The Los Angeles Times ran a couple of letters responding to their recent editorial on defending DOMA. Ian Millhiser of Washington complains about the expense:
Randall Gellens of San Diego draws a distinction between criminal defense and civil law:
Gellens then begs the question by assuming the very matter under review:
Marriage neutering advocates hate DOMA first and foremost because it prevented them from being able to immediately force the neutering of marriage on every state and territory by getting activist judges in a single state to neuter marriage. Without DOMA, immediately after a brideless or groomless couple got a neutered marriage license in that one state, they would have gone to another state and demanded recognition, and that state would have either rolled over (and this would have been repeated in every other state) or quickly lost in court (which would have expressly or effectively impacted every other state). Having DOMA has, at the very least, given more time to the discussion, preventing wacky judges in one state from instantly neutering marriage for every other state. DOMA shouldn't have been needed in the first place.
It is very possible that if the marriage neutering advocates had - instead of neutering the state licensing of marriage in a handful of states and then fighting DOMA in court - put all their efforts into replacing DOMA with something that would have preserved marriage but also recognized domestic partnerships, every single same-sex couple who wanted federal recognition and benefits would have had those things by now. State legislatures would no doubt be eager to literally cash in on the federal recognition of state domestic partnerships. But the fight doesn't appear to be about improving the situation for same-sex couples as much as it is about making sure there isn't a word that might indicate gender-inclusive couples are of more concern to the state than gender-exclusive couples, or in any way different.
But Clement is not simply one of the nation's leading attorneys; he is also one of the most expensive. The American taxpayer will pay Clement's firm $520 an hour to defend a law that belongs in the dustbin of history.The bipartisan DOMA was in place long before any suing parties obtained marriage licenses from their state. Those couples knew the score from the start. Neither the GOP nor the House of Representatives picked this fight. This is a common tactic of the marriage neutering advocates – take action, and then when that action is countered, complain about the attention or money spent on the matter.
If the GOP really cares about fiscal responsibility, it should fire Clement.
Randall Gellens of San Diego draws a distinction between criminal defense and civil law:
A person convicted of a crime may be fined or imprisoned and stigmatized for a very long time. Time served cannot be regained. In contrast, a law overturned suffers no harm.If such a prominent law is overturned because it was not defended against a lawsuit, our entire system can be harmed as power shifts from the people and their representatives to the few wealthy or legally trained individuals or groups who file these lawsuits. Confidence in the merits of the court decisions or settlements disappears, and we end up with a system that relies on brute force to get a disenfranchised populace to comply to the whims of a tiny unelected minority.
Gellens then begs the question by assuming the very matter under review:
It is good for an obviously bad law to go undefended; in fact, it is a mark of a mature society.We don’t need three branches of government, apparently. We just need to ask Gellens for his opinion, and then run things that way. Now that would be an easy Constitution to memorize. "We the people defer to Randall Gellens of San Diego."
Marriage neutering advocates hate DOMA first and foremost because it prevented them from being able to immediately force the neutering of marriage on every state and territory by getting activist judges in a single state to neuter marriage. Without DOMA, immediately after a brideless or groomless couple got a neutered marriage license in that one state, they would have gone to another state and demanded recognition, and that state would have either rolled over (and this would have been repeated in every other state) or quickly lost in court (which would have expressly or effectively impacted every other state). Having DOMA has, at the very least, given more time to the discussion, preventing wacky judges in one state from instantly neutering marriage for every other state. DOMA shouldn't have been needed in the first place.
It is very possible that if the marriage neutering advocates had - instead of neutering the state licensing of marriage in a handful of states and then fighting DOMA in court - put all their efforts into replacing DOMA with something that would have preserved marriage but also recognized domestic partnerships, every single same-sex couple who wanted federal recognition and benefits would have had those things by now. State legislatures would no doubt be eager to literally cash in on the federal recognition of state domestic partnerships. But the fight doesn't appear to be about improving the situation for same-sex couples as much as it is about making sure there isn't a word that might indicate gender-inclusive couples are of more concern to the state than gender-exclusive couples, or in any way different.
If neutered marriage advocates believed the rightness of their position, they would be not only willing, but eager to make their case in a fair forum.
ReplyDeleteOne of the defining events of the American Revolution was the defense by John Adams of the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. It demonstrated the commitment to due process and the rule of law inherent in what it means to be American.
So committed to justice was John Adams that he was willing to sacrifice his future political career defending an action he himself disagreed with. President Obama did the opposite of that, abandoning defense of a principle with which he claims to agree in the pursuit of some kind of political gain. In this way President Obama and his supporters among the neutered marriage advocates are truly un-American.