White House Defends Anti-Gay Marriage Brief Amid Furor

A week after the Justice Department filed a motion in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, White House Press Secretary reiterated the president's commitment to changing that law.

In a press conference Wednesday afternoon -- just hours before the President was set to sign a presidential memorandum to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees -- Press Secretary Robert Gibbs fielded a question from ABC News' Jake Tapper about the administration's position on the Defense of Marriage Act.

TAPPER: Does the president stand by the legal brief that the Justice Department filed last week that argued in favor the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act?

GIBBS: Well, as you know, that the Justice Department is charged with upholding the law of the land, even though the president believes that that law should be repealed.

TAPPER: I understand that, but a lot of legal experts say that the brief didn't have to be as comprehensive and make all the arguments that it made, such as comparing same-sex unions to incestuous ones, in one controversial paragraph...

GIBBS: Well...

TAPPER: ...that's upset a lot of the president's supporters. Does the president stand by the content, the arguments made in that brief?

GIBBS: Well, again, it's the president's Justice Department. And, again, we have the role of upholding the law of the land while the president has stated and will work with Congress to change that law.

The Justice Department motion prompted outrage from many in the gay community, including Massachusetts Sen. Barney Frank, who said the administration had made a "big mistake."

Several gay donors also withdrew their sponsorship of a Democratic National Committee fundraising event next week, in protest of the administration's position.

And while gay right groups say that Obama's benefits announcement is a step forward, many think it's too little, too late.

Even administration officials admit that the timing of the announcement is intended to help contain growing anger inside the gay community.

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Comments

[superstition]

Obama deputy campaign manager abandons DOMA & DADT as priorities
http://www.americablog.com/2009/07/obama-deputy-campaign-manager-abandons.html

"After two weeks of the Obama White House reeling over the gay backlash caused by the anti-gay DOMA brief, which compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia, we now have...

First, that the burden for doing anything pro-gay in the remaining three and a half years of the Obama administration is now shifted to Congress. Obama has no role whatsoever, and no power to influence anything, even though he's still the leader of the free world.

Second, the three big gay rights priorities that Congress should be focusing on do not even include what have organically become the community's top two priorities: repealing DOMA and Don't Ask Don't Tell. They're not even mentioned in the Obama deputy's essay."

[AguynamedWayne]

If equality for gay Americans isn't important, then let's see heterosexuals deal with the loss of thier equality. I wonder how long the calls of be "patient" and "there are more important issues to deal with"
would last? I bet if heterosexuals were told the state no longer views their marriages as valid, and hospital started to refuse to allow straight couples to visit their spouse, and the government denied social security benefits to widows; I bet it wouldn't even take a week before straight America went BALLISTIC.

Hypocrites.

[t iessa]

I understand people, mainly straight white males, who've not experienced discrimination to not see this an immediate priority. What I don't understand are minority groups who have suffered discrimination and so quickly turn their backs on other minorities. AA's are happy they have a Black president and that seems all that is important. I'm not belittling or overlooking the importance of this at all but I do find the attitude to be "we have a historical milestone so you just wait" to be prevalent. That I don't get. Some people have never understood the concept of "strength in numbers." They've also never understood that as long as one person doesn't have equality, none of us do. All that matters is them and theirs.

NO other group would be blatently told to wait for equality and rights in this country today.

[meshach]

Compared to the safety and well-being of our at risk children -- how important is the gay agenda??? Is the gay agenda more important than our children? What other way to recruit and propagate to grow their numbers?

By Julie Foster
© 2009 WorldNetDaily.com

Singer Elton John's lurid stage performance with six teen-age strippers wearing Cub Scout uniforms, at a gala London event honoring the homosexual rights group Stonewall, is being both applauded and condemned. ... Child and family advocacy groups were outraged at the display.
George Michael, in black, joins Elton John on stage, for parody of homosexual sex with "Cub Scouts."

"Stonewall should be condemned for holding boys up as sex objects," said Valerie Riches, head of Family and Youth Concern, a British pro-family organization.

[meshach]

I apologize -- the first sentence of my last post should read: The U.S. government has legally sanctioned our courts to allow homosexuals to become foster parents, adoptive parents, Big Brothers and Big Sisters. ...

[meshach]

The U.S. government have legally sanctioned our to allow homosexuals to become foster parents, adoptive parents, Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Subsequently, insurmountable political pressure have taken priority placing our children at risk A homosexual cannot automatically be considered a child molester, said Judith Reisman, president of the Institute for Media Education in suburban Louisville, Ky. But with 17-24 percent of boys being abused by age 18, nearly as many as the 25 percent of girls, there is cause for concern, she said. Since heterosexuals outnumber the homosexual population about 44 to 1, as a group the incidence of homosexuals molesting children is up to 40 TIMES GREATER than heterosexuals, she said. "You're looking at a much higher rate of abuse," said Reisman, a former university research professor who recently completed a study titled, "Crafting Gay Children." "The Department of Justice just released data and the rate of abuse are off the charts."
(A book written by Dr. Ronald Bayer, a pro-homosexual psychiatrist, titled Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis, explains how the decision to remove homosexuality from the officially approved list of mental disorders was based on power politics and intimidation by homosexual groups NOT science.)
One last note: Homosexuals do not want you to know that many of them were sexually abused when young, as many molest others. And homosexuals do not want you to know that they are more likely to molest children than heterosexuals are.

