A republican has upstaged Obama again in the defense of civil rights. Schwarzenegger has decided against defending Prop 8. He says that its legality is for the judges to decide, and his decision means that no government official will be defending the proposition in court.
This is in direct contrast to the brief written by the Obama team in defense of DOMA: arguably the piece of legislation most directly obstructing gay rights. The brief is said to have been necessary and part of the Department of Justice’s job description. But the brief goes so far as to say DOMA is no different from prohibiting incest or marrying children, which seems extreme to say the least, and very much in contrast to Schwarzie’s outright refusal to defend CA’s ban on gay marriages.
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I'm in favor of marriage equality , but i'm sick of people looking at this document and saying “he's comparing gay marriage to incest and child marriages!” That's not REALLY what he's doing, and I think you know that: he's comparing a state's ability to decline to recognize gay marriages made elsewhere to a state's ability to decline to recognize incestuous marriages and child marriages made elsewhere on the basis that those things are against the law in that state (and, as you are well aware, gay marriage is against the law in most states). It's a federalist point, not a homophobic point, and it comes off as whiney when we skew what the DOJ was really saying.
I think DOJ's defense of DOMA was incredibly stupid and unnecessary, but let's not make things up about it; let's face it for what it really was.
June 18, 2009 at 1:48 pmHave something to add?