Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) = America’s Prop 8. Help Repeal It!
On September 21st, 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was signed into federal law. DOMA, wrote discrimination into the Constitution with two strict regulations:
- No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
- The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.
On Saturday, January 10th, 2009 we will come together as one UNITED FRONT asking the LGBTQ community to join us in signing an Open Letter to President Barack Obama, during a NATIONAL DOMA PROTEST.
This letter will remind President Elect Barack Obama of the promises he made to us.
It will also serve as a pledge from our community that we will hold him to his promises and help him achieve them.
Cities across the United States will be coming together on Saturday, January 10th to a Nationwide DOMA Protest, collecting over 1,000,000 signatures to attach to an official open letter from Join the Impact to President-Elect Barack Obama asking him to Repeal DOMA.
NATIONWIDE GOAL: Collect 1,000,000 Signatures
Find the Nationwide DOMA Event near you: Join the Impact
Even Bob Barr, the author of DOMA, says Obama is right, and agrees that this law should be repealed. Below is his op-ed from the LA Times (my own bold emphases included):
No defending the Defense of Marriage Act
By Bob Barr
January 5, 2009In 1996, as a freshman member of the House of Representatives, I wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, better known by its shorthand acronym, DOMA, than its legal title. The law has been a flash-point for those arguing for or against same-sex marriage ever since President Clinton signed it into law. Even President-elect Barack Obama has grappled with its language, meaning and impact.
I can sympathize with the incoming commander in chief. And, after long and careful consideration, I have come to agree with him that the law should be repealed.
The left now decries DOMA as the barrier to federal recognition and benefits for married gay couples. At the other end of the political spectrum, however, DOMA has been lambasted for subverting the political momentum for a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. In truth, the language of the legislation — like that of most federal laws — was a compromise.
DOMA was indeed designed to thwart the then-nascent move in a few state courts and legislatures to afford partial or full recognition to same-sex couples. The Hawaii court case Baehr vs. Lewin, still active while DOMA was being considered by Congress in mid-1996, provided the immediate impetus.
The Hawaii court was clearly leaning toward legalizing same-sex marriages. So the first part of DOMA was crafted to prevent the U.S. Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause — which normally would require State B to recognize any lawful marriage performed in State A — from being used to extend one state’s recognition of same-sex marriage to other states whose citizens chose not to recognize such a union.
Contrary to the wishes of a number of my Republican colleagues, I crafted the legislation so it wasn’t a hammer the federal government could use to force states to recognize only unions between a man and a woman. Congress deliberately chose not to establish a single, nationwide definition of marriage.
However, we did incorporate into DOMA’s second part a definition of marriage that comported with the historic — and, at the time, widely accepted — view of the institution as being between a man and a woman only. But this definition was to be used solely to interpret provisions of federal law related to spouses.
The first part of DOMA, then, is a partial bow to principles of federalism, protecting the power of each state to determine its definition of marriage. The second part sets a legal definition of marriage only for purposes of federal law, but not for the states. That was the theory.
I’ve wrestled with this issue for the last several years and come to the conclusion that DOMA is not working out as planned. In testifying before Congress against a federal marriage amendment, and more recently while making my case to skeptical Libertarians as to why I was worthy of their support as their party’s presidential nominee, I have concluded that DOMA is neither meeting the principles of federalism it was supposed to, nor is its impact limited to federal law.
In effect, DOMA’s language reflects one-way federalism: It protects only those states that don’t want to accept a same-sex marriage granted by another state. Moreover, the heterosexual definition of marriage for purposes of federal laws — including, immigration, Social Security survivor rights and veteran’s benefits — has become a de facto club used to limit, if not thwart, the ability of a state to choose to recognize same-sex unions.
Even more so now than in 1996, I believe we need to reduce federal power over the lives of the citizenry and over the prerogatives of the states. It truly is time to get the federal government out of the marriage business. In law and policy, such decisions should be left to the people themselves.
In 2006, when then-Sen. Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he said, “Decisions about marriage should be left to the states.” He was right then; and as I have come to realize, he is right now in concluding that DOMA has to go. If one truly believes in federalism and the primacy of state government over the federal, DOMA is simply incompatible with those notions.
Bob Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was the Libertarian Party’s 2008 nominee for president.
Read the original LA Times article here.
The above is an amazing passage, content-aside. I think it takes a lot for someone to come out and express these opinions when he could have easily done nothing at all. I respect that kind of honesty.
If you were pissed, upset, and otherwise affected by the passing of Prop 8, get off your ass and DO something about it. Find something you can do, do it, and KNOW that you’ve contributed your part in this movement for CHANGE. We need a tremendous amount of help, and we need anyone that is WILLING to help. Let me know if you need some place to be directed and I’ll find a place for you.
Don’t sit around and wait for someone else to make it happen for you–that’s what happened with Prop 8.
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