...But the real PR disaster for the administration is how can they explain away the virulent anti-gay defense it is presenting. Among the highlights offered by the "most pro-gay administration" in history (please read all of John's post for the citations, I'm drawing the thumbnail sketch here of the horror):
* Obama invoked incest and people marrying children.
* The Obama admin argues that the incest and child rape cases therefore make DOMA constitutional
* DOMA is good because it saves the federal government money
* DOMA is constitutional (!!!).
"DOMA Is Consistent with Equal Protection and Due Process Principles." This is important because it means that Obama wasn't content to simply argue, based on technicalities, that this case should be thrown out. He went out of his way to argue that DOMA is actually constitutional, and then went into detail destroying every single constitutional argument we have for opposing DOMA in court. This will screw us on every lawsuit we file on every gay issue, in every public policy debate we have in the states on any gay issue.
* Gays have no constitutional right to marriage, or recognition of their marriages by other states
* The defense, by default, argues against Loving v. Virginia. For the child of an interracial marriage and a Constitutional scholar, this is beyond belief.
Loving v. Virginia is not to the contrary. There the Supreme Court rejected a contention that the assertedly "equal application" of a statute prohibiting interracial marriage immunized the statute from strict scrutiny. 388 U.S. 1, 8, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967). The Court had little difficulty concluding that the statute, which applied only to "interracial marriages involving white persons," was "designed to maintain White Supremacy" and therefore unconstitutional. Id. at 11. No comparable purpose is present here, however, for DOMA does not seek in any way to advance the "supremacy" of men over women, or of women over men. Thus DOMA cannot be "traced to a . . . purpose" to discriminate against either men or women. Personnel Adm'r v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 272, 99 S. Ct. 2282, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979). In upholding the traditional definition of marriage, numerous courts have expressly rejected an alleged analogy to Loving.
* Gays don't deserve same scrutiny in court that other minorities receive
* Provides legal argument against gays' right to privacy
* DOMA is rational and reasonable for our society
There's plenty more but this one stings -- it parrots the playbook of the religious right: DOMA doesn't discriminate against gays - all they have to do to get the benefits is get married... to someone of the opposite sex.
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/11427/the-obama-admin-defends-doma-in-a-brief-comparing-marriage-equality-to-incest
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