“Marriage is an important part of getting ahead. It lets people know
you’re not a homo. A married guy seems more stable. People see the
ring, they think ‘at least somebody can stand the son of a bitch.’
Ladies see the ring, they know immediately that you must have some
cash, and your **** must work.”

Cliff Dunn

The latest attack on the civil liberties
of LGBT Americans came on Friday, when
the three highest ranked Republican
members of the U.S. House leadership
filed an appeal with the U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San
Francisco, and asked them to overturn the
decision of U.S. District Judge Jeffrey
White, who on Wednesday ruled that the
loathsome Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA) is offensive to the Constitution.

Judge White—a Republican
appointed by President George W. Bush–
is the second federal jurist to rule that
Section 3 of DOMA, the part that defines
marriage as between one man and one
woman, violates the Constitution’s equal
protection clause. In his ruling, White—
in the 1970s, a Nixon-appointed Justice
Department lawyer–said that the 1996
law does not satisfy a “heightened
scrutiny” test, which means that DOMA
does not further any ‘important’
government interests. This means that
the DOMA potentially could fail a
“rational basis” test, which is a lower
standard that asks if the law furthers a
‘legitimate’ interest. The case White ruled
upon concerns a gay attorney for the 9th
Circuit, Karen Golinski, who was refused
spousal health care benefits for her wife.

“The Court finds that DOMA, as
applied to Ms. Golinski, violates her right
to equal protection of the law,” wrote
White “by, without substantial
justification or rational basis, refusing to
recognize her lawful marriage to prevent
provision of health insurance coverage to
her spouse.” White then became My
Favorite Person This Week when he threw
the hypocrisy of the states’ rights crowd
back into the teeth of Ron Paul and the
Tenth Amendment Set who hide behind
federalism when pointing an accusing
finger at a bullying federal government.

He lambasted the law as an egregious and
“stark departure from tradition and a
blatant disregard of the well-accepted
concept of federalism in the area of
domestic relations.” I now know what is
meant by an “honest constructionist.”
Far from protecting marriage, DOMA
actually weakens it, denying as it does
federal benefits to same-sex spouses. If
two gay men marry in Massachusetts, for
instance, where marriage equality is legal,
they can’t file a joint federal tax return,
and aren’t entitled to Social Security
survivors’ benefits. That’s un-American.

Last February, the Attorney General of
the United States said that his
department would no longer defend
DOMA in court. That’s when Boehner and
the Republican leadership of the House
formed the conspiracy called the
Bipartisan Legal Advisory Committee, to
take up the Justice Department’s slack.

It was a clever idea, since they appointed
the two senior House Democrats, Nancy
Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, to sit on
the board and ensure there was no
funny business.

That funny business was in full force
last week, however. Once Judge White’s
ruling was made, any pretext of states’
rights and that other Constitutional
inconvenience, Separation of Powers,
went out the window, along with the
suggestion of an actually “bipartisan”
Bipartisan Legal Advisory Committee,
whose Democrat members abstained
from challenging the civil rights of
LGBT Americans.

There’s an old joke about marriage
being a “three-ring circus: there’s the
engagement ring, the wedding ring, and
the suffering.” If Boehner & Co. would
only dish out less of the suffering.

Cliff Dunn - Editor

Cliff Dunn is the Editor of Florida Agenda. He can be reached at editor@floridaagenda.com