On Feb. 23, United States attorney general Eric Holder, acting at President Barack Obama’s behest, announced the justice department would no longer defend a law banning federal recognition of same-sex marriages. During his press conference Holder methodically laid out the reasons why government statutes and regulations which treat gay and lesbian citizens differently than heterosexuals could be legally actionable. He took pains to stress that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as being only between a man and a woman, is for now still the law of the land, but from now on the government will no longer invest time and federal monies in order to defend it against litigation.
The political and legal landscape has changed significantly since President Bill Clinton signed the DOMA into law on September 21, 1996. And last month’s de facto decision to phase it out should be welcomed as good news both by equal rights advocates and budget hawks concerned with wasteful government spending. While the cessation of committing taxpayer dollars to defending a law which unjustly denies the benefits of marriage to those involved in a lifelong commitment to a same-sex partner won’t by itself eliminate America’s immense deficit, it’s a small but significant step in the right direction.
What was seemingly the best news about Attorney General Holder’s announcement: It was barely news at all. Subsequent high-profile events in Libya and Wisconsin quickly made it a non-story for ratings-hungry cable network infotainers. Another reason Holder’s announcement disappeared so quickly from the national media radar screen: virtually no protests from those who generally take any opportunity to publicly rail against President Obama, liberals, socialists, Muslims, unions, foreigners, and all the other standard bogeymen who get blamed for every real and imagined problem of the nation and the world by the “fair and balanced” folks at Fox News, the high-decibel blowhards who populate conservative talk radio, and other aspiring print and broadcast members of the right wing’s shrill lunatic fringe.
There are a variety of possible explanations for why the extremely well-funded mainstream right-wing punditocracy let the attorney general’s announcement go by with subdued reactions, or in some cases nary a peep. Some of the president’s most persistent critics are currently trying to position themselves for a 2012 White House run, and as a result are cautious about publicly commenting on anything without knowing for a fact their remarks won’t turn off independent or uncommitted voters. Or perhaps they’ve decided homosexuals are deserving of equal rights after all. But it’s more likely the pragmatists among them have deduced the gay marriage battle is no longer worth fighting, especially as increasing numbers of Americans (particularly younger ones) of all political persuasions are perceiving that those battling against it are on the wrong and/or losing side of the issue.
Determiners of the right wing noise machine’s talking points have likely figured there are more efficient ways to utilize their ample fiscal resources. First of all, with the next major election more than 18 months away there’s no current reason to dip too deeply into their ever-accumulating war chest. Those behind Republican distortion factories may have decided that for now organized labor will be the scapegoat du jour, and that the demonization of gays and/or immigrants has reached the point of diminishing returns. The familiar arguments against same-sex marriage have long since been recognized by fair-minded people for what they truly are: morally and intellectually dishonest, and often hypocritical to boot. If the sanctimonious individuals who like to piously claim the moral high ground for themselves were truly interested in defending “traditional” marriage they’d be waging war against divorce, adultery, single parenthood, and out-of-wedlock births rather than investing all their time and effort into denying the right to wed to people who, given the opportunity, would choose a same-sex partner. Perhaps the most hypocritical of all those opposing same-sex marriage are self-proclaimed “libertarians” who profess to want Big Government to butt out of their personal lives, except in cases where they need it to prevent or ban something which they personally are opposed to (such as equal rights for homosexuals).
The government abandoning its pointless and quixotic defense of the DOMA is good news for equal rights advocates, and the muted reaction from those normally opposing such progress is equally encouraging, even if in this case they’re probably doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. But given developing and ongoing events in Wisconsin and other states (including Maine) involving newly-empowered, truculent Republican governors vowing to curb or eradicate the bargaining rights of public sector workers AND that right-wing propagandists rarely stay quiet for long, last month’s good news for the gay community and foes of discrimination may be a harbinger of tough times ahead for members of America’s labor unions.
— Andy Young teaches in Kennebunk, and lives in Cumberland.
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