fine lines

Obama Believes DOMA Is Discriminatory. But Does He Think It’s Unconstitutional?

I don’t … the president hasn’t to the best of my … I have not heard the president intone what he believes the constitutionality of the law is. I know that he believes the law should be changed. Legal decisions around next steps in that case, I believe, will be made at the Justice Department and I would point you over there to them. Again, the president believes, in this case, and the president believes in the case of “don’t ask, don’t tell” that those are laws that he has believed for quite some time should be changed.

—Press Sec. Robert Gibbs, who’s wholly unaware as to whether Obama equates “discriminatory” with “unconstitiional,” which is fair because sometimes the constitution does let us discriminate! [via]

Jump to 9 Comments

By: JD
On: Jul 30, 2010
Tagged: Barack Obama, DOMA, Marriage, Robert Gibbs

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9 Comments

No. 1 · Brutus
Finally Queerty recognizes this distinction.

It’s not necessarily unconstitutional, but its supporters haven’t come up with a rational basis for it to pass constitutional muster.

Jul 30, 2010 at 10:33 am · @Reply ·
No. 2 · Samwise
Five words: Full Faith and Credit Clause.

End of story.

Jul 30, 2010 at 1:08 pm · @Reply ·
No. 3 · Steve
@Samwise: Five more words: All men are created equal.

Now end of story.

Jul 30, 2010 at 1:33 pm · @Reply ·
No. 4 · Kenster999
Gibbs totally strikes me as a homophobe, dancing around even saying the word “gay”. (Rahm Emanuel seems very unfriendly to gays as well.)

Jul 31, 2010 at 1:42 am · @Reply ·
No. 5 · Gorbeh
The key word making me doubt his sincerity is “changed” instead of “repealed”.

Jul 31, 2010 at 3:25 am · @Reply ·
No. 6 · jason
Could it be that both Gibbs and Emanuel were/are closet cases? They both give off that gay vibe to me. Of course, they might be bisexual, albeit loathing of their same-sex component. Some of the worst homophobes are straight-identifying men with a biological same-sex component that they hate.

Jul 31, 2010 at 3:32 am · @Reply ·
No. 7 · Dawson
@Steve: That isn’t in the constitution.

Aug 1, 2010 at 8:51 am · @Reply ·
No. 8 · ewe
There should be more than two meaningful political parties and here we have Obama smack in the center. He is not doing anything for the advancement of gay rights and he won’t be doing it in a second term either. Don’t buy into that facade AGAIN.

Aug 2, 2010 at 1:20 am · @Reply ·
No. 9 · ewe
That pen has a lot of power if he picks it up and signs. What in the hell is OUR president doing on our behalf that is concrete? We do not need sappy words of encouragement. Queerty should explain that fucking photograph and stop manipulating their intentions with pasted media clips. It is deceiving.

Aug 2, 2010 at 3:01 am · @Reply ·