ju st o u t ▼ ju n o 7 . 1 9 9 « ▼ 9
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HIV U N I V E R S I T Y
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Education
June
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Fi
n
Clinton says he would sign the right wing’s
Defense of Marriage Act
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by Bob Roehr
he Defense of Marriage Act intro
duced to Congress by Rep. Bob Barr
(R-Georgia) and Sen. Don Nickles
(R-Oklahoma) with some bipartisan
support is a pre-emptive move by
religious conservatives to the likely legalization
of same-sex marriage by the Hawaii court sys
tem. Such marriages would be valid in the other
49 states through what is known as the “full faith
and credit clause” of Article 4 of the U.S. Consti
tution.
Lou Sheldon and his Traditional Values Coa
lition took the lead in drafting model legislation
to deny recognition of same-sex marriages. His
supporters have introduced this model in 34 states
since the first of the year and have gotten it passed
in about a dozen.
The federal version of DOM A would exempt
states from having to recognize same-sex mar
riages, but it would not preclude them from doing
so. It would define marriage as the “legal union of
one man and one woman”
for federal purposes of
taxation, social services
and o th er program s,
thereby denying many of
the legal benefits of mar
riage to gay men and les
bians.
“For more than 200
years, Congress has left
the business of granting
marriage licenses to the
states,” said Matt Coles,
director of the American
Civil Liberties Union’s
Lesbian and Gay Rights
Project. “That tradition Bill Clinton
should not be disturbed. This bill throws it on the
trash heap for no reason other than to belittle the
relationships of lesbian and gay citizens.”
Evan Wolfson, director of the Marriage Project
at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education
Fund, called DOMA “a political attack bill in
tended to divert the public during an election year
while attacking gay people. It uses the most
radical, unprecedented, unconstitutional proposal
to do that.”
He compared it to state laws that prohibited
interracial marriage, saying, “Couples were ar
rested for marrying the ‘wrong’ person in the
‘wrong’ state.” Those laws were declared uncon
stitutional by the Supreme Court in 1967.
Wolfson urged the community to contact both
Congress and the White House: “Let’s stop treat
ing this like a defeat, it’s a bill. We have to focus
on defeating this bill and stop talking about it as
if it is an inevitability. It is not.”
Rich Tafel, executive director of Log Cabin
Republicans said, “[It is] the height of hypocrisy
to call for the devolution of power to the states and
then propose this type of federal legislation.” He
predicted that “the real losers here will be Repub
lican moderates in close races” unfairly burdened
with a “gay-bashing image.”
President Clinton declared himself in opposi
tion to same-sex marriage at a May 23 news
conference in Milwaukee: “This has always been
my position on gay marriage. It was my position
in ’9 2 .1 can’t change my position on that. I have
no intention of it.”
White House spokesman Mike McCurry had
said the previous day, “The president would sign
that bill [the Defense of Marriage Act] if it is
presented to him as it is currently written.” The
T
statement came after days of waffling and hoping
the issue would just go away.
Clinton averred, “The only legal effect of the
bill is to make it clear that states can deny recog
nition of gay marriage that occurred in other
states. And if that’s all it does, then I will sign it.”
Many argue that that would violate the “full
faith and credit clause” of the Constitution.
McCurry said the Justice Department reviewed
the recent Supreme Court decision on Amend
ment 2 for implications to the Marriage Act. He
concluded, “It does not change our view that it is
constitutional.”
Reaction from the lesbian and gay community
varied only in its degree of negativity.
First friend David Mixner, the Californian
who raised millions of gay dollars for Clinton’s
campaign in 1992, called the president’s decision
“nauseating and appalling...an act of political
cowardice.”
He told The New York Times: “Both Harry
Truman and JFK were re
luctantly drawn into the
civil rights battle, but when
they had to choose between
political expediency and
the moral high ground, both
chose the moral high
ground. Regrettably, this
president has not.”
Andrew Sullivan, edi
tor of The New Republic
and a long-time public ad
vocate of gay marriage,
said that Clinton “would
rather sign this unconstitu
tional bill than have this
debate continue.”
“You can be against same-sex marriage and
still be against this bill. But he isn’t leaving
anything to chance,” said Sullivan. “If the presi
dent appears to be a completely cynical individual
who has no principles, then it’s going to hurt him
politically.”
Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Hu
man Rights Campaign, called the decision “a ca
pitulation to religious political extremists.... It is
deeply disappointing that the president has chosen
the politically expedient course of action.”
At the same time, she continued to bash Re
publicans and yet defend the president for holding
the same position. Birch charged, ‘This bill is a
ploy by the foundering “Dole for President” cam
paign to drive a wedge between the gay commu
nity and President Clinton.”
In February the Human Rights Campaign en
dorsed Clinton for re-election. The early endorse
ment prompted gay administration insider Bob
Hattoy to label the group the Human Rights
Collaborationists.
But Clinton’s endorsement of DOMA proved
to be too much for San Francisco supporters of
HRC. Russ Roeca, co-chair of the June 15 fund
raising dinner in that city, disinvited White House
aide George Stephanopoulos, the scheduled key
note speaker for the event.
“This is a time to fortify the community,”
Roeca said. “We need voices of strength and
hope, and at the moment, George Stephanopoulos
is neither.”
Seattle City Councilwoman Tina Podlodowski
resigned as Washington state co-chair of the
Clinton re-election campaign, saying, “I don’t
expect we’ll always agree, but he didn’t need to
poke me in the eye.”
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