Watched the Maddow/Dean convo about the DOMA brief and have this to say:

Plaid Adder

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Tue Jun-16-09 11:04 PM
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Watched the Maddow/Dean convo about the DOMA brief and have this to say:

Edited on Tue Jun-16-09 11:04 PM by Plaid Adder

I doubt that the DOJ guys who wrote that brief were intentionally dredging up the most inflammatory language they could find. I think the "language" Dean was complaining about can be explained by something very simple:

The point of the brief was to defend DOMA. There is no way to defend DOMA without resorting to offensive language (and offensive reasoning). Thus, given the fact that someone decided this brief had to be written, it was inevitable that it would contain offensive language.

Why? Because there are only two arguments that can be made in favor of DOMA, and both are deeply offensive.

Argument #1: Same-sex marriage contravenes the word of Holy Scripture and any country that legalizes it is riding the hellbound exptress.

Argument #2: Same-sex marriage is bad for society and therefore should be prohibited by federal law.

Obviously unless you work for a bunch of batshit crazy theocrats you cannot make argument #1 in a legal brief. So you are forced to fall back on #2, which involves explaining why same-sex marriage is antisocial. There is no non-offensive way to do that. In fact, the invidious comparisons are all but inevitable, because the only way to justify prohibiting same-sex marriage is to lump it in with all the forms of sexuality that are explicitly delegitimized because they *are* social evils--such as incest and pedophilia. (In right-wing rhetoric bestiality usually puts in an appearance at this point, but this is a legal brief we're talking about; perhaps there was no relevant caselaw.)

Anyway. My point is, there would have been no way for the DOJ's lawyers to come up with a DOMA-friendly brief that was NOT offensive. DOMA is in itself offensive to GBLT people and so is the act of defending it. Because to assume that marriage needs to be "defended" from people like me, you must first posit that uniting people like me and my partner in legal marriage will somehow corrode the very foundations of our society. Which...oh, forget it, I'm not even going to start.

I asked my partner tonight, "Do you ever wonder whether Obama just plain doesn't care for gay people?" She said, "I think it'd be more accurate if you replace 'for' with 'about.' " Which I think is about right. Like Clinton before him--who signed this fucking law in the first place, let us remember--Obama will do exactly as much for his GBLT supporters as he is forced to do, and no more. I'd say it was disappointing, but really, my expectations on this front were pretty low even before he was elected. So the only thing we can do to bring about 'change' for ourselves is to put as much pressure on him as possible.

Well, there's more ranting stored up in me, but I may as well put it into the letter I'll be writing to Obama tomorrow. For now, let me say this: Yeah, it sucks. It doesn't suck in any kind of new, special, unheard-of way, though; it's just run-of-the-mill court-me-and-then-betray-me straight Democratic politician sucking. So an apocalyptic view of this matter is really not necessary, nor is it that helpful. It's not the end of the world. It won't be the end of same-sex marriage, either. I mean, Iowa, for God's sake. The people are leading, and eventually, the leaders will follow, kicking and screaming all the way.

The Plaid Adder