Not surprisingly, the Washington Post editorial board, run by Katharine Graham's right wing son, is praising President Obama for putting a kinder and gentler face on homophobia. From the Post:
These same sound legal arguments were made in an administration brief that was filed in June. But they were obscured by the firestorm over a legal citation of a case involving incest and the untrue assertion that DOMA didn't single out gay men and lesbians for discrimination. That mistake was not repeated. In fact, the third paragraph of the latest brief states plainly that "this Administration does not support DOMA, as a matter of policy, believes that it is discriminatory, and supports its repeal." We wholeheartedly support the Obama administration in this -- and eagerly await its push to change the law.Well, no, gay and lesbian Americans, and their supporters, were not upset with President Obama over two portions of the 50-some page brief. We were livid with him because most of the brief was supremely homophobic, and the administration didn't even have to defend the law at all, as Joe and I (who are both lawyers) documented in a huge post dissecting the entire legal document.
But putting that aside, we did in fact praise Obama for the second DOMA brief which was "better." If by better, you mean still defending state-sanctioned discrimination that you once called abhorrent and promised to help overturn. President Obama is under the belief that he can put a more humane face on bigotry and prejudice. Not only is such a thing impossible, it's rather dangerous to boot. We don't want prejudice against gays and lesbians - or any Americans, for that matter - sugar-coated in order to make it palatable. We need a president with the courage and the conviction to keep his promises.
