Liberal bloggers are barking mad.
Barack Obama, the savior-in-chief who said he was a “fierce advocate” of homosexuals, committed the unpardonable sin of rendering a decision in accordance with the law.
Earlier this month, Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) moved to dismiss Smelt v. United States of America, a case filed by “married” homosexuals attempting to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996, DOMA allows states to refuse to recognize so-called same-sex marriages performed in other states and bars the federal government from recognizing such marriages.
A majority of states explicitly protect traditional marriage, including left-leaning California. Last month, the state’s highest court upheld an amendment that declares only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in the state. Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer married in California during the brief window in which such marriages were legal. The issue they posed was not whether they had a right to marry, but whether states that bar such marriages must recognize theirs. Obama’s Justice Department said no.
Although the U.S. Constitution provides that states must recognize “public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state,” Congress validly exercised its power [through DOMA] to ensure that each state may decline to apply another state’s laws when they conflict with said state’s public policies. In defending DOMA, Obama did exactly what he swore to do: preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He has neither the duty nor the authority to declare laws unconstitutional. That power belongs to the judiciary.
Outraged homosexual bloggers claim Obama compared so-called homosexual marriages to incestuous and underage marriages (emphases added):
The courts have followed [conflict of laws] principle, moreover, in relation to the validity of marriages performed in other States. Both the First and Second Restatements of Conflict of Laws recognize that State courts may refuse to give effect to a marriage, or to certain incidents of a marriage, that contravene the forum State’s policy…And the courts have widely held that certain marriages performed elsewhere need not be given effect, because they conflicted with the public policy of the forum. See, e.g., Catalano v. Catalano, 170 A.2d 726, 728-29 (Conn. 1961) (marriage of uncle to niece, “though valid in Italy under its laws, was not valid in Connecticut because it contravened the public policy of th[at] state”); Wilkins v. Zelichowski, 140 A.2d 65, 67-68 (N.J. 1958) (marriage of 16-year-old female held invalid in New Jersey, regardless of validity in Indiana where performed, in light of N.J. policy reflected in statute permitting adult female to secure annulment of her underage marriage); In re Mortenson’s Estate, 316 P.2d 1106 (Ariz. 1957) (marriage of first cousins held invalid in Arizona, though lawfully performed in New Mexico, given Arizona policy reflected in statute declaring such marriages “prohibited and void”).
As you can see, the allegation is false. DOJ cited Catalano, Wilkins, and In re Mortenson’s Estate as examples of how the court decided cases in which state laws conflicted. What’s definitely outrageous is homosexuals citing Loving v. Virginia to bolster their argument for marriage between two men, a case easily distinguished from Smelt v. United States of America.
In 1958, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving left their home state to marry in Washington, D.C., where interracial marriage was legal. After returning to Virginia, the couple was arrested in their home and charged with “unlawful cohabitation.” The court suspended sentence on the condition that they leave the state. In 1963, the Lovings filed a motion to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence. Almost a year later, the court still hadn’t ruled on the motion, and the couple filed a class action suit in federal court. The case eventually reached Virginia’s highest court, which upheld the state’s law against miscegenation and affirmed the convictions.
On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute unconstitutional. As marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman, there was no “legitimate overriding purpose” to outlaw marriage between a white man and a black woman other than blatant racial discrimination. As racial classifications are suspect, states must demonstrate a “permissible state objective, independent of the racial discrimination which it was the object of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate.” The court added that denying the couple “this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes…is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law.”
Loving did not give people the right to marry whomever they wished; it gave them the freedom to marry without racial restrictions. The goal of interracial marriage bans and legalized segregation was to maintain a subordinate class of citizens based on race. The goal of same-sex marriage bans is to protect traditional marriage, not maintain a subordinate class based on “sexual orientation.” Anyone with only half a brain knows that homosexuals in the U.S. hardly are a subordinate class.
It’s time for homosexual “marriage” proponents to find a more apt and a less offensive argument to gain validation and acceptance of a lifestyle choice.
Good luck with that.
