Pelosi To Boehner: Stop Defending DOMA!

 “A Waste Of Taxpayer Resources”

Minority Leader and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi today responded to a federal court’s finding today that DOMA, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, is unconstitutional, by telling Speaker John Boehner to stop defending the 1996 law banning federal recognition of same-sex marriages. After President Obama and Attorney General Holder announced they would stop defending DOMA in court, as it had already been declared unconstitutional, Boehner decided to allocate at least $500,000 to $1.5 million to “defend” the unconstitutional law, being to social conservatives and ignoring logic.

Boehner’s five-member GOP-heavy Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, or BLAG, directs the House’s general Counsel, which in turn hired an expensive law firm to defend a law that was already declared unconstitutional.

“In rejecting the arguments of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, the court’s ruling also reaffirmed a core belief of the majority of House Democrats: that the House is not united in this case; that the BLAG lawyers do not speak for Congress; and that BLAG’s intervention remains a waste of taxpayer resources.  The court made it clear that there is no legitimate federal interest in denying married gay and lesbian couples the legal security, rights, and responsibilities guaranteed to all married couples under state law,” Pelosi said in a statement, according to a report in Gay Politics.

Related: Pelosi Breaks With Democrats To Support Gay Marriage Plank In DNC Platform

Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the amount of money allocated to defend DOMA as $500 million.