New York Times: In Defense of Marriage for All

Today is a day noted for thoughts of love, sweethearts and romance. Yet for some of its citizens, the United States is a downright hostile place and only some sweethearts and some loves are afforded legal recognition. For those of in the LGBT community, outside of a handful of states are relationships are not recognized - indeed they are scorned under the laws of states like Virginia - while special deference continues to be given to ant-gay religious views which are written into the laws. In its main editorial today, the New York Times states that it is time for Barack Obama - our spineless faux advocate in the White House - to cease defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Rather, its time to cease the discrimination and prejudice that DOMA represents and seeks to maintain. Here are some editorial highlights:
*
The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act is indefensible — officially sanctioned discrimination against one group of Americans imposed during an election year. President Obama seems to know that, or at least he has called on Congress to repeal it. So why do his government’s lawyers continue to defend the act in court?
*
When December’s repeal of the noxious “don’t ask, don’t tell” law goes into effect, gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans will be able to serve openly in the military but may not be entitled to on-base housing or a spouse’s burial in a national cemetery. Attorney General Eric Holder and Justice Department lawyers have sought to distance the administration from Congress’s justifications for the marriage act, one of which was to “encourage responsible procreation.”
*
But just last month, the department appealed two rulings by Joseph Tauro, a federal trial judge in Massachusetts, who found that the law’s denial of benefits to married same-sex couples could not pass constitutional muster.
*
Two new lawsuits, filed in Connecticut and New York, challenging the Defense of Marriage Act now offer the president a chance to put the government on the side of justice. We urge him to seize it when the administration files its response, which is due by March 11. The executive branch’s duty to defend federal laws is not inviolate. This one’s affront to equal protection is egregious.
*
On the merits, this should be an easy call. A law focusing on a group that has been subjected to unfair discrimination, as gay people have been, is supposed to get a hard test. It is presumed invalid unless the government proves that the officials’ purpose in adopting the law advances a real and compelling interest. That sort of heightened scrutiny would challenge the administration’s weak argument for upholding the act. It would also make it more difficult to sustain other forms of anti-gay discrimination, including state laws that deny same-sex couples the right to marry.
*
By now, such blatant discrimination should be presumed to be unconstitutional, and the Justice Department should finally say so. If conservatives in Congress want to enter the case to argue otherwise, so be it.