Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that President Obama's administration will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. During his first two years in office, the Obama administration has defended the act, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages, as part of its obligation to enforce laws enacted by Congress. However, the administration has now asserted that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and will no longer be enforced.
While issues related to gay marriage have received some setbacks in court recently, this move by the Obama administration is a major step forward towards recognition of the rights of homosexuals to enter same-sex marriages. The political implications of the executive branch of government refusing to enforce legislation will also have far-reaching impact as well.
In a related development, Hawaii recently joined the list of states recognizing civil unions, and is expected to move on to full recognition of gay marriage in the future.
What are your thoughts on this move by the Obama administration? Can the President refuse to enforce laws enacted by Congress? How will this affect other laws passed by Congress, especially laws passed over a presidential veto? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Comments
Actually, the administration has stated that it will continue to enforce the DOMA — it will merely decline to defend its constitutionality in the courts. Which raises to me a very troubling question of whether the President should enforce a law that he has clearly determined to be unconstitutional. Doesn’t that violate his oath to defend the Constitution?
My understanding is that they will continue to implement the law, but that they will not defend it in court. With at least two pending lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the law, that means that the government will essentially concede to the judge that the challenger’s legal arguments are correct. Thus, Obama is actually saying he will continue to enforce the law until a court orders him to stop, but that he won’t oppose a court ordering him to stop.
Being a constitutional issue dealing with issues of discrimination, his duty is more complex than when dealing with a law that he merely disagrees with, because he has a duty to defend the Constitution. To give an extreme example, what if Congress passed a law ordering the execution of all Jews in the country?
To take your example, if Congress passed a law ordering the execution of all Jews, I would hope that the President wouldn’t continue to execute Jews until the SCOTUS ordered him to stop, notwithstanding his decision to not defend the obviously unconstitutional law in court. If he thinks the law is unconstitutional, he is thereby duty-bound to not enforce it. If he merely disagrees with the law, that’s another matter.
Obama has usurped legislative and judicial powers while failing to perform his sworn duty of upholding duly enacted laws. All DOMA did was to protect those states which did not sanctify gay marriage, from having to recognize such marriages performed out of state. Another in a pattern of ignoring those laws he disagrees with.
That is not what DOMA did. If anything, it had the opposite effect by nullifying the validity of valid gay marriages for purposes of receiving federal benefits. DOMA prohibited homosexual couples who had entered into gay marriages that were lawful in their state from being able to receive any form of federal government benefits that would have accrued to a married heterosexual couple. It is discriminatory on its face. The only way it can be considered constitutional is if one asserts that homosexuals have fewer rights than heterosexuals.
DOJ has notified Congress of its decision and Congress (or, I assume, either house) may if it chooses defend the validity of the act. I would assume that other interested parties might be able to intervene to provide such a defense.
I agree, I am quite sure that other parties will step in to defend the law. How much time and money they are willing to invest in its defense is quite a different matter. I don’t know that anyone in Congress has the desire to spend millions of dollars defending this law when they are trying to find ways to reduce the budget. This is certainly going to be a subject of widespread debate for the next several weeks, at a minimum.