UPDATE: The contract with the law firm King and Spaulding appears to be for a maximum of $500,000 at a rate of $520 per hour. Clearly, Speaker Boehner thinks that the defense of the Defense of Marriage Act is a slam dunk. Apparently Boehner thinks that Attorney Paul Clement can get this all done in about 961 hours. Of course, that does not consider the costs of legal associates that one can assume will also be billing for their time.
Don’t be fooled, the defense of DOMA is going to cost a lot more than $500,000 and it’s your tax money being used to advocate for discrimination against you.
WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, strongly criticized the House Republican leadership for taking on former Republican Solicitor General Paul Clement as counsel to defend the clearly discriminatory and unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court. Clement served under President George W. Bush as the government’s lawyer before the Supreme Court and currently works as a partner at the firm King & Spaulding.
“Not only are House Republican leaders defending the indefensible, they’ve brought in a high priced attorney to deny federal recognition to loving, married couples,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “Speaker Boehner appears ready to go to great lengths, and the great expense of a high-power law firm, to try to score some cheap political points on the backs of same-sex couples. King & Spaulding were not required to take up this defense and should be ashamed of associating themselves with an effort to deny rights to their fellow citizens.”
Earlier today, Speaker Boehner released a letter he sent to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in which he endorsed a right-wing plan to defund part of the Department of Justice because of the Obama Administration’s thoughtful analysis that the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.
LGBT advocates are questionsing the use of government funds to pay a lawyer reputedly over $900 per hour to continue to codify discrimination by the federal government. isn’t it time that the LGBT community start protesting at Speaker Boehner’s office and at all his public appearnces?
I’m a taxpayer, and I resent John Boehner using my tax dollars to defend something that is as clearly unconstitutional at the Defense of Marriage Act.
WHY is DOMA unconstitutional? Consider: A Straight couple legally married in Iowa is automatically entitled to 1,138 legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Many of those benefits have to do with tax law, Social Security, inheritance rights, child custody, and so on. But because of DOMA, a Gay couple that is legally married in Iowa is still unrecognized by the federal government for those benefits.
Consider, also, the “Full Faith & Credit” clause of the Constitution. Because of this, any Straight couple can fly off to Las Vegas for drunken weekend, get married by an Elvis impersonator, and that marriage is automatically honored in all 50 states, and at all levels of government. But thanks to DOMA, a Gay couple that is legally married in Iowa becomes UN-married if they relocate south to Missouri.
The ONLY real difference between a married Gay couple and a married Straight couple is the gender of the two people who have made the commitment. It has nothing to do with procreation, since couples do not need a marriage license to make babies, nor is the ability or even desire to make babies a prerequisite for obtaining a marriage license. So there is really no constitutional justification for denying law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples the same legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities that married Straight couples have always taken for granted. This cannot be accomplished in a piecemeal, state-by-state fashion.