Bill Clinton says Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, 17 years after signing it into law
NY Daily News: Bill Clinton joined gay marriage advocates urging the Supreme Court to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act on Friday – 17 years after signing it into law.
“On March 27, DOMA will come before the Supreme Court, and the justices must decide whether it is consistent with the principles of a nation that honors freedom, equality and justice above all, and is therefore constitutional,” the former president wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post. “As the president who signed the act into law, I have come to believe that DOMA is contrary to those principles and, in fact, incompatible with our Constitution.”
Clinton noted that 1996 was “a very different time,” when gay marriage was not recognized in any state in the U.S.
He said some DOMA supporters in fact believed its passage “would defuse a movement to enact a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which would have ended the debate for a generation or more.” But he says he now knows the law was discriminatory.
Comparing the struggle for gay rights to the women’s fight for the right to vote, Clinton wrote: “I believe that in 2013 DOMA and opposition to marriage equality are vestiges of just such an unfamiliar society.”
“Americans have been at this sort of a crossroads often enough to recognize the right path,” he wrote. “We understand that, while our laws may at times lag behind our best natures, in the end they catch up to our core values.”
DOMA comes up before the Supreme Court on March 27. The high court is also considering a challenge to California’s gay marriage ban known as Proposition 8. President Obama’s administration wrote a friend-of-the-court-brief pressing the Supreme Court to strike down that ban.
What about plural marriages? Does he discriminate against those as well? I’m not shocked that Clinton has “evolved”…after all, 2016 is right around the corner for his wife.
DCG