WASHINGTON (RNS) It’s not every day you see an ex-president ask the Supreme Court to strike down a law he signed.
President Clinton speaking at a McAuliffe campaign rally in Floris, Va. in 2009. Photo courtesy Kate Wellington via Flickr (http://flic.kr/p/6nTPQ6)
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That’s what Bill Clinton is doing with the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman — and which the high court will rule on this year in a landmark moment for the gay marriage movement.
The justices must decide whether the Defense of Marriage Act “is consistent with the principles of a nation that honors freedom, equality and justice above all, and is therefore constitutional,” Clinton writes in The Washington Post.
He adds: “As the president who signed the act into law, I have come to believe that DOMA is contrary to those principles and, in fact, incompatible with our Constitution.”
Clinton says that when he signed the law in 1996, “it was a very different time.” No state recognized same-sex marriage, but some were considering it — and congressional opponents were proposing “quite draconian” responses, the 42nd president writes.
“As a bipartisan group of former senators stated in their March 1 amicus brief to the Supreme Court, many supporters of the bill known as DOMA believed that its passage ‘would defuse a movement to enact a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which would have ended the debate for a generation or more,’” Clinton writes.
Now nine states and the District of Columbia sanction gay marriage, but those couples are denied rights available to others, Clinton notes; they “cannot file their taxes jointly, take unpaid leave to care for a sick or injured spouse or receive equal family health and pension benefits as federal civilian employees.”
Says Clinton:
“When I signed the bill, I included a statement with the admonition that ‘enactment of this legislation should not, despite the fierce and at times divisive rhetoric surrounding it, be understood to provide an excuse for discrimination.’ Reading those words today, I know now that, even worse than providing an excuse for discrimination, the law is itself discriminatory. It should be overturned.”
The Supreme Court decision is expected in late June.
(David Jackson writes for USA Today)
5 Comments
Timeline: Bill Clinton's evolution on gay rights – MSNBC | GAYFRIENDSCHAT.com
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Vincent Aja
Consience-wise Mr President you are right today because you won`t be running for office again. We will be happy if you should stand on this by 2015 when your wife will be runing for office, and the press will come after you. You have sowed the seed for sin, but thanks be to God for your change of heart now. For this is one of the sins that have destroyed nations.
Liam
This is the 21st century. The press will not bother him on this issue. The modern world has for the most part moved beyond such horrible discrimination. We just need our governments to catch up.
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Dajlar
The master of sexual inventiveness-exceptional use of a cigar for example-begs the Supreme Court to nix the ban on gay marriage, thereby adding fuel to those holding fast to the notion we are entering the Golden Age of Perversion. In any event, the music man’s quest to have Hester earn just one more A pales strongly by comparison.