Hypocrisy, a great American tradition

[altivo]

Today the President announced that he has decided the "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) that was signed into law by Clinton is in fact unconstitutional. (This was obvious from the beginning, so why it took 16 years to decide that is hard to understand. Several lower federal courts have already ruled it invalid and unconstitutional.) That was the idiot law that tried to keep the federal government from recognizing any definition of the terms "marriage" or "spouse" that didn't conform to "one man and one woman." (Ironically, the Mormon church, which was originally founded on polygamy, spent a fortune to pass and promote DOMA.)

However, even though Obama now agrees that the law is unconstitutional, and has directed the Attorney General to no longer try to defend it in court when challenged, he has also told the Justice Department to continue to enforce the law. In other words, he wants to create more court cases and challenges to force the Judiciary to rule on the constitutionality and validity of the law. (Which of course will allow conservatives to keep complaining about "activist judges" trying to write laws themselves, rather than directly blaming Congress or the Executive branch.)

This is a clear sign that the discriminatory attitude of the US government against gays and lesbians is crumbling, but I'd say it's also a sign that Obama himself is still a weak-livered coward who is afraid to stand up for social justice against loud-mouthed conservatives, just as Bill Clinton was.

Reference: http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/23/attorney-general-declares-doma-unconstitutional/

Comments

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

I'll maintain that Obama is in the right, even though it's a little of a bitter pill to not have instant gratification. As with DADT, this country is possibly only TWO YEARS away from a Republican president. Unconstitutional laws that aren't repealed by the US Congress or voided by the courts are a shift in the political winds away from being enforced AND vigorously-defended again, anyway.

[altivo]

There's one big problem with that: it means that anyone needing redress now will be denied completely unless they can afford the big lawyers and astronomical legal costs of fighting a law that we all knew was unconstitutional from day one. In other words, like so many things about this villainous plutocracy called the United States, justice is reserved only to the wealthy and to hell with everyone else.

[treppenwolf]

See, I'd commiserate with you, but the truth is I really don't give a damn about American politics. It's like that saying, how does it go? "What happens in America stays in America." I sure hope it does. Because yes, you as a nation have gone a long way towards eliminating racial/sexist/anti-gay prejudice, but the mere fact that such a large sector of your society is willing to fight tooth and claw to DEFEND those prejudices - to the point that some of you have to worry about your basic rights being rescinded two years from now - that makes it seem, well, as you said. Hypocritical. Also, not very safe.

So, thanks but no thanks, I know America's a first-world country with lots of nice goodies, but I'd rather stay in the other first-world countries across the pond where sanity and reason seem at least to be part of the culture. I can honestly say that I encountered more discrimination in my three/four months in NY than in my four/five years in Europe (with the sole exception of Italy - those Romans do know how to turn up their noses at minorities), and while it would be nice to vacation in the US and visit the museums and the furry cons and the awe-some natural wonders sitting prettily in your backyard, I am sure as hell not going to stay there until everyone has got their neuroses properly labeled, packed, and clearly sorted out. Which seems to be taking an awful long time.

Actually, I changed my mind. Here's some commiseration; I'm real sorry that you live in a place where the cows are so stubborn, and I honestly hope they don't run y'all off a cliff in the next year or so.

[altivo]

Believe me, if it weren't so difficult to emigrate, I would probably have done it long ago. I came very close to it in the Vietnam War era, and as early as when I entered college in 1967, I answered a question on the admission application:

"Where would you like to be five years from now?" with

"Independently wealthy and a Canadian citizen."

Back then, money was the main thing that kept me from trying to leave. Now I have a mate who wouldn't go, and we own land here. At our age, Canada doesn't want us as immigrants and it would be very hard to move there.

You're absolutely right, though. I do try to discourage younger people from seeing the US as an ideal place to come. It just isn't that any more, and there are a lot of pressures that may well make it worse. Canada has some craziness too, but looks better. The UK, or Scandinavia, or even Germany are probably preferable. Even many of the less affluent and developed nations, like Spain or Portugal, seem more stable and rational than the US is today.

[avon_deer.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, America was always a place to look up to. I do hope it is able to rediscover itself soon. There is little wrong with the place that cannot be corrected with the political will. The tough bit is finding the political will and getting the heel draggers to get behind it.

I hate to say this, but I do feel there is some truth in it. It took a devastating war and the practical annihilation of most of the country's infrastructure (in WWII) to force Britain to change. The last stubborn remnants of the class system which so blighted the place still hang on, but for the most part, things are better for my parent’s generation than they were for my grandparent’s. Sadly with the abandonment of the post war consensus when Thatcher lead her “dries” to victory in 1979, things have started slowly swinging back. A RIGHT wing think tank (of all things) last week issued a warning to the government about the likely return of the slums if their policies are implemented at the rate they are planned to.

So the price of an equitable society is not only a one off fight against vested interests (be they class based as in the UK, or wealth based as in the UK), but also eternal vigilance.

[altivo]

Infrastructure here has already been devastated purely by the economic policies of the Republican-controlled governments. Roads are potholed and crumbling, railroads all but abandoned and rusting away, communications systems are decaying through neglect except in areas where they are most "profitable" to the corporate operators, electricity production and distribution is suffering the same fate. Hospitals are abandoned and being torn down while millions go without medical care because not enough money can be made from serving their needs. Schools have been carefully isolated from the idea of education, and turned into factories to crank out cheap labor with very limited knowledge of history or science.

Americans have been hypnotized by the talking heads on television to the point where they will accept anything as long as the supply of beer and frozen dinners remains adequate.

[avon_deer.livejournal.com]

It's all rather depressing.

[altivo]

That, my friend, is the understatement of a lifetime.