Republican-Controlled House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group Votes To Defend Defense Of Marriage Act In Court

The Associated Foreign Press reports that top United States House of Representatives leaders voted along party lines Wednesday to defend in court a law defining marriage as only between a man and a woman after President Barack Obama repudiated it. The House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group voted 3-2 to direct the chamber's general counsel to take action to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996. Obama's Republican adversaries, led by House Speaker John Boehner, voted in favour of the move, while the White House's Democratic allies, led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, voted against it. Boehner said in a statement that "This action by the House will ensure that this law's constitutionality is decided by the courts, rather than by the president unilaterally." United States Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter sent in late February to Boehner that Obama had concluded the law was unconstitutional. Obama had found that by excluding same-sex couples from legal marriage, the law "violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment," and that his administration would no longer defend it, Holder wrote at the time. Pelosi said Obama's decision amounted to "a bold step forward for civil rights" and called the law "unfair and indefensible" and a betrayal of "our nation's long-held and long-cherished value of equality for all,” adding that "The House should not be in the business of defending an unconstitutional statute that is neither rational nor serves any governmental interest. Given the complexity and number of cases, this legal challenge would sap hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, if not more, during a time of limited fiscal resources." A senior Democratic aide said that House General Counsel Kerry Kirchner warned the leaders that legal action would "not be inexpensive" and would take a minimum of ten months. Pelosi noted that there were ongoing cases dealing with the law and said that meant that House action was unnecessary, said the aide, who requested anonymity. Kirchner added that former president Ronald Reagan stopped defending five laws in the 1980s, underlining that "clearly Republicans were fine with a Republican president choosing not to defend" existing statutes.