White House Drops Obama Opposition to Defense of Marriage Act from Website

LifeSiteNews ^ | 5/15/09 | Hilary White

[wagglebee]

May 15, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Obama White House has removed from its website all references to a pledge made by the president to scrap the Bush administration's Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Under the heading of "civil rights" the White House website had originally proclaimed that "Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act." In addition, the site said that legislation should be enacted that would extend federal legal rights and benefits to same-sex partners "in civil unions or other legally recognized unions." The site specified that this included all of "the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status."

The passage about DOMA has now been completely removed, as has the specific reference to the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits. The site now says, "President Obama also continues to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. He supports full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples and opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage."

DOMA was passed into law by President Clinton in September, 1996. It says that no state is required to "treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state." It also prohibits the federal government from treating same-sex relationships "as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states."

Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth asked, in regard to the changes on the White House website, "Is President Obama indicating that repealing a law that protects states from being forced to recognize out-of-state 'gay marriages' … is now a low priority for his administration?

"We hope so, given that support for traditional marriage, between a man and a woman, remains strong throughout the country."

Since its passage, DOMA has been under constant attack by homosexualist groups. In March this year, the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) filed a federal challenge based on the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. At that time, Ethan Jacobs, writing for the New England homosexual newspaper Bay Windows, noted that the Obama administration had included calls for DOMA's repeal in a description of the civil rights agenda posted on the White House website on Inauguration Day.

Although Shin Inouye, a White House spokesman, declined at the time to say whether the government would move to defend the law, he reiterated Obama's commitment to repealing the law. He told Bay Windows, "The Department of Justice is studying this lawsuit. The President believes this country must realize its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect. He has made clear previously that he supports the full legislative repeal of DOMA."

However, it is unclear if the alterations on the White House website reflect a recent about-face in terms of the Obama Administration's former committment to repealing DOMA.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Obama Administration Announces Radical Homosexualist Agenda on White House Website
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jan/09012109.html

[wagglebee]

I'm sure that Zero would love to see homosexual marriage, but he also realizes that there aren't nearly as many homosexuals as the left claims and he's not willing to get into a political fight to satisfy two to three percent of the population.

[wagglebee]

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[BlueStateBlues]

I would love to be privvy to the decision making process of taking this off the website. Who decided? How high did it go? That would be a great question for the annointed’s next press party.

[manc]

agreed

the homosexual groups have always said there are more of them than there really is.

the fact is that if the GOP used this we could wing some certain seats in certain areas.
There is no reason to appease 2 to 3% of the population and even so within that group not all want to have their so called marriage.

See how many states got their sham marriage after the election
The homosexuals and the left hate this subject mentioned near an election and work behind the scenes, no pun intended

[BlueStateBlues]

Oh wait, I read this wrong (says alot about not reading the entire story but just the headline), thought it was opposition to gay marriage that he was changing. This is good. Is Obama putting his toes into the DINO camp?

[ontap]

Do you really think it is that high?

[Gator113]

This is too timely and I don’t believe in coincidences..... I suspect that the recent Miss California statement forced his hand.

[Vision]

This is becuase of what Trump said. Clever man, great for him and us.

[wagglebee]

The numbers I’ve seen indicate that homosexuals make up around two to three percent of the population, but my guess is that less than half of them actually want to get “married” because their lifestyle seems very opposed to monogamy.

[wagglebee]

There is no reason to appease 2 to 3% of the population and even so within that group not all want to have their so called marriage.

From what I've seen, the majority of them prefer promiscuous hedonism to monogamy.

[CriticalJ]

“we’ve always been at war with Eastasia”

[skeeter]

At the rate he's backpedaling from his far-left positions on flashpoint issues, BO must be privy to some really unpleasant polling news.

I don't expect for a moment he's doing it for the right reasons, though. He needs to maintain his popularity until he can shove the main parts of his disastrous agenda thru before his political capitol completely runs out.

[chris_bdba]

I think prop 8 in California followed by the Miss California flap have made the polling on this issue very unfavorable and O doesn’t like to be on the unpopular side of issues!

[ontap]

The stats are all over the place. For a long time the 10% figure was floated out there and then the 1-2% Personally I believe it to be in the 1/2% range if that.

[MrB]

Any attempt to inflate the number beyond the .1-.5% figure is just trying to normalize a mental disorder.

It does those suffering from SSAD harm, not good.

[Crolis]

Of course. We have always been at war with Eastasia. Moreover:

• No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets
• No animal shall drink alcohol to excess
• No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.

It would be interesting to construct a graphical timeline on whitehouse.gov to track all the deletions, additions and changes. This post brought to you by ObaMiniTru(tm).

[numberonepal]

This is good. Is Obama putting his toes into the DINO camp?

I don't think it's good. I think it's further proof he's a muzzie.

[Oldpuppymax]

Not to worry. He’ll find lots of ways to repay the tens of millions given to his campaign by wealthy homosexuals in Cal. and NY.

[PISANO]

We are definitely living in Orwell's world, where we have GWB as the SNOWBALL/GOLDSTEIN [take your pick]on the receiving end of a daily rant of hate and blame.

Definition of words change to suit the time and todays truth is tomorrow's lie & vice versa.

[Dilbert San Diego]

According to statistics I saw, in Massachusetts, only about 20% of gay couples in committed relationships are married. So the vast majority of homosexual couples don’t want to exercise this “right” they are fighting for.

Same-sex marriage has been allowed in Mass. for five years now. Only about 4% of all marriages are between same-sex couples. Of the same-sex couples, over 60% are two women getting “married”.