In a 3-0 decision, the First US Circuit Court of Appeals has declared a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. The 1996 law passed by wide margins in both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Dear Mr. President:
I write with a growing sense of urgency about recent actions taken by your Administration that both escalate the threat to marriage and imperil the religious freedom of those who promote and defend marriage. This past spring the Justice Department announced that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court, a decision strongly opposed by the Catholic Bishops of the United States and many others. Now the Justice Department has shifted from not defending DOMA—which is problem enough, given the duty of the executive branch to enforce even laws it disfavors—to actively attacking DOMA‟s constitutionality. My predecessor, Cardinal Francis George, OMI, and I have expressed to you in the past our strong disappointment about the direction your Administration has been moving regarding DOMA. Unfortunately the only response to date has been the intensification of efforts to undermine DOMA and the institution of marriage.
President Barack Obama appeared to take one step closer to officially endorsing same-sex marriage Tuesday by supporting a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. 
e Department on Tuesday filed a terse notice to a federal appeals court in Boston that it is appealing a U.S. district judge’s ruling striking down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.The appeal notice submitted by Assistant Attorney General Tony West does not mention any reasons for the United States’ defense of the 1996 federal statute, which defines marriage as a union of a man and a woman under federal law. It also protects states from having to recognize marriages performed in other states that would not be valid within their own respective jurisdictions.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is challenging the rulings of U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro, who gave two separate opinions in July, Massachusetts v. Health and Human Service and Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, that DOMA violates the principle of equal protection guaranteed in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. (see coverage)
Tauro said that DOMA constitutes “irrational prejudice” and “encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state,” violating the Tenth Amendment.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley sued in the Massachusetts case, and the Gill case was brought forward by the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD).
Although President Barack Obama says he supports a repeal of DOMA – a goal shared by his many allies on the left and in the homosexual movement – he has advocated for a legislative solution in Congress. This has chagrined many of his supporters who view the federal courts as the fastest and surest way to repeal DOMA.
"The Justice Department is defending the statute, as it traditionally does when acts of Congress are challenged," said Tracy Schmaler, the DOJ’s spokeswoman in a statement. "As a policy matter, the president has made clear that he believes DOMA is discriminatory and should be repealed. The Department of Justice has a long-standing practice of defending federal statutes when they are challenged in court, including by appealing adverse decisions of lower courts."
However, both defenders and opponents of DOMA point out that not all U.S. administrations have defended federal laws they disagreed with or thought were unconstitutional.
Andy McCarthy of National Review Online noted that in the Dickerson v. United States (2000), the Clinton-Reno DOJ refused to defend a little-enforced statute (18 U.S.C. § 3501) enacted by Congress in 1968 intended to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Miranda v. Arizona (1966). Miranda established that criminals in custody needed to hear certain warnings first from police before interrogation, in order for statements made during interrogation to be admissible as evidence in court. Instead the U.S. Supreme Court had to bring in a 3rd party, conservative law professor Paul Cassell, to argue that Miranda was a flawed ruling which Congress had the right to correct.
Obama secures his base - gay, federal employees.President Obama said the memorandum "paves the way for long-overdue progress in our nation's pursuit of equality."
The new memorandum is the result of a review Obama ordered the Office of Personnel Management to conduct in order to determine what benefits could be extended to homosexual federal employees under existing law.
As the openly-homosexual John Berry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management, wrote in a directive detailing implementation of the President’s memorandum, these new benefits include: access to fitness facilities, adoption counseling, childcare services, medical treatment, lodging, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, and dental insurance, among many others.
In June of 2009, President Obama had extended a few federal benefits to same-sex partners; however, the new directive goes well beyond that measure.
Obama's order ensures that "all agencies that provide new benefits to the spouses of Federal employees and their children should, to the extent permitted by law, also provide them to the same-sex domestic partners of their employees and those same-sex domestic partners’ children."
Such measures did not satisfy President Obama, however, who said he would support the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act - which he called "crucial legislation" to guarantee "the full range of benefits enjoyed by heterosexual couples" to same-sex partners.
Furthermore, President Obama again vowed to work with congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which he called discriminatory and an interference with states’ rights.
The Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996 by a veto-proof majority, and says that no state will be forced to consider a relationship between two persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is so considered in another state. It also says that the federal government defines marriage as a legal union exclusively between one man and one woman.
After the President's memorandum was announced, the homosexualist Human Rights Campaign (HRC) crowed that some of the benefits announced were part of the HRC's "Blueprint for Positive Change," a document outlining a homosexualist agenda.
HRC President Joe Solmonese, however, agreed with Obama that the benefits' limitations are "a glaring reminder that the Defense of Marriage Act ultimately stands in the way of providing true equality to LGBT Americans."
The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins called the move "a gratuitous swipe at the Defense of Marriage Act, carving out a position that's well outside the mainstream of most Americans (72%) who define marriage as the union of a man and woman."
Contrary to Obama's claim to have worked within the law, Perkins said the "special perks already violate U.S. marriage law and 31 state marriage amendments."
"Interestingly enough, the benefits don't apply to unmarried heterosexuals, meaning that this White House is promoting the same kind of 'discrimination' it's supposedly working to end!" he added.
