Thursday, July 18, 2013

House Republicans abandon marriage defenses

After spending over $2 million on a disastrous defense of DOMA, House Republicans are abandoning it. From Buzzfeed:

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders announced in a court filing Thursday that they will not defend remaining statutes similar to the Defense of Marriage Act that ban recognition of same-sex couples’ marriages.

The move comes three weeks and one day after the Supreme Court ruled in Edith Windsor’s case that the federal definition of marriage in DOMA was unconstitutional because it banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples’ marriages.

“[T]he House has determined, in light of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Windsor, that it no longer will defend that statute,” lawyers for the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), controlled by House Republicans, wrote about veterans’ benefits statutes that similarly ban recognition of same-sex couples’ marriages.

“The document from the legal team speaks for itself,” House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman, Michael Steel, told BuzzFeed, when asked for comment on the move.

You can read the rest here. But I think Boehner and company owes the American people some sort of parting gift. After all, it was our money.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm hoping in the 2014 elections the Democratic party uses this to show that Republicans aren't fiscal conservatives at all.