The Obama administration refused Friday to follow a federal judge's order to provide insurance benefits to the wife of a lesbian court employee in San Francisco and said its hands were tied by a discriminatory law.
"This issue shows exactly why Congress needs to repeal" the law, which prohibits federal benefits to same-sex couples, government lawyer Elaine Kaplan said in a message to attorneys for court employee Karen Golinski.
One of Golinski's lawyers, Jenny Pizer of the gay-rights group Lambda Legal, said Kaplan's response was "something we might have expected from the Bush or Reagan administration, and not from a 'fierce advocate' of LBGT rights," as President Obama has described himself.
The case is one of two in which the Office of Personnel Management has balked at orders by judges on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to provide coverage to the same-sex spouses of federal employees.
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"The administration believes that this law is discriminatory" and supports legislation to grant benefits to federal workers' domestic partners, Kaplan said.
The administration is not sponsoring legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, however, and is defending the law in a suit by same-sex married couples in Massachusetts.
If the administration continues to deny coverage, Pizer said, Golinski will sue in court.
The Obama White House human rights page originally stated the president's strong objection to DOMA laws and that repealing them was on the agenda. That and other strong statements in support of equal legal rights for gays have since been removed. A man of greater personal conviction would have stuck to his guns even if it meant alienating the anti-gays, even if it meant being a one-term president.
While I think it's likely that he really does think DOMA laws are discriminatory as he says, he isn't walking the walk.
He has asked for gay people to be patient on this issue and others like DADT, but gays and Americans who see no reason to legally discriminate against them are becoming impatient for good reason.
silvermane48 speaks the truth, Obama isn't a principled leader, he bends with the wind trying to please everyone and, in the end of his term, will end up pleasing few. The LGBT community will feel betrayed. Why? He doesn't need you, except maybe in '10 and definitely in '12. Fooled you once shame on him, fooled you twice, shame on you...
Gay people, black people, and women are all groups that overwhelmingly vote for Democrats only and all three groups have gotten thrown under the bus. When will these three groups stop voting for a party that disrespects them over and over.