Subscribe to Breaking NewsRuby-Sachs: Howard Dean Says Repealing DADT Will Make the DOMA Defense Brief OK
First, a few words about the DOMA brief.
1. Read it. Here is the link. It’s not in extremely complicated legal language and it might well be a significant historical document one day (hopefully the one step too far for Obama).
2. The case is being heard in front of a judge who previously ruled in favor of a Gay Straight Alliance in Orange County. He issued an injunction demanding that the school allow the GSA to form. Now, the arguments for gay rights in the school context are very different than those in the marriage context, but they are in some ways harder to dismiss: school boards argue that the safety of children requires the removal of gay groups – such groups can become targets for homophobia. As well, school children have limited rights when compared with the general public.
This is a good thing. There is a chance that, if Justice Carter refuses to dismiss the case, and then rules in favor of the plaintiff, Obama (and let’s be clear, this IS Obama) will not appeal.
Now, on to Dean and DADT:
Yesterday, on the Rachel Maddow show, Howard Dean decried the language in the DOMA brief (quite rightfully so) and stated that the Obama administration would now likely be forced to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in order to appease the gay community.
Well, I might be in the minority here, but the repeal of DADT will do nothing to appease this member of the LGBT community. Calling my relationship the equivalent of incest cannot be erased if you let people who share my sexual orientation come out of the closet while serving in the armed forces. It’s just not sufficient.
Sure, DADT is infuriating and demeaning. But at the end of the day, my rights and the rights of most people like me are not affected. This doesn’t make it a fringe issue, the respect of military service members relates to the American community-at-large, but it does mean that repealing DADT while defending DOMA is just like granting rights to a small portion of the LGBT population while defiling the relationships of the whole LGBT population.
It’s just not good enough.
So focus on the issue at hand. One can fix this problem by making it a policy to refuse to defend DOMA in all future legal challenges, including an appeal of this current challenge. Because defending DOMA will always require the use of derogatory terms when describing LGBT relationships and will always lead to a cowardly reversal of campaign promises made by Obama to Americans just a few months ago.
Jay,
The only brief I’m aware of is the DoMA one, which (in a round about way) compared our relationships to incest and pedophilia. No brief has been filed about DADT, as far as I know. Don’t think there needs to be one, since it’s a presidential policy, not a law (I could be wrong about that, but I don’t think so).
Is there an online copy of the defense of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” brief that President Obama’s DOJ presented to the Supreme Court? I have made several searches including, “Pietrangelo v Gates.” Despite more than a couple of hours of effort, the results have been frustratingly unfruitful.
A URL or even a point in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
I’m with you Emma.
As a former military member, a GLBT community member and a partnered mother of an adult son…NO “DADT” is not even close to sufficient. Honestly “DADT” never really affect me, it wasn’t signed into policy until after I had already seperated from the military. I actuaully served under a much more severe policy. What’s worse is the nothing of a policy granting “certain” benefits to Federal Employee Domestic Partners. (Which really amounts to nothing!)
I’m sorry, but I pay taxes, I served my country…why is it too much to ask to be afforded the same rights, privledges and protections I served to defend for EVERY citizen?
No, its not enough, but repealing DADT is important. More important than marriage rights, and it always has been. Except the gay and lesbian community has been too stupid to see it. The roots of the civil rights movement didn’t start with MLK, they started with desegregation of the military. Military service is one of the great equalizers in American history and politics. It wasn’t until blacks and whites were literally forced to live with each other that there began to be some movement in civil rights for black Americans.
The same goes for gay servicemembers.
Its easy for someone in a small town in Iowa to dismiss some bar-hopping WeHo boy in LA. Its a lot harder to do that when that someone is from your own town who served with you and bled with you when it counted. It may not bring approval, but it does help toward getting acceptance. And its only when we stop being The Other that we will be free.
When i was watching the RMS, i actually felt sick, and sadly vindicated… Obama may be very brilliant, but our cause will always be pushed to the side for political expediance. Clinton betrayed the LGBT community, and nothing short of Obama spending a fair amount of his political capital repealing DADT and DOMA very soon he’s not really worth supporting. I think may be time for a new candidate in 2012… maybe Gavin Newsom… or even Howard Dean…i’m certainly hoping that the names Clinton and Obama end up on the same political scrapheap as the name Bush…
KenBSTN, I’d like to think you’re right, but neither Obama nor Holder can be accused of stupidity. Obama lectured on constitutional law. Nobody can convince me that what comes out of DOJ does not at some point go through Obama’s office.
I don’t see any way for Obama the lecturer on constitutional law to get a pass on the content of that DOJ brief. Holder should feel uncomfortable too, because it’s the Attorney General who is presenting this brief. Remember several years ago when a certain Republican President questioned the need to renew the Civil Rights Act? In some respects, what Holder and Obama have done with the DOJ brief is more telling and more offensive than that. No, I don’t think that this Adminstration is going to put out garbage to sink a discriminatory law; I think they told more truth then maybe they intended to. Maybe I’m wrong, would like to be wrong, but it’s Obama who backed his Adminstration into this corner.
Obama’s commitment to LGBT rights may be fully intact. The DOJ brief may have intentionally put forth weak and facially derrogatory arguments with hope that their position will fail before the courts.
Repeal of DADT is essential. It not only mandates discrimination but teaches discrimination is acceptable. That teaches prejudice, not only to thousands of military voters, but to the country as a whole. We will never achieve full equality as long as the government continues to teach discrimination. It affects all of us because it marginalizes and stigmatizes all of us. Repeal and replacement with a non-discrimination policy should be a priority.
The real test will be the DOJ’s brief on June 29 to GLAD’s challenge to DOMA in Mass. District Court.
I for one am fine with Democrats thinking that repealing DADT while defending DOMA is “enough”. Let them think that. I’ll take the huge step forward such a repeal will make…while still pushing strongly to have DOMA quashed as well.
While ending DADT nad having an openly intergrated military would be a historically important step, I agree that hearing Mr. Obama argue by proxy that states need to be able to prohibit same-sex marriages for the protection is a moment that I will not forget.
@Drewski: I agree I drew the same conclusions from Dean’s comments. Though I honestly don’t expect it to happen. Not to be a hater, but I think there would have been more “cover” for Obama in maximizing his distance from this legal battle than in ending DADT.
@Peter: Those cases were sited to show that that states have an interest in prohibiting certain unions for the general benefit of society. That’s why you can prohibit incestuous marriage but not inter-racial marriages. The underlying argument is that society is better off without same-sex marriages. While you may have some logical point, it seems to me you’re cutting so fine a line as to be non-existent.