DOMA and Dirty Tricks

Maya Rupert wrote on the LATimes.com opinion blog to respond to the paper's editorial about defending DOMA. She is the federal policy director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

In the editorial, The Times takes the curious step of extending the familiar maxim that "every person deserves a lawyer" to the more expansive "every position deserves a lawyer." The first is a fundamental right upon which we base our criminal justice system. The other is a fiction that mistakenly seeks to insulate a shortsighted law firm from criticism for its decision to defend a discriminatory law.

Rupert simply assumes that DOMA doesn't deserve a defense. This tactic is designed to prevent debate in the first place. The marriage neutering advocates like her don't want a discussion.

Positions on laws do not exist on their own. They are held by people. DOMA was signed into law through a bipartisan effort. Those people are being defended. The very people of the union are being defended.

In this case, there is no greater good, no cherished larger issue at stake; the only issue contested is discrimination. There is no venerable tradition of lawyers defending laws that single out certain groups for discrimination.

All laws discriminate. DOMA doesn't discriminate against groups, only between different kinds of associations.

Clement has made a decision not just to stand on the wrong side of history but to lead the charge on that side and, sadly, to bring his law firm, King & Spalding, along with him.

King & Spalding has since wimped out. But I wanted to say that the "wrong side of history" phrase is fauxmentum by another name, and it really needs to be put to rest. Those who opposed Stalin during Stalin's regime were on the "wrong side of history" at the time.

"Tony Locke" April 23, 2011 at 09:19 AM gets it right:

If this law were not defended, then laws passed by a duly elected congress are just one lawsuit away from being overturned. I expect any administration to defend the laws on the books, or else submit them for repeal. To attack the men and women providing representation in this case is unfair and immature. A law is not indefensible simply because you disagree.

Here's the Los Angeles Times article from David G. Savage on King & Spalding, and even this article points out that the marriage neutering advocates have unprecedented power.

The turn of events underscored the growing political power of the gay-rights movement. Major law firms place a high value on their reputations for diversity and nondiscrimination. On its website, King & Spalding touted its 95% rating for gay-rights equality from the Human Rights Campaign.

"If they had stayed with this case, it would have damaged the firm for the next 20 years," said one Washington lawyer, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity involved.

But the firm's abrupt withdrawal surprised some veteran Washington lawyers, who said they were not aware of a major law firm ever dropping a case because of bad publicity.

Ken Klukowski has a column praising Paul Cement.

In 1996, a bipartisan majority of the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton. The law specifies that for purposes of federal law, marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The law also provides that if any state breaks with 2,000 years of Western civilization by redefining marriage to include homosexual couples, no other state need recognize those unions.

Let's not forget that this wasn't a matter of a fringe group of radicals somehow slipping a law onto the books in the dark of night. The was in place many years before any state was issuing marriage licenses to brideless couples and grooumless couples. Those couples were fully aware of the law, I'm sure.

When Ted Olson decided to take a case arguing that the U.S. Constitution includes a right to same-sex marriage which mysteriously went unnoticed by anyone in the country for over 200 years, no reputable group called for boycotting his firm, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. Nor should they.

Both sides are not fighting the same way, that's for sure.

People should remember this episode as showing the oppressive nature of some leftists. They scream about freedom when it suits their purpose, only to deny others freedom to even be heard. On this issue, pro-marriage advocates—especially churches and ministries faithful to biblical teaching on marriage—had better take heed. You will be next.

Yes. The fascists trying to force the neutering of marriage on the rest of us have already tipped their hand in what they did at the Crystal Cathedral.