Impeachable Offense? Fox News: Obama DOMA Defense Refusal “Dictatorship”

Monica Crowley today on Fox News likened the Obama administration’s announcement today that it will no longer defend DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, in court, to a “dictatorship,” called the President, “Mubarak Obama,” and falsely claimed that it is “his responsibility, under the constitution, to enforce that law.”

It is not.

The Defense of Marriage Act effectively bans federal recognition of same-sex marriages, and gives states the right, while not forcing them, to not recognize same-sex marriages. By effectively banning these marriages, discrimination has been written into the law. DOMA makes ineligible same sex couples from accessing over 1138 federal and state benefits, and makes these unions in the eyes of society unequal to the same unions of opposite-sex couples.

The Power, author of the video above, writes, “When President Bush was in office, there were no federal laws protecting gay people from discrimination.  More to the point, President Bush stopped enforcing some major civil and human rights laws that protected all people, gay and straight, including the Geneva Convention and the Fourth Amendment.  And there were calls for his impeachment.  But Bush didn’t decide those laws were unconstitutional.  He decided he was more powerful than the Constitution.  There’s a difference.”

Indeed. As we wrote here earlier today, in, “”NOM’s Maggie Gallagher Calls Obama’s DOMA Position An “End Run”,”thanks to John Aravosis at AmericaBlog:

“George W. Bush (ACLU et al., v. Norman Y. Mineta – “The U.S. Department of Justice has notified Congress that it will not defend a law prohibiting the display of marijuana policy reform ads in public transit systems.”), Bill Clinton (Dickerson v. United States – “Because the Miranda decision is of constitutional dimension, Congress may not legislate a contrary rule unless this Court were to overrule Miranda…. Section 3501 cannot constitutionally authorize the admission of a statement that would be excluded under this Court’s Miranda cases.”), George HW Bush (Metro Broadcasting v. Federal Communications Commission), and Ronald Reagan (INS v./ Chadha – “Chadha then filed a petition for review of the deportation order in the Court of Appeals, and the INS joined him in arguing that § 244(c)(2) is unconstitutional.”) all joined in lawsuits opposing federal laws that they didn’t like, laws that they felt were unconstitutional.”

Bottom line, the President has the authority to not defend in court a law he deems unconstitutional, especially one he is working to get repealed. It seems Fox News has really lost all credibility.

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