LGBT Legal Groups Decry Obama Administration’s Defense of DOMA
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (EJS board member Kate Kendell is NLCR’s executive director), Lambda Legal, the ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, GLAD and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued a statement today objecting to the Obama administration’s recent filing in support of the a law that discriminates against LGBT.
(San Francisco, CA, June 12, 2009)—We are very surprised and deeply disappointed in the manner in which the Obama administration has defended the so-called Defense of Marriage Act against Smelt v. United States, a lawsuit brought in federal court in California by a married same-sex couple asking the federal government to treat them equally with respect to federal protections and benefits. The administration is using many of the same flawed legal arguments that the Bush administration used. These arguments rightly have been rejected by several state supreme courts as legally unsound and obviously discriminatory.
We disagree with many of the administration’s arguments, for example that DOMA is a valid exercise of Congress’s power, is consistent with Equal Protection or Due Process principles, and does not impinge upon rights that are recognized as fundamental.
We are also extremely disturbed by a new and nonsensical argument the administration has advanced suggesting that the federal government needs to be “neutral” with regard to its treatment of married same-sex couples in order to ensure that federal tax money collected from across the country not be used to assist same-sex couples duly married by their home states.
There is nothing “neutral” about the federal government’s discriminatory denial of fair treatment to married same-sex couples: DOMA wrongly bars the federal government from providing any of the over one thousand federal protections to the many thousands of couples who marry in six states. This notion of “neutrality” ignores the fact that while married same-sex couples pay their full share of income and social security taxes, they are prevented by DOMA from receiving the corresponding same benefits that married heterosexual taxpayers receive.
It is the married same-sex couples, not heterosexuals in other parts of the country, who are financially and personally damaged in significant ways by DOMA. For the Obama administration to suggest otherwise simply departs from both mathematical and legal reality.
When President Obama was courting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, he said that he believed that DOMA should be repealed. We ask him to live up to his emphatic campaign promises, to stop making false and damaging legal arguments, and immediately to introduce a bill to repeal DOMA and ensure that every married couple in America has the same access to federal protections.
Eva Paterson, Other Leaders Join Lawyers for Press Conference on Prop 8 Legal Challenge
EJS President Eva Paterson will participate in a press conference with other leaders and attorneys to be held immediately prior to Thursday’s California Supreme Court oral arguments in the Prop 8 legal challenge. Attorneys will argue that by taking away a right only from one group, Proposition 8 violates the most basic principle of our government: that all people are entitled to equal treatment under the law.
Kate Kendell, Eva Paterson: ‘Standing Together and Continuing the Conversation’
Next Thursday, the California Supreme Court will hear arguments in our legal challenge to Proposition 8. As we seek to overturn Prop 8, we have the broadest array of support ever seen on an LGBT issue before any California Court. This support speaks directly to the relationships and coalition work that many in the LGBT, religious, business, and civil rights communities have been doing for years. However, there is another truth motivating the breadth of voices calling on the court to invalidate Prop 8. Prop 8 is an assault on the California Constitution and the most fundamental principal of any functioning democracy: all people will be treated equally under the law.
Eva Paterson on Roundtable Discussing Prop. 8 on 5th Anniv. of SF’s Marriage Licenses
EJS President Eva Paterson will join other civl rights and religious leaders and plaintiff couples from In re Marriage Cases in a roundtable to reflect on the historic California Supreme Court ruling and the pending Prop. 8 legal challenge. This discussion takes place on the fifth anniversary of San Francisco’s first issuance of marriage licenses.
The original plaintiffs, including Phyllis Lyon, the first to be married in San Francisco in 2004 and again on June 16, 2008, will make short statements about the personal significance of the ruling. Civil rights and religious leaders will discuss their role as amici in the Prop 8 legal challenge.
The roundtable takes place on Friday, February 13, from 10:30 a.m. at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, 870 Market Street, Suite 370, San Francisco.
Rev. Rick Warren and the Question of Challenging our New President
Just as the Equal Justice Society was last month closing up shop for the year, two of our beloved board members, Tobias Wolff and Kate Kendell, blogged about their opposition to Rev. Rick Warren’s selection by President-Elect Obama to deliver the invocation for the Jan. 20 inauguration ceremonies.
Read Tobias’s “The Voice That Will Inspire” on the Huffington Post and Kate’s “Not a Disagreement among Friends…” on the NCLR blog.
You can also read them together on the same page.
Tobias, a law professor and civil rights lawyer, served as the chief advisor and spokesperson on LGBT issues for Barack Obama throughout campaign. Kate is the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and a key leader in the marriage equality movement.
EJS’s strong support for LGBT civil rights most recently included opposition to California’s Prop. 8 and, following its passage, support for legal action to overturn the initiative.
In addition to our opposition to Rev. Warren’s role in the inauguration ceremonies, we discussed internally how this issue sparks new questions for us on the best way to simultaneously support the Obama Administration’s overall efforts while vigorously opposing decisions that we believe are fundamentally and ideologically wrong.
In contrast to the relative ease in opposing the Bush Administration’s agenda, we find it uncomfortable to oppose a decision by President Obama in whom we have the highest aspirations and in whose administration we wish only great success.
But there will surely come another time when we will disagree or be disappointed. No one person can solve or even lead the way to solving every social injustice. EJS exists to move a social justice agenda forward, to partner with key allies and to hold accountable our leaders—no matter who they may be.
What is the best way to challenge President Obama on certain key issues? Do we register our protest and move on? Or do we keep pushing … and how much?
We throw these questions out to you. Please read Tobias’s and Kate’s thoughts on the issue and share your comments with us here.
