue to champion civil liberties. Our leaders should ensure a civil and fair discussion about civil unions in the Colorado Legislature.

The group cites a Greenberg Quinlan Rossner survey it commissioned last year that found 61 percent of Colorado Republicans support civil unions. Overall, the idea of extending domestic partnership rights through civil unions is popular in the state, with repeat polling finding 72 percent support. Among young Americans, the percentages showing support rise significantly. The numbers reflect the impression on the ground here and around the country that public opinion generally and across the political spectrum has moved fast on this issue in the last half decade. Indeed surveys show solid majorities of Americans now oppose the Defense of Marriage Act and support granting gay couples expanded domestic partnership rights. More than that, for the first time ever, more Americans support gay marriage than oppose it.

In 2006 Colorado voters passed Amendment 43 defining marriage as only a union between a man and a woman. The same year voters narrowly rejected an amendment that would have established civil unions.

“It may be more appropriate to repeal Amendment 43 and establish fully equal rights,” said Ard. “Practically speaking, though, I think it’s important we find a way to grant equal rights and this does that sooner rather than later.”

Ard says the College Republicans are not officially associated with the state GOP and so enjoy some independence and exert some pressure on that score.

The College Republican convention will be held April 16 and Ard says he expects delegates to raise the issue of civil unions at the convention and that it will have a place in the platform developed there.

“I fully expect one of the thousands of us at the convention will raise this issue. There is no official College Republicans position on this issue yet but I personally know many college Republicans who support civil unions and gay marriage.

“It’s a different world for Republicans under 30.”

[Images: flickr Colorado Federation of College Republicans ]

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VIDEO: Polis co-sponsors bill that would repeal Defense of Marriage Act

John Tomasic — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:44:41 +0000

Colorado Congressman Jared Polis joined with more than a hundred members of Congress to re-introduce the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that would repeal the ban on same-sex marriage put in place by the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Polis urged members of Congress to support New York Rep. Jarred Nadler’s legislation as a matter of fairness and states’ rights.

“This is an issue where the American people, the culture of our country, has moved ahead of the politicians here in Washington. State after state has acted to allow marriages between people of the same sex and yet our federal government continues to refuse to recognize those marriages.”

Polis said it was important to put marriage in the same category as other civil rights by moving to make official distinction between religious and civil categories. He compared the right to marriage to the right to divorce, for instance, a legal right not always recognized in the realm of region and faith.

“Where we fall down as a country on this issue is when we conflate the religious definition of marriage with the legal definition of marriage… Anybody in this country,” for example, he said, “should be able to get divorced before the law and not be locked into a marriage for life.”

Same-sex marriages have already been legalized in many states, he said. Nadler’s bill would ensure that the federal government recognizes those marriages.

“This is a critical real life issue for gay and lesbian families across the country, whether it’s gay and lesbian families, multinational couples facing immigration issues, whether it’s families with kids, whether it’s dealing with end-of-life issues, whether it’s the very important tax implications of survivorship and estate, or many of the other rights that go along with marriage.”

The Obama Administration recently decided that the Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA was likely unconstitutional for the way it discriminates against gay citizens. The president announced that the Justice Department would no longer defend DOMA in court.

Social conservatives were aghast at the announcement and, in response, Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner said the House Legal Advisory Group would defend DOMA in place of the administration. Legal analysts have suggested the group will fail in those efforts.

In explaining the Administration’s move, Attorney General Holder wrote that the government must demonstrate a very good reason for excluding a historically disadvantaged group from marriage rights and the reasons given in 1996 now seem insupportable. Writing at Slate, Linda Hirshman said it’s worse than that. She said that in light of how the discussion on homosexuality has advanced in the last 15 years, the original arguments given in support of DOMA are anachronistic– and in the worst kind of way.

“The Republican DOMA defenders are going to have to advance those arguments. They aren’t pretty,” she said. “Wait till they see what they have to argue. What looked like a good idea in the Speakers’ conference room is going to look very different in the cold light of the courthouse.”

