Obama to DoJ: DOMA sucks, don't fight for it.

[rocketpig]

Kasz216 said:

Rath said:

mrstickball said:

They deserve rights, but the real problem is that the government has the authority to deem what is and is not marriage.

Marriage is a religious ceremony, and nothing more or less. Therefore, the government does not have the authority to utilize it both against people that would desire religiously-defined marriage to either be enforced, or to enforce alternate views of marriage on the religious.

I agree actually. I would prefer that marriage had no legal recognition at all, only some form of universal civil union. Marriage would be the ceremony rather than the legal concept.

 

Also I'm not entirely sure but I think the DoJ and all other departments of that sort fall under control of the executive branch of government? If so this is within Obama's powers.

He can, but at the same time, he shouldn't.  It's surprising he's doing this LARGELY because he fought against Don't Ask Don't Tell SPEICIFALLY because his administration was already being accused of firing conservative lawyers and only enforcing the laws democrats want to enforce and ignoring various discrimination suits and other such things from people who aren't key democratic groups.

By picking and choosing which laws to enforce and defend, you basically relieve youreslf from the burden of needing to pass laws, since you blantaly ignore the ones already on the books at your convience.

My lawyer girlfriend sent me this, which has an interesting explanation behind the reasoning:

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/February/11-ag-222.html