[meshach]

The costs for engaging in alternative sexualities are high for the participants but also high for society, so high that they threaten our freedoms of speech, religion and even our democracy. In the hope of finding their elusive peace of conscience, they hope to stifle any voice to the contrary, thinking that they will gain self-acceptance this way.
Choice places privileges above responsibilities. Choice elevates sex and desire above truth, values and commitments.

This is a canadian survey -- magnify these numbers in the USA.
Here are some of the statistics that Hellquist cites:

· Life expectancy of gay/bisexual men in Canada is 20 years less than the average; that is 55 years.
· GLB people commit suicide at rates from 2 to 13.9 times more often than average.
· GLB people have smoking rates 1.3 to 3 times higher than average.
· GLB people have rates of alcoholism 1.4 to 7 times higher than average.
· GLB people have rates of illicit drug use 1.6 to 19 times higher than average.
· GLB people show rates of depression 1.8 to 3 times higher than average.
· Gay and bisexual men (MSM) comprise 76.1% of AIDS cases.
· Gay and bisexual men (MSM) comprise 54% of new HIV infections each year.
· If one uses Statistics Canada figure of 1.7% of GLB becoming infected, that is 26 times higher than average.
· GLB people are at a higher risk for anal cancers

[ez duz it]

Do you have a link or reference citation for the particular survey you mention? I would like to read it first hand. Thanks.

[Shawn Fraine]

Yeah, as a Psychology major I get to see many different studies, especially since my concentration is in human sexuality. I have seen many cases where what is being said here is quite the opposite. So, It seems to me that meshach is using data that has bias.

There are numerous studies that show that GLBT people have NOT been molested and those children that have, they typically turn out to be heterosexual (with the normal 10% being homosexual)

Meshach...please, educate yourself!

[superstition]

"I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. 
"

My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' On another occasion he said, 'I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible.' Like Martin, I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.'

"For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law...





'Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement,' she said. 'Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions.'"



-- Coretta Scott King
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/02/coretta_scott_king_on_gay_righ.phpphp

[superstition]

"I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience."

-- Coretta Scott King

Our President should heed her words. We don't need another MLK or CSK.

We just need our leaders to learn something from them.

[superstition]

When Republicans are better than Democrats on gay rights, the Democratic Party had better take notice
http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/someone-call-barney-frank-and-barack.html

Andrew Sullivan declares war on the DNC
http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/andrew-sullivan-declares-war-on-dnc.html

Of Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin, Mattachine, and old wineskin
http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/of-barney-frank-tammy-baldwin-and-old.html

Gay tsunami slams Obama.
http://wockner.blogspot.com/2009/06/gay-tsunami-slams-obama.html

"The" gay Democratic organization pulls out of Biden DNC fundraiser
http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/gay-democratic-organization-pulls-out.html

[johnbdonovan]

Forty percent of American children do not live in a home with their dad. They are at much higher risk of failure. Many studies report that fatherless kids are three times more likely to be expelled, to fail a grade or be sexually abused, than those from intact homes, are five times as apt to be poor and are 11 times more likely to be violent in school. Fatherless children are at high risk of drug and alcohol abuse. Three-fourths of those in chemical abuse centers are fatherless, as are 63 percent of youth suicides, 85 percent of youths in prison and 90 percent of runaway children.

These statistics also go close to the heart of the gay marriage issue, because if it can be shown beyond doubt that gender matters greatly in the area of child-rearing, then what's the justification for making the whole of society provide the honors and economic benefits of marriages to those who choose deliberately to raise children with one of the genders absent in the parenting process?

[joemondo]

That's idiotic.

Every study confirms that kids of gay parents fare as well as parents of hetero parents.

You're citing single-parent families.

[johnbdonovan]

Existing research on same-sex parenting is small and limited because
same-sex couples raising children comprise a very small part of the overall population
and are only recently becoming more visible. And a big problem with the current
literature is that most of it compares single lesbian mothers to single heterosexual
mothers – in other words, children in one kind of fatherless family with children in
another kind of fatherless family.

What we should remember this Fathers Day is that fathers are important, not just as one extra parent but because of the distinctive masculine way in which they love children, vitally important to children -- as is the contribution of mothers.

[Paulied]

Then how great must kids in two-father homes turn out?

[StevenKeirstead]

Not enough data yet to say, from what I have read. But that is no reason to deny support to two father families. They probably need it more than most parents.

