Yesterday I was quite pleased for the sake of gay friends that I admire and respect that Barack Obama has instructed DOJ to stop defending DOMA in court, correctly stating that the law is unconstitutional. This surprised me, because Obama went against his own personal bias. What didn’t surprise me is the flood of Republican condemnation that followed.

President Obama, in a striking legal and political shift, has determined that the Defense of Marriage Act — the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages — is unconstitutional, and has directed the Justice Department to stop defending the law in court, the administration said Wednesday. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced the decision in a letter to members of Congress. In it, he said the administration was taking the extraordinary step of refusing to defend the law, despite having done so during Mr. Obama’s first two years in the White House. “The president and I have concluded that classifications based on sexual orientation” should be subjected to a strict legal test intended to block unfair discrimination, Mr. Holder wrote. As a result, he said, a crucial provision of the Defense of Marriage Act “is unconstitutional.” Conservatives denounced the shift, gay rights advocates hailed it as a watershed, and legal scholars said it could have far-reaching implications beyond the marriage law. For Mr. Obama, who opposes same-sex marriage but has said repeatedly that his views are “evolving,” there are political implications as well. Coming on the heels of his push for Congress to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law barring the military from allowing gay people to serve openly, the administration’s move seems likely to intensify the long-running cultural clash over same-sex marriage as the 2012 political campaign is heating up… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Perhaps the most inoffensive Republican response came from John “Agent Orange” Boehner. He claims that continuing the defense of DOMA would have created jobs. I’ll have a load of that for the front lawn, please!

It gets uglier.

Earlier today it was reported that President Obama had ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. So far, reactions from the Religious Right have been few and far between but we are going to post them here as they trickle in: National Organization for Marriage [NOM delinked]: “We have not yet begun to fight for marriage,” said Brian Brown, president of NOM. “The Democrats are responding to their election loss with a series of extraordinary, extra-constitutional end runs around democracy, whether it’s fleeing the state in Wisconsin and Indiana to prevent a vote, or unilaterally declaring homosexuals a protected class under our Constitution, as President Obama just did,” said Brown. “We call on the House to intervene to protect DOMA, and to tell the Obama administration they have to respect the limits on their power. This fight is not over, it has only begun!” … “On the one hand this is a truly shocking extra-constitutional power grab in declaring gay people are a protected class, and it’s also a defection of duty on the part of the President Obama,” said Maggie Gallagher, Chairman of NOM, “On the other hand, the Obama administration was throwing this case in court anyway. The good news is this now clears the way for the House to intervene and to get lawyers in the court room who actually want to defend the law, and not please their powerful political special interests.” FRC : "It’s a dereliction of duty,” said Tom McClusky, senior vice president of Family Research Council Action. "Whether they agree with the law or not is irrelevant…The Obama administration has purposely dropped the ball here." AFA : "I think it’s a clear sign that we simply cannot avoid engaging on the social issues," Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis for the group, told TPM. "Mitch Daniels has called for a truce on social issues and that would be fine if the homosexual lobby was willing to lay down arms, but they’re obviously not and this proves it. A truce is nothing more than a surrender." Fischer said he was not surprised by the president’s decision. "Frankly I was surprised that President Obama pretended to be a defender of natural marriage as long as he did," he said. He said that the White House move should serve as "a wake-up call to all conservatives that fundamental American values regarding the family are under all-out assault by this administration. It ought to represent a clarion call to man the barricades before we lose what is left of the Judeo-Christian system of values in our public life." Focus on the Family : Tom Minnery, a vice president with Focus on the Family, said the Obama administration did not aggressively defend the Defense of Marriage Act in any case. "If the federal government will not defend federal laws, we’re facing legal chaos," Minnery said. "If the administration can pick and choose what laws it defends, which law is next?" "We would hope Congress uses the tools at its disposal to counter this decision and defend marriage," Minnery said.

Inserted from <Right Wing Watch>

There are more and worse examples in the original article.

Frankly, I think Republicans are secretly pleased that Obama has done this, because it gives them an excuse to draw attention away from the real focus we need: creating jobs. In addition, they can use it to whip up hate and fundraise. Bachmann has already sent out the fund raising emails.

Given the part she has played in this struggle, I can’t lat a moment like this pass without including Rachel Maddow’s take. She interviews law Professor, Tobias Wolfe.

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