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Polis praises Obama decision on marriage

Scot Kersgaard — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:37:42 +0000

In response to the Obama Administration’s conclusion that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage (Act) is unconstitutional, Congressman Jared Polis released the following statement.

“I applaud the Administration for finally recognizing what my colleagues and I have long criticized—that this is an unconstitutional law.

I am confident that today’s decision will secure a path to equality for every American wishing to participate in the tradition of marriage. To deny people the ability to officially acknowledge their relationship and feel welcomed as partners only for being LGBT is absurd and today’s decision confirms this. It is now an urgent call for us in Congress to address this violation of the constitution and repeal this abhorrent law.”

Suthers responds to criticism of support for Defense of Marriage Act

John Tomasic — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:02:02 +0000

Republican Colorado Attorney General John Suthers Saturday explained to critics again why, on behalf of the citizens of the state, he joined a Massachusetts gay marriage case. Progressive groups have accused Suthers of overreaching in support of an anti-gay politics agenda and have ridiculed his explanations for the move as waffling and unconvincing. Attorney General’s office spokesman Mike Saccone told the Colorado Independent there’s nothing inconsistent about Suther’s position and that Suthers penned an op-ed for the Denver Post in response to criticism.

“Suthers believes that, in this case, the federal government is acting within the authority it is granted through the commerce clause,” Saccone said, dismissing criticism as a predictable product of state right-left politics. “None of that [criticism] comes as any surprise.”

From Suther’s op-ed:

[W]hether the Defense of Marriage Act is good policy is irrelevant to my legal position in that case. Congress has the authority to define who may receive benefits under federal programs. Massachusetts’ lawsuit seeks to conflate the proper role of state and federal governments. Massachusetts’ lawsuit also provoked the federal trial court to declare that Congress had “no rational basis” for defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Colorado’s voters, like Congress, have chosen to define marriage that way. To pretend that this suit poses no threat to Colorado’s constitution may serve Justice Dubofsky’s goal of implementing same-sex marriage through court challenges, but it is disingenuous. I admire Justice Dubofsky’s long-standing commitment to the political cause of same-sex marriage, but in advocating for it, she owes it to the people of Colorado to be more forthright.

It is not my job as Colorado’s attorney general to determine public policy when it comes to health care or same-sex marriage. That is the prerogative of the legislature and the voters. It is my job to protect federalism, the U.S. Constitution and the Colorado Constitution.

At the end of January, Suthers joined an amicus brief on the side of the federal government appealing a ruling striking down parts of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The ruling came when a federal judge agreed with groups who argued that DOMA unconstitutionally denied benefits to gay couples legally married in Massachusetts. The Denver Post reported that Suthers believed the case was relevant to Colorado because Colorado’s Amendment 43 bans gay marriage here and that rulings against DOMA could force Coloradans to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. Suthers joined with attorneys general from Indiana, Michigan, South Carolina and Utah in supporting the Obama Justice Department in the Massachusetts case.

That explanation came quickly under fire, however, prompting Suthers representatives to concede that the Massachusetts case didn’t directly concern the sections of DOMA that protect state’s rights to accept and reject the legitimacy of out-of-state marriages. Suthers critics gained authority last week when former Supreme Court Justice Jean Dubofsky published a scathing op-ed in the Denver Post stating that the case would have no bearing on the power of Colorado to reject marriages performed in Massachusetts and that, if Suthers was concerned about state’s rights, then he joined the wrong side of the case, that he should have supported Massachusetts and not the federal government.

Suthers weathered attacks last year when he joined GOP attorneys general in a case targeting the federal health care reform legislation backed by Obama and championed by Democratic lawmakers. His critics then said the suit was less about the law than about politics and a waste of Colorado resources. That suit and the reasoning behind it has gained traction in the months since and in some form is speeding its way toward the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the health care reform case, Suthers argued that the federal government was overstepping authority granted by the commerce clause. In the case of the Defense of Marriage Act, Saccone said, Suthers believes the federal government is acting within its authority.

“They’re both cases about federalism,” Saccone said. “There’s no inconsistency… It’s about defining proper and improper readings of the law.”

—
The original version of this post reported that the Suthers response was still in the works. We regret the error.