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Yesterday, the National Organization for Marriage really decided to raise the bar for unashamed audacity. The organization is now demanding that Obama’s Justice Department pay for Speaker of the House John Boehner’s defense of DOMA ( the Defense of Marriage Act):
“John Boehner and the House are stepping in to do the job that President Obama refused to do: defend a law passed by bipartisan majorities. The cost of hiring lawyers to defend DOMA should be deducted from the budget of the Justice Department,” said Brian Brown, President of NOM. “The $1.5 million cost of defending DOMA represent less than one-one hundredth of one percent of the Justice Department’s huge $28 billion budget. President Obama’s defection of duty is responsible for incurring this cost; he should trim some fat and find the money to pay for it.”
The Obama Administration decided not to defend DOMA because it felt that the law could not be defended. Speaker of the House John Boehner decided to take up the slack . . . and stepped into a hornet’s nest. He is now set to spend over $1 million on the defense of DOMA. The amount of the defense was earlier set at $500,000 but apparently the lawyer handling the case, Paul Clement, quickly went through this amount.
Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the defense of DOMA was rooted in chicanery and junk science:
1. Clement tried to sneak in the testimony of former NOM chair Maggie Gallagher in a way that would have kept her from being cross-examined.
2. A professor cited by Clement in a brief defending DOMA, Lisa Diamond, complained that her work was being distorted.
3. Clement is also citing – in a second hand fashion – junk science from discredited researchers. In his defense of DOMA, Clement cites the work of Case Western Reserve University law professor George W. Dent, Jr. But Dent’s work – which Clement uses - cited both Paul Cameron and George Rekers, two discredited researchers. Cameron has been censured or rebuked by several organizations for his bad methodology in his studies. He has published work which claimed, among other nauseating false things, that gays stuff gerbils up their rectums. (Editor’s note- the piece Cameron cited to make this claim – The Straight Dope – actually said that this claim was not true. Cameron dishonestly “flipped the script” to make it seem that The Straight Dope was affirming this claim.) Rekers lost a lot of credibility for last year’s scandal when he was caught coming from a European vacation with a “rentboy.”
It is for these reasons that Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) demanded a hearing on how money is being spent on the defense of DOMA.
Even if no one ignored that Boehner’s defense of DOMA is rooted in bad techniques and junk science – which I noticed NOM did ignore - the audacity of the organization here is astounding.
NOM just lost a court case in which it sought to hide donors in CA who contributed to the successful effort to pass Proposition 8.
Perhaps NOM shouldn’t worry who is paying for the defense of DOMA and focus on releasing its donors, as it has been ordered to by law and the courts.
On the other hand, maybe NOM can afford to pay for Boehner’s defense itself. As Jeremy Hooper discovered, the organization doesn’t pay for photos. It simply steals them from Reuters.
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“The Obama Administration decided not to defend DOMA because it felt that the law could not be defended. Speaker of the House John Boehner decided to take up the slack. . .”
and proved it.
Dear Maggie and Brian: Please, hurry and chip in some, no, all, of your money.
Let NOM pay for it, it has unlimited funds apparently provided by the Mormon and Roman cults alike.
As for those court orders to disclose its donor list. What if it doesn’t? Will the courts pursue it and prosecute?
Let’s not forget that Obama defended DOMA in court for two and a half years, using the exact same arguments that Boehner is now employing. Is it too cynical to suspect Barry’s motives motives for suddenly reversing his position during a re-election campaign that’s looking tougher and tougher for him? I find it really odd that he’s never explained the road-to-Damascus moment that led to his change of mind on the issue.
I’ll give him credit for doing the right thing now, whatever his motivation. But the facts about DOMA haven’t changed one bit, so what accounts for his dramatic change of position? The sad fact remains that when his party controlled both houses of Congress he could have gotten DOMA repealed easily. He never even tried; to the best of my recollection he never even mentioned the possibility.
The always criticize welfare until they want some. It’s the same with the local anti-gay politicians.
You’ve just explained Obama’s sudden change of position. Obama finally discovered aggressively alienating the gay community will not win him any votes from either gay voters (unless they’re mascochists) or anti-gay voters (who hate Obama regardless of how much he panders to them).
This is just pure politics. Obama seems to have a problem with gay people. But for political purposes, he’s their best friend for now. If he wins next year, he might start having a problem with them again.
That could be said of tons of legislation that Obama could have passed, but never even bothered to try.
Obama never tried to pass anything, really. He never made an effort, despite huge majorities and a mandate from the masses.
Is the LGBT community gonna fall for O’s 11th hour conversion?
… fixed that for ya.
The tools of the elites derive great strategic benefits from the culture wars.
um…. so the speaker of the house who’s whining about the deficit is tossing my good and well paid tax dollars after bad again and again and again? They wasted 2 years in court defending an undefensable position that clearly shows that DOMA violates the US Constitution in very basic ways. *sigh* humans are stupid.
At the risk of sounding like an Obamabot, I have to simply comment while I understand the frustation concerning Obama, simply ragging on him and not providing a solution is fruitless. Especially in light of the fact that we are facing folks – i.e. NOM and FRC who will do us badly regardless of whether or not Obama is or isn’t in office. Perhaps instead of mistaking snide comments for real action, some of us should start thinking strategically – even cynically – about the best way of securing lgbtq equality in the face of having to deal with politicians who may not like us openly or are not working for our efforts with enough speed to suit some of us.
Whatever credibility Rekers retained after being caught with a rentboy was shredded when it was discovered that his career-making “experiment” that so much of the “ex-gay” industry relies on involved trying and failing to literally beat the gay out of a little boy. Now that we finally know the whole story behind that experiment, there is no excuse not to bring it up any time Rekers is.
Personally, I’m embarrased for Clement. They guy supposedly is this “brilliant” lawyer that the right really believes knows what he is doing. As a lawyer, his reputation is on the line, as he knows anything he submits will be carefully scrutinized. I braced myself for some new legal argument or facts in defense of DOMA.
I am truly shocked that his brief is nothing more than a rehash of all the same lies and distortions that we’ve in the past. The brief could have been written by any hack at FOTF or FRC.
That tells me a couple of things: He believes so ardently in the righteousness of his cause that he is blinded to the weaknesses. He obviously sees only what he wants to see in documents (hence the distortions and outright lies). That makes him a terrible advocate for his side.
Or he realizes he has nothing to work with. So he’ll milk the system for whatever he can get (now $1.5 million) and say he did his best but the courts are just activist judges, blah blah blah and live on speaking fees for the rest of his life saying such. That’s wholly unethical as a lawyer, but I doubt anyone will call him on it.
The best we can do is keep pointing out the lies in his brief to discredit him. Let this dog him until the end of his days. His children and grandchildren will be embarrassed to have him in their lineage.