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So, this month of June, President Obama declared LGBT Pride month in the USA. How's that going for them?
Well, it appears that the Obama administration's Department of Justice marked the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots by issuing this brief which argues for the U.S. Supreme Court's dismissal of the legal challenge to the 'Defense of Marriage Act' (DOMA). The best that can be said about this brief is that The Department of Justice acts independently of the President and Congress - this is in principle a good thing; New Labour's frequent attempts to short-circuit the justice system in this country is one of the most deplorable aspects of their tenure in Governemnt. However, as this blog post points out, the language used in the brief was excessively dismissive.
This entry in Box Turtle Bulletin is also worth reading; in it he points out that while those claiming that the Obama administration compares same-sex marriage to incest and pederasty are at best missing the point of that section, there is still plenty to be very, very angry about in that brief. And that Obama's much-vaunted opposition to the DOMA during his campaign worryingly vanished from the Whitehouse web site back in April.
(Do read some of the other links from those blog posts and the comments; much good debate - and some bad - is to be found therein.)
What I'd like to see from Obama - and I say this as a non-US LGBT activist so I obviously recognise that he's not my president and there's no reason on the face of it why he should listen to me - is an speedy rebuttal of many of the arguments in the brief, and a reinstated commitment to repealing the DOMA. I don't mind him recognising the independence of the DJO, in fact, I think that would be a good thing to do, and contrast well with the Bush's administration. But if he's serious about repeal of the DOMA, then he needs to argue against much of the content of the brief,
and I'd like to see him doing it. The brief makes points that need to be challenged at the highest level, and if Obama won't do it, his much-praised LGBT month looks to me, and more relevantly to LGBT people across the US, like tokenism.
Well, it appears that the Obama administration's Department of Justice marked the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots by issuing this brief which argues for the U.S. Supreme Court's dismissal of the legal challenge to the 'Defense of Marriage Act' (DOMA). The best that can be said about this brief is that The Department of Justice acts independently of the President and Congress - this is in principle a good thing; New Labour's frequent attempts to short-circuit the justice system in this country is one of the most deplorable aspects of their tenure in Governemnt. However, as this blog post points out, the language used in the brief was excessively dismissive.
This entry in Box Turtle Bulletin is also worth reading; in it he points out that while those claiming that the Obama administration compares same-sex marriage to incest and pederasty are at best missing the point of that section, there is still plenty to be very, very angry about in that brief. And that Obama's much-vaunted opposition to the DOMA during his campaign worryingly vanished from the Whitehouse web site back in April.
(Do read some of the other links from those blog posts and the comments; much good debate - and some bad - is to be found therein.)
What I'd like to see from Obama - and I say this as a non-US LGBT activist so I obviously recognise that he's not my president and there's no reason on the face of it why he should listen to me - is an speedy rebuttal of many of the arguments in the brief, and a reinstated commitment to repealing the DOMA. I don't mind him recognising the independence of the DJO, in fact, I think that would be a good thing to do, and contrast well with the Bush's administration. But if he's serious about repeal of the DOMA, then he needs to argue against much of the content of the brief,
and I'd like to see him doing it. The brief makes points that need to be challenged at the highest level, and if Obama won't do it, his much-praised LGBT month looks to me, and more relevantly to LGBT people across the US, like tokenism.