[Quaoar]

Most of those statistics involve heterosexual parents. Gay parents are but a drop in the bucket. Why is your outrage not turned on heterosexuals who choose to be single parents? Making gay marriage legal will have absolutely no effect on the statistics you cited.

[We-Are-The-Ones]

Finally, maybe there is someone in the Senate who has courage to put forth legislation to repeal DADT.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-kirsten-gillibrand/i-stand-with-lt-dan-choi_b_217364.html

Send Senator Gillibrand your support so that DADT is repealed expeditiously.

[superstition]

To replace the legislation that's stalled in committee because it doesn't have any support from the White House or major Democratic leaders?

[wanj]

Just upholding the law? Obama is kidding around now..... Why is it okay to uphold a law that discriminates?

[joemondo]

Interestingly, Obama's DOJ had the time to oppose existing law on drug sentencing. It's worth fighting disparities related to crack vs cocaine, but not civil rights.

[zbig]

When it was the law before to torture blacks for escaping slavery, should the upholders of the law then execute the torture as thoroughly as possible to "uphold the law."

If the law stinks, one should not uphold it. It's as simple as that.

[joemondo]

I don't think it's quite that simple.

But there are ways to enforce the law while opposing it. The Obama DOJ would do well to take a lesson from California on that.

[adoantarel]

Obama should take a lesson from the governator. You don't have to defend every law, or every part of a law, and certainly not so vehemently.

DOMA tramples on states' rights. Marriage is conferred by the states. The federal government should honor the decisions of the states, ESPECIALLY now that these rights are being conferred by the legislatures.

[Eric2000]

Its a fallacy to argue that Obama had no other options but to defend the law, not to mention the language he used in the brief. He could have chosen not too. Just as Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, and Regan all chose not to defend a law. Just as Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown chose not to defend Prop 8. He could have chosen for the government to stay neutral on the issue.

[evekendall]

President Lyndon Johnson took office on November 22, 1963. He had to contend with the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Cold War, Communist China, Fidel Castro, Israel and the Middle East, the Ku Klux Klan, defiant Southern Democrats and Republicans, anti-war protests, civil unrest, and riots in the streets, but he got the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 bill passed within eight months of taking office.

Johnson was in the White House just over five years. Apart from the Vietnam War, which was his undoing, he accomplished perhaps the most ambitious domestic agenda in U. S. history with his Great Society legislation that included:

-- Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin
-- Food Stamp Act of 1964
-- Higher Education Act of 1965
-- Social Security Act of 1965 (Medicare/Medicaid)
-- Voting Rights Act of 1965
-- Freedom of Information Act of 1966
-- Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
-- Bilingual Education Act of 1968
-- Fair Housing Act 1968
-- Gun Control Act of 1968

He accomplished this progressive agenda with major advances in civil liberties because he had the guts to push for them - in spite of Republicans and Southern Democrats, of whom he said, upon signing the Civil Rights Act, "We have lost the South for a generation." He knew he would lose them, but he did it anyway because it was the right thing to

[evekendall]

My last sentence was truncated by the comments system. It should read:

He knew he would lose them, but he did it anyway because it was the right thing to do. That takes guts.

[BlackGirl in NOLA]

Please give me an effing break. The only reason Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act et al was because the United States had become a virtual embarrassment to the human race as it allowed white racists to kill, maim, and torture black folks with impunity. The whole world was watching in awe. He signed the Civil Rights Act AFTER four liitle girls were mudered during Sunday school. AFTER the three Civil Rights workers were murdered in Mississippi. AFTER Bull Conner and his hooded klan Kops were attacking peaceful protesters with fire hoses and attack dogs. AFTER the great Medgar Evers was assasinated. Get it? And let me just add that HIS FBI (headed by a notoriously racist gay man named J Edgar Hoover)did NOTHING to address or prosecute the animals involved in these ruthless attacks save for the murder of the three CIvil Rights activists in Mississippi (two of them were white).

So don't come in here acting as if Johnson was some righteous champion for the cause of Civil Rights.

Also, lest you forget, he also requested, on his dying bed, that his BFF Anita Bryant perform at his funeral. You do know her right?

[CigarGod]

Thanks Eve,
Great work, Have a cigar.

[joemondo]

We know the drill:

Election year - "Can't do anything now,, it's an election year."
Years 1 - 2 of administration - "Can't do anything now, to many other priorities."
Years 3 - 4 of administration - "Can't do anything now, election is coming up - next term!"
Years 5 -8 of administration - "Can't do anything now - can't taint things for the next party candidate"

[CigarGod]

Have a cigar!

You have it down right.

One can either tip-toe through life...or walk through like you own the place.

[evekendall]

Fanned! I fanned you after I read in your profile that you are a supporter of the rights of Palestinians, in addition to gay rights.

[PhilipB]

Fanned!