Steve Benen: Obama Prop 8 brief "opens the door to sweeping national change."

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Obama to Supreme Court: No on Prop 8
by Steve Benen

With the U.S. Supreme Court set to consider the legality of the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8, proponents of marriage equality hoped the Obama White House would step up and file briefs urging the justices to support civil rights.

The administration has now done just that. A week after filing a brief rejecting the constitutionality of DOMA, Obama administration attorneys yesterday made a related case against Prop 8, a state constitutional measure that prohibited same-sex marriage . . .

Like the arguments made by the lawyers for those who seek to overturn Proposition 8, and by a group of prominent Republicans earlier this week, the government's brief says any law attempting to ban same-sex marriage must be subjected to heightened scrutiny because it singles out a class of Americans, historically subject to discrimination, for unequal treatment. [...]

The government made mincemeat of the argument that same-sex couples threaten "traditional" marriage. "Petitioners' central argument is that Proposition 8 advances an interest in responsible procreation and child-rearing because only heterosexual couples can produce 'unintended pregnancies' and because the 'overriding purpose' of marriage is to address that reality by affording a stable institution for procreation and child-rearing," the brief said. "But, as this court has recognized, marriage is far more than a societal means of dealing with unintended pregnancies."

At a certain level, this may not seem especially noteworthy. After all, the White House has already championed gay rights in a wide variety of areas, including marriage, so it stood to reason that the administration not only opposed the legal rationale for Prop 8, but also hoped to see the Supreme Court strike it down.

But in this case, there's a little more to it, and it has to do with the scope of the administration's reasoning and the implications of its possible success at the court.


read more: http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/01/17145917-obama-to-supreme-court-no-on-prop-8

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/opinion/the-white-house-joins-the-fight-on-gay-marriage.html?_r=0

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1. Prez speaking on this right now at news conference

check transcript later . . . two questions so far

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2. If struck down then a dozen other states that have strong civil union will also have it struck down.