One of Republicans favorite lies is their ‘we are fiscally conservative’ line. They campaign on it, they rile their uneducated sheeple with it. It ranks right up their with ‘family values’ in terms of the biggest load of bullshit they feed their following. The party that claims to care so much about being financially responsible has spent $2.3 million of your tax dollars defending the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA). That’s right, they’ve spent millions of dollars that could have gone towards things like infrastructure bills or feeding hungry families on court costs related to a completely discriminatory law. How fiscally conservative of them!

However, House Republicans seem to have seen the light (or were shoved into the light, rather) and have announced that they will no longer waste your money defending DOMA.

The decision by the House GOP was announced Thursday, three weeks after the Supreme Court’s Windsor ruling. All of the cases challenging DOMA were put on hold while the Supreme Court decided Edith Windsor’s case that challenged the definition of marriage in Section 3 of the law. Now that the SCOTUS handed down their ruling that defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman is unconstitutional, the other cases have in essence also been decided.

With this in mind, attorney Paul Clement with the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), wrote the following in a brief withdrawing from the Tracey Cooper-Harris v. USA case:

The Supreme Court recently resolved the issue of DOMA Section 3’s constitutionality. The Windsor decision necessarily resolves the issue of DOMA Section 3’s constitutionality in this case. While the question of whether 38 U.S.C. § 101(3), (31) is constitutional remains open, the House has determined, in light of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Windsor, that it no longer will defend that statute. Accordingly, the House now seeks leave to withdraw as a party defendant.

This means that BLAG, which is under Republican control, will no longer seek to deny same-sex couples in the military the veterans’ benefits they are entitled to. Now disabled U.S. Army veteran Tracey Cooper-Harris and her wife, Maggie, may be buried next to one another in a veterans’ cemetery just like any heterosexual couple. They will now also receive additional disability compensation. It’s nice that they have finally recognized that a person who has sacrificed their health for our country deserves to be treated just like everyone else. What a concept….

The concession by BLAG that Supreme Court’s decision has resolved the issue, means that other cases similar in nature have also been resolved. In other words, by filing the brief yesterday, House Republicans have given up their long time battle to systematically discriminate against a large portion of our society. How sad for them…..

Yesterday’s victory marked another in a long series of battles. Next on the agenda: the fight to have marriage equality recognized in ALL 50 states.