Can we have a civil discussion about the president's policy on marriage rights?
In contrast to his reversals on state secrets, warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention without trial, etc., marriage is an area where the president has not reversed himself since the campaign.
Barack Obama has told us all that "I think marriage is between a man and a woman". When he says this, he isn't saying that if he and Michelle divorced he would never marry a man. He's talking about enforced restrictions on other people's decisions and rights: he does not believe in federal recognition of marriages in Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, California, or Connecticut unless they meet that gender criterion. In this sense he finds himself to the "right" of many Republicans, from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Dick Cheney.
Yesterday Obama's quiet, resolute leadership (or to those in denial, his lack of it) helped embolden like-minded Maine voters to narrowly repeal the equal rights legislation there, making it the 30th state with a Jim Crow law that prevents same sex couples and their children from obtaining Social Security benefits, inheriting from a spouse, and enjoying more than 1000 other federal rights.
What do you think?
When is it appropriate to legislate who can choose another adult as a marriage partner?
The Obama administration has argued in federal court that the Defense of Marriage Act, which he insists he opposes and which denies same sex couples marriage benefits, is Constitutional and doesn't violate any protections against discrimination.
That was also the State of Virginia's position in 1967's landmark Supreme Court case Loving vs. Virginia: that since brown Mrs Loving and white Mr Loving were legally permitted to marry members of the same race and receive full recognition - thus Virginia had not violated their individual rights when a sheriff arrested them in their home for being married to each other. The Supreme Court unanimously disagreed.
Obama seems to be arguing that broader Marriage Equality is different because same sex couples aren't mentioned in the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause.
Help me understand this: if a state legislature (to make it easier to picture, let's say Texas or Alabama) decided that Jews should be forbidden to marry non-Jews, couldn't they use the Obama administration's argument to say that law was Constitutional - since religion, Jews, and marriage aren't mentioned in the 14th Amendment either? If a referendum against inter-faith marriage won by wide margins on election day, would it be Constitutional? Would it be compatible with the rules Obama is following?
Does this make moral and legal sense to anyone? Can someone here who finds Obama's actions consistent and credible please explain it?
If we really wanted to protect families from legislators in Alabama and Texas (and voters in California and Maine) would we need an "equal protection of families" Constitutional Amendment? How would it best be phrased to get around the "individuals deserve equal rights, couples and families don't" argument once favored by bigots and now back in vogue?
Or would we just need leadership from a President who values all families and considers marriage a right worth protecting?
Update:
I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Obama reversed his position on marriage before the 2008 campaign rather than after he was elected (h/t ricardomath comment):
"I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."
--Barack Obama, 1996
Also, so far, while various readers have expressed frustration or gotten defensive, so far it looks like under Obama's theory, it is Constitutional for a state to outlaw inter-faith marriages.
Does anyone disagree?