DOJ-DOMA Reactions

Reactions to this morning’s DOJ-DOMA filing…

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog:

I guess this is a step in the right direction. I don’t want to fail to praise the administration for doing better, but to some degree the only reason this is “good” is because of how “bad” they did on the previous brief. In the end, they’re still defending a discriminatory law that the president himself has called “abhorrent.” The fact that they’re doing it more tactfully is, I suppose, nice – and they are no longer using language that undercuts us on a variety of other civil rights, so that’s good – but again, we’re praising them for no longer doing things that they shouldn’t have done in the first place. And in the end, they’re still defending discrimination.

Chris Geidner at Law Dork 2.0:

Those who assert that the Obama Administration did not even need to file a brief will be dissatisfied with the brief because it essentially incorporates the earlier arguments into this reply brief and continues to defend DOMA as a legal matter. But, for those many people who believe that the government, in a situation such as this, does have a responsibility to defend the law, this brief makes clear the distinction between opposing a policy and defending a law.

From the brief itself to Obama’s statement and in light of the other changes being advanced by the Administration, I continue to believe that the original DOJ Smelt filing was made without the full appreciation (or knowledge) by higher-ups. I do think that the uproar following its filing has changed the approach of the Administration, and, for that, the debate was worthwhile. This filing and statement show a keen awareness of and sensitivity to that impact, while maintaining a clear principle to defend a law that repeatedly has been found to be constitutional.

Focus On The Family at Drive-Thru:

It’s weird that our modern day defenders of the law can’t find a reason to keep marriage between a man and a woman when ancient civilizations had no trouble connecting the dots from heterosexual sex to child-rearing. Ironically, the same lawyers in the Justice Department who wrote this will also be defending DOMA. And that should make us all feel warm and cozy—marriage should be defended very well, don’t you think, by the very same people who want to redefine it for another purpose entirely. I would like to know the administration’s alternative plan for attaching fathers to their children. You would think that future generations of taxpayers would be of vital interest to an administration planning astronomical tax increases.