Bennett's DC Marriage Poison Pill Fails

Chris Geidner at Law Dork reports that late last night, Sen. Bob Bennett's poison pill amendment to suspend same-sex marriage in DC failed when it was stricken from the health care reform bill.

After 1 a.m. this morning, as the Senate considers a slew of Republican amendments — many “poison pills” — to the House’s health care reconciliation “fixes,” Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) had his anti-LGBT, anti-federalist amendment considered. The amendment would have stopped marriage equality in the District until a popular vote on the matter could be held. By a little past 1:30 this morning, however, the amendment was defeated. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), presiding over the late-night session, announced the roll call vote: 36-59.

DOJ-DOMA Reactions

Reactions to this morning's DOJ-DOMA filing...

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog:

I guess this is a step in the right direction. I don't want to fail to praise the administration for doing better, but to some degree the only reason this is "good" is because of how "bad" they did on the previous brief. In the end, they're still defending a discriminatory law that the president himself has called "abhorrent." The fact that they're doing it more tactfully is, I suppose, nice - and they are no longer using language that undercuts us on a variety of other civil rights, so that's good - but again, we're praising them for no longer doing things that they shouldn't have done in the first place. And in the end, they're still defending discrimination.

Chris Geidner at Law Dork 2.0:

Those who assert that the Obama Administration did not even need to file a brief will be dissatisfied with the brief because it essentially incorporates the earlier arguments into this reply brief and continues to defend DOMA as a legal matter. But, for those many people who believe that the government, in a situation such as this, does have a responsibility to defend the law, this brief makes clear the distinction between opposing a policy and defending a law.

From the brief itself to Obama’s statement and in light of the other changes being advanced by the Administration, I continue to believe that the original DOJ Smelt filing was made without the full appreciation (or knowledge) by higher-ups. I do think that the uproar following its filing has changed the approach of the Administration, and, for that, the debate was worthwhile. This filing and statement show a keen awareness of and sensitivity to that impact, while maintaining a clear principle to defend a law that repeatedly has been found to be constitutional.

Focus On The Family at Drive-Thru:

It’s weird that our modern day defenders of the law can’t find a reason to keep marriage between a man and a woman when ancient civilizations had no trouble connecting the dots from heterosexual sex to child-rearing. Ironically, the same lawyers in the Justice Department who wrote this will also be defending DOMA. And that should make us all feel warm and cozy—marriage should be defended very well, don’t you think, by the very same people who want to redefine it for another purpose entirely. I would like to know the administration’s alternative plan for attaching fathers to their children. You would think that future generations of taxpayers would be of vital interest to an administration planning astronomical tax increases.

Gays Orgs Reverse Course, Now Support Federal Marriage Suit

Earlier this month, a powerful coalition of LGBT and progressive groups issued a joint statement in opposition to the federal marriage lawsuit being brought by superstar lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies. Yesterday the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) announced that the ACLU, Lambda Legal, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights had reversed course and filed an amicus brief in support of their suit. Law Dork breaks it down:

This is very big news. The initial response, across the board, was that the Olson/Boies suit was a poorly planned, hastily arranged lawsuit by people outside of the “gay establishment” — including the smart and successful lawsuits brought repeatedly by the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). The groups, which included all of these groups, the major political LGBT groups and Evan Wolfson’s Freedom to Marry, wrote:

The groups released a new publication, “Why the ballot box and not the courts should be the next step on marriage in California.” This publication discourages people from bringing premature lawsuits based on the federal Constitution because, without more groundwork, the U.S. Supreme Court likely is not yet ready to rule that same-sex couples cannot be barred from marriage.

Now, the three legal groups other than GLAD apparently have filed court briefs supporting the Olson/Boies suit. GLAD is notably absent, as is Freedom to Marry. Is this a sign of a break in Gay, Inc., on the Olson/Boies suit?

The question here, according to Law Dork, is whether the groups joining the suit have had a real change of mind or if they merely think the suit is unstoppable, so they may as well join in.