Sunday, February 27, 2011
A short note on the Defense of Marriage Act
I am (obviously) a bit behind on the news for the week, but I do have two perhaps unoriginal observations about the Obama Justice Department's executive decision to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.
First, is not the correct solution to propose repeal of the act, and in the absence of that repeal do your damned job and defend the law of the land?
Second, will all the liberals applauding this decision feel the same way when a Republican administration seizes on this precedent to stop defending laws that conservatives do not like?
I'm no big fan of the DOMA, but it would be nice if our government were at least a little principled.
11 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Feb 27, 12:22:00 PM:
TimothyJ
Just watched Newt saying that the Presentident swore on a bible on Jan 20th that he would defend the country and enforce the laws of the land. Now we have a one-man supreme court called the Obambi court. He is the final arbiter of what is constitutional and what is not. We can save a whole lot of money by getting rid of the entire justice department and all the courts. Obie can split the baby or whatever is needed.
By 
PD Quig, at
Sun Feb 27, 12:41:00 PM:
There's the problem: maybe we needed him to swear on a Quran?
By , at
Sun Feb 27, 12:45:00 PM:
The time for a politician to step in and take a stand on the constitutionality of a law is before it is passed.
Once it is passed, it is the law of the land until repealed or overturned.
Until repealed or overturned, it should be enforced adn defended.
By , at
Sun Feb 27, 12:57:00 PM:
It's another unoriginal observation to note that these folks are setting precedents that will ruin them later. They've spent decades lecturing the country about how THE LAW requires requires we accept all sorts of nonsense that they've yanked out of their fantasies just because THE LAW says so. Well- THE LAW did say so, because they were able to write it or at least get a court decision that they liked- and now they want to start ignoring THE LAW because it goes against them?
Sure. No one will notice that, no way. Not in politics.
By , at
Sun Feb 27, 01:21:00 PM:
The only real regal marrege is between one man and one woman same sex marrages are immoral and unethical
By JPMcT, at
Sun Feb 27, 03:12:00 PM:
Besides being a violation of his oath of office and a violation of the rules of separation of powers, it is also political suicide.
A review of which groups show the most SUPPORT for the DOMA reveal Blacks taking the lead at over 70%, Hispanics at over 60% and Whites at around 55%.
Of course, he has also unilaterally decided that we are not a Christian nation, that police are stupid by default, that national high-speed rail and "green" jobs will solve the recession and that wealth redistribution is good for the economy.
It's tough when you are both a megalomaniac AND a dope!
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Feb 27, 03:35:00 PM:
Bird! So happy to have you back.
By Steve, at
Sun Feb 27, 07:29:00 PM:
DOJ will continue to enforce the law but will not defend the law from challenges in court. In terms of the law, that position sounds fine to me. In terms of the politics however I think Obama is once again going against the will of the majority. If the law is struck down, it will be an issue in the next election. I am not sure that works in Obama's favor.
By 1389, at
Sun Feb 27, 11:55:00 PM:
What you have here is an entire administration full of people who refuse to take their oaths of office seriously. They are supposed to uphold the US Constitution and to perform their duties as stated therein. They just aren't doing their jobs. The fish rots from the head, so to speak, but the rot does not stop there.
Let me give you just one example of this. Obozo is supposed to be the commander in chief, which gives him a role in deploying the military to defend the US and its citizens against foreign enemies, but he waited too long (deliberately, I think) to take any effective action against the Somali pirates. The Senate hasn't voted any declaration of war against the foreign enemy pirates, nor have they followed their Constitutional duty to curb piracy on the high seas. And the House hasn't voted any funds for going after the pirates. See:
http://1389blog.com/2011/02/23/this-is-2011-why-do-we-still-have-pirates/
By , at
Mon Feb 28, 12:14:00 AM:
When this issue came up, I did not think much of the announcement; however the ramifications of this are fairly significant.
However, from the early days of Mr. Obama's presidential run, I could not believe how little courage it showed by him and other Democrats by not defending the rights of gays on this. They dont really believe in DOMA, hell I am pretty darn conservative and I barely give a care to this issue (mind you I am happily married father of four living in Texas); so I never got why Obama and others had to play politics with this issue.
The reality is, this will not hurt Obama, because despite Blacks and Hispanics disdain, the issue is not important enough for those group's to vote against him. The only thing this issue does is that it brings out more Christian Conservatives to vote (which is always fine by me.) But as to whether this is going to make even one person on the fence slide over to the adult side - I doubt it...
By , at
Mon Feb 28, 08:43:00 AM:
I could care less about which issue the President chose as a vehicle for this appalling announcement, I'm only concerned with the fact this guy thinks he has the power to repeal laws he doesn't like, give "waivers" to friends for other laws and generally behave as if he IS the government rather than merely the President.
