While supporters of the Defense of
Marriage Act (DOMA) are quick to point out that it won bipartisan
support in Congress and was signed into law by a Democratic
president, they neglect to mention that many of those lawmakers have since
had a change of heart.
The law which forbids federal agencies
from recognizing the legal marriages of gay and lesbian couples and
allows states to ignore such marriages performed in another state was
written by former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, a Republican turned
Libertarian.
In 2009, Barr came out against the law
he authored.
“It truly is time to get the federal
government out of the marriage business,” Barr wrote in an op-ed
published in the Los Angeles Times.
Barr argued that DOMA had run afoul of
the federalist principle of states' right to self determination
because it only protects those states that don't want to accept the
marriages recognized by another state. It is “one-way federalism,”
Barr wrote.
Furthermore, Barr argued, the law
punishes those states that do choose to grant marriages or civil
unions to gay couples by invalidating those unions on the federal
level.
“[T]he heterosexual definition of
marriage for purposes of federal laws – including, immigration,
Social Security survivor rights and veteran's benefits – has become
a de facto club used to limit, if not thwart, the ability of a state
to choose to recognize same-sex unions.”
“Even more so now than in 1996, I
believe we need to reduce federal power over the lives of the
citizenry and over the prerogatives of the states,” Barr says. “If
one truly believes in federalism and the primacy of state government
over the federal, DOMA is simply incompatible with those notions.”
Former President Bill Clinton has said
his position on gay marriage was “wrong.”
In 2009, he told CNN's Anderson Cooper
that he now supports gay and lesbian couples marrying.
“I think it's a good thing not a bad
thing. And I just realized that, I was, probably for, maybe just
because of my age and the way I've grown up, I was wrong about that.”
“I just had too many gay friends. I
saw their relationships. I just decided I couldn't, I had an
untenable position,” he added.
Other Democratic lawmakers –
including Senators Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Tom Harkin of Iowa and
Charles Schumer of New York – have also revered course on the
issue.
On Wednesday, House
and Senate Democrats introduced legislation that would repeal DOMA.