Posted by Tina
WASHINGTON, DC – A coalition of 34,000 black churches is blasting President Barack Obama’s decision to stop defending the federal law that bans recognition of gay marriage.
The Rev. Anthony Evans, who heads the National Black Church Initiative, says Obama “has violated the Christian faith” by failing to uphold Jesus’ teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman.
The Justice Department announced Wednesday that, at Obama’s direction, it would not defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act in a court case where it’s being challenged.
The Prez is tossing big bones to the gay community in the run up to the 2012 election. He is a man caught in the middle of opposing views among his supporters. But what about the law? Is it right for the President of the United States to declare, as if by fiat, that certain laws will no longer be upheld and defended? Isn’t he, once again, governing outside the parameters set in the Constitution when he makes such a declaration?
Gee too bad…maybe they won’t support him in 2012?
Tina: “Is it right for the President of the United States to declare, as if by fiat, that certain laws will no longer be upheld and defended?”
The law WILL continue to be upheld. Have you read the full statement by the DOJ? It clearly says that Section 3 of DOMA will continue being enforced, but not defended in court. This means that same-sex couples whose states recognize their marriages will continue not receiving federal marriage benefits. The DOJ statement only means that the administration will no longer defend the law in court, because they believe it is unconstitutional. There is actually lot of precedent for this, going all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, and the previous three presidents have all chosen not to defend laws they believed were unconstitutional at one time or another:
http://mediamatters.org/research/201102250041
So to answer your question: No, Obama’s decision here is neither inappropriate nor unconstitutional.
“The Rev. Anthony Evans, who heads the National Black Church Initiative, says Obama “has violated the Christian faith” by failing to uphold Jesus’ teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman.”
I would be interested in taking a look at the version of the Bible that Evans is citing here, since mine does not feature Jesus teaching any such thing.
Also, I eagerly await Evans’ opposition to legalized gambling. If his argument is that the U.S. should ban everything that the Bible says is wrong, then he should at least be consistent about it.
In 2009 Obama and the same justice department thought it was necessary for Congress to change the law:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/obama-justice-department-defends-defense-of-marriage-act-that-candidate-obama-opposed.html
You seem to know a lot about this Chris…can you tell us what has changed?
It’s not unprecedented for the executive branch to refuse to defend laws they disagree with. California’s Governors since Wilson have notoriously not defended some of the propositions we’ve passed.
The political repercussions are another story. Prop 8 passed in CA in 2008 with heavy minority voter turnout that elected Barrack Obama. Clearly Prop 8 was not passed by conservative white voters alone. Obama is now going against, although not with much gusto, a segment of his voting base. Many of them will certainly continue to vote for him, but his support is slipping. Like tiny sands through a clenched fist, his supporters are leaving him.
Sadly the few supporters he has who contribute to this blog will cling to him like dog $hit to a shoe.
Tina–“You seem to know a lot about this Chris…can you tell us what has changed?”
Obama has said that his opinion on gay marriage is “constantly evolving.” This seems to be a simple evolution of his position. He still needs either the legislative or the judicial branch to agree with him before his opinion has much effect, though.
Steve, this may have some small effect on Obama’s support from the black community, but I doubt most of them are going to switch to the Republican candidate in ’12 based on this one issue. Plus, plenty of people are thrilled about this decision, and a big part of Obama’s base has been wanting him to get stronger on gay rights positions for years. I doubt this will be a decisive issue in the election.