BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Obama opens floodgates
to same-sex 'marriage

There having been no other significant news or commentary about the Pope yesterday, let me interject into this thread what I consider the most outrageous news from the Obama administration late yesterday [more outrageous even than the fact that he waited days before making a public comment on the Libya situation (he finally did yesterday) without mentioning Qaddafi at all, in what many observers thought to be a downright wimpy statement in view of the apparent genocide ordered by Qaddafi on those who are calling for him to step down].... I have to check back but did Obama not tell the Pope in June 2009 that he would uphold the Defense of Marriage Act???


Obama administration drops
defense of traditional marriage

February 23, 2011

The Obama administration will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, Attorney General Eric Holder has announced.

The Justice Department traditionally defends all federal laws against court challenges. But Holder said that if no "reasonable" defense is available, his department does not offer such defense. In the case of the DOMA law, he said, no "reasonable" defense is possible.

In his February 23 announcement, Holder said that President Obama had changed his views on DOMA, and "concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny."

He said that the President concluded the DOMA legislation "fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional."
[Since when has the President of the United States and his Justice Department taken it on themselves to declare a law 'unconstitutional' - it is for the Supreme Court alone to determine that. The executive branch may have its opinion, as they do in this, but until the law is repealed or judicially struck down, the Justice Department is obliged to defend it!]

Although the administration believes the law to be unconstitutional, Holder said, the executive branch will continue to enforce the law until it is repealed by Congress or overturned by the courts. [And how can they enforce it plausibly if they have already told the public they think it is unconstitutional?????]