DOMA going down

Maybe not. But the Justice Department will no longer attempt to defend it in the courts. So perhaps its day is coming. And about time, too.

I've never been able to understand why people who rail about federal encroachment are able to defend DOMA with a straight face. For them, it really is all about whose ox is being gored: keep the government away from what they want to do, but use it as a club to force the rest of us to do what they want to do, too.

Over at Slacktivist, evangelical Fred Clarke takes a couple of looks at the subject, first at why DOMA can't be defended and then at kneejerk 'will of the people' reaction from what Fred calls "he no-longer-Baptist Southern Baptist Hierarchy."

A couple of paragraphs to whet your appetite:

What's most telling here is that this forward-moving reversal arose from the Justice Department, which had been tasked with the unenviable job of providing valid and compelling legal arguments for inequality under the law. Like everyone else who has tried, they found that impossible. And unlike many others who are still trying, they decided to stop faking it and just admit that the Constitution and particularly the 14th Amendment really don't allow for that sort of unequal treatment.

And

Implicit in this is a notion of democracy that we've encountered again and again among American evangelical Christians attempting to engage in politics. It is the idea that democracy means everything is subject to the will of the majority -- including the rights of minorities, which therefore aren't rights at all, merely privileges permitted or withheld by the sentiment of the majority. It is, bluntly, the idea that democracy is just a fancy word for mob rule.

So go over and read both posts (they're not long). And then send Mr Holder a nice email, thanking him for (a) standing up for civil rights, (b) refusing to waste taxpayers' money, or (c) both.