News Analysis: Obama's Marriage Equality Support Is Not the Half-Loaf Some Are Claiming
Posted by Chris Geidner |
May 9, 2012 7:05 PM | Permalink

Much is being made -- from Gawker to Mother Jones -- of President Obama's statement today that he believes marriage is a state issue.
Specifically, both pieces point to the line in the ABC News article about the interview: "The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states deciding the issue on their own."

As happened this past June when Obama spoke about marriage in New York, his comments tend to be read outside of the context of other actions being taken by the administration. 
The context, however, turns the critical analysis on its head.
On Feb. 23, 2011, the Obama administration -- through a letter written by Attorney General Eric Holder -- announced that Obama and Holder had reached a decision that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional.

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It is here where Obama's enunciated policy position -- today and this past June -- crosses the path of the legal pursuits of the administration.
If the administration were still defending DOMA and had taken no position on the level of scrutiny to be applied to sexual orientation classifications, then Obama's statement might mean that his view is that states have unfettered rights to legislate as they they wish on marriage.
But, that is not the circumstances in which he makes these comments. Instead, Obama's position now is three-fold: (1) he personally supports same-sex marriage; (2) he believes as a policy matter that state, and not federal, law should define marriages, as it always has been in this country; and (3) he believes that there are federal constitutional limitations on those state decisions.

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As the lawyers then wrote, "The conclusion of the United States that heightened scrutiny applies to classifications based on sexual orientation is unquestionably correct. Proposition 8 cannot survive the requirements of heightened scrutiny because its invidious discrimination against gay men and lesbians could not conceivably further an important government interest."
As that brief -- filed by Ted Olson, David Boies and the other lawyers representing those plaintiffs -- makes clear, Obama's legal, policy and personal views are not in any way contradictory and present a clear path forward toward the advancement of marriage equality across the country.

http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/05/news-analysis-obamas-marriage-equality-support-is.html