NWV News - Obama Usurps Power of the Judiciary on Behalf of Gays

OBAMA USURPS POWER OF THE JUDICIARY ON BEHALF OF GAYS

By NWV News writer Jim Kouri
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
February 28, 2011
© 2011 NewsWithViews.com

Social conservatives and strict Constitutionalists are complaining that traditional marriage is under siege by the Obama Administration and its supporters and that President Barack Obama is ready to force homosexual marriage on all 50 States.

On Wednesday, President Obama ordered his Attorney General Eric Holder to have the U.S. Justice Department stop defending the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibits homosexual "marriage" and defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

In a media notification, DoJ officials announced that they will not defend the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) for at least two cases filed in the Second Circuit: Pedersen v. OPM and Windsor v. United States.

What many conservatives and libertarians found shocking was the White House statement that the president deemed DOMA unconstitutional.

"This is a blatant example of the President usurping the role of the Judiciary. Obama is not a judge, nor is he part of the Judiciary branch of the government," said political strategist and attorney Mike Baker. "Yet the man unilaterally called a law passed 14 years ago unconstitutional and his Attorney General refuses to enforce it."

However, gay rights groups said the administration's decision is a step in the right direction, but they want more. "This is a bite at the apple, not the whole apple," said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for Human Rights Campaign.

Several groups such as the Family Research Council condemned President Obama's decision that the U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. Justice Department will abdicate its responsibility and no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

The Defense of Marriage Act, (DOMA) enacted overwhelmingly by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, is currently under attack in the courts and traditionally whenever a law is legally challenged it falls upon the DoJ to defend the law and the agencies responsible for it.

"This decision by President Obama and the Department of Justice is appalling. The President's failure to defend DOMA is also a failure to fulfill his oath to 'faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.' What will be the next law that he will choose not to enforce or uphold?" asked FRC President Tony Perkins.

"Marriage as a male-female union has been easily defended in court and overwhelmingly supported by the American people. There is absolutely no excuse beyond pandering to his liberal political base for President Obama's decision to abandon his constitutional role to defend a federal law enacted overwhelmingly by Congress," said Perkins, whose organization is a Christian-based conservative group.

"With this decision the President has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging Congress. It is incumbent upon the [conservative] leadership to respond by intervening to defend DOMA, or they will become complicit in the President's neglect of duty," concluded Perkins.

Meanwhile, well-known constitutional attorney Jay Sekelow -- who has successfully argued many cases before the U.S. Supreme Court is questioning Obama's understanding of the U.S. Constitution and the separation of powers.

"President Obama, he's not a king," said Sekulow, director of international operations for the American Center for Law and Justice.

"He can't go around and say, 'You know what, Eric Holder and I decided it's not constitutional so we're not going to defend a law of the country anymore,'" he said.

Sekulow reminds anyone who'll listen that the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on the issue, but if a lower court ends up overturning the law, the high court may be willing to hear the case.

Legislatures in five states and Washington, D.C., have voted to allow same-sex marriage, and seven states, allow civil unions. However, same-sex marriage has lost in every state where the voters had a chance to cast their ballots -- a total of 31 states.

"Really it's just tyranny," said Penny Nance, chief executive officer of Concerned Women for America. "The fact [is] the president decided to ignore this important law in our country."

This sets a very dangerous precedent, in which a president decides which federal laws he will defend and which he will not. He has changed our government from the rule of law to the rule of one man, Nance pointed out.

The Constitution directs the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” President Obama took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend” that Constitution, but he’s not doing it. He’s subverting the Constitution rather than upholding it. He is in clear violation of his oath of office, said officials from the American Family Association.

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The good news is that Congress can intervene and defend this law in court. This creates the possibility that the law will be defended by those who believe in it and support it, rather than by lawyers in Obama’s Department of Justice, who up to this point have mounted half-hearted attempts at best to uphold this law.