I was a little bit surprised that the White House has decided to file a brief against the California ban on gay marriage. One reason is that Obama, like so many other "liberal democrats" believed that marriage is a state issue. This notion is obviously wrong due to the fact that Obama is fighting a legislation in the same court, in the same week that dealt with a federal regulation of marriage - I am referring of course to DOMA. The federal government has indeed regulated marriage throughout its history from tax regulations to banning Mormon polygamy and spousal slavery. For this and many reasons I wholly reject the Democratic party's dumb uneducated assumption that the states are the only ones to regulate marriage.
I was thinking before reading the brief filed today at 6:30pm at the Supreme Court, that Obama is now going to reverse himself and yet again
Wrong.
Now Obama is just pandering and doing a really clumsy job.
In this, now what I would call useless brief, Obama is saying that, yes, the federal government can intervene but that Ted Olson, Judge Walker, and the 9th Circuit are all wrong. Obama shoots this ball right out of left field by basically pulling a new flawed stupid horrible idea directly out of his ass. In order to appease the democratic party and other figures, and the gay base, Obama, now it seems, wants it all: Gay marriage is a 14th amendment question that should be applied but states rights also prevail and so the 14th amendment only applies to states who have civil unions because these states are creating a 'different class' of people. This is totally absurd. People in civil partnerships or civil unions are NOT being discriminated against under equal treatment and having such 'status' is not a characteristic that is even recognized by case law. The basis of the whole lawsuit was, and still is, that the states are discriminating based on sexual orientation (not legal status), a characteristic that has been found to be protected by case law.
Basically Obama is saying that any state that has civil unions is now and forever obligated to legalize gay marriage, which can have several negative effects. One of them being that many reactionaries would point to this brief and say "see if you give gays any form of recognition the state will have to legalize gay marriage." In fact any state, like Wyoming or Utah for example, that might consider even the most essential rights like hospital visitation and burial assignation will have to think twice - meaning gay people in these states are in jeopardy of getting no rights at all.
This new quack theory that only eight states with civil partnerships or civil unions are the only ones subjected to the 14th amendment is a totally crazy idea that should be laughed off in its entirety. Who cares about the sugar that is coated around the edges of this brief, what should be the most important part of any court brief is the essential legal argument, Obama's is one that should be rightfully rejected. But since segments of the gay community are totally in for this guy I will hardly expect anybody to actually read the damn brief but instead they will jerk off to it saying "how wonderful our dear leader is."
