Remember how I swore in the last post? It was premature.

[actourdreams]

So, almost-certain election fraud in Iran aside, I saw the defense brief the Obama administration is putting forward in an anti-DOMA case last night. And I nearly exploded.

The full brief, plus summary is here. However, I'm going to copy+past the most egregious points here. Because I think people should know.

DOMA is constitutional (thus

Comments

[createsunspots]

w.
t.
f.

[soda_and_capes]

Ugh. I feel slightly ill.

[joshwriting]

Understand that I am totally opposed to DOMA.

That said, the brief, as filed, is accurate based on how the law has been written. Using established constitutional standards and prior rulings, DOMA is 'defensible.' Further, many of the attacks are issues the Federal Government must protect, because they apply to so much more than DOMA.

Who has standing? What constitutes a rational law? When do states' rights have sway and does the federal government have the power to establish the extent to which a state's act influences another state?

All of these are old, old well established issues that this particular lawsuit attempted to deny.

Not all currently extant straight marriages are acknowledged equally across state lines. Why, then, should all states be forced to acknowledge gay marriages

[rockychristine]

...wait, what?

I get that there are some things that are just campaign promises, but this shouldn't be one of them. I don't see where it was written into the Constitution that Congress has the right to regulate our marriages. So if by the Constitution, there is nothing about marriage and the benefits that married couples are entitled to, then straight couples shouldn't get any benefits either, right? None of the government's business who you're marrying or what they identify as- either give everyone the benefits and right to marry or don't give anything to anyone. Someone who wrote this forgot that some people would read it and pick it apart- pure bullshit.

I concur with betrayed and disheartened. FUCKING PISSED OFF would also be very appropriate.