Shane Wade
Columnist
Last week President Obama’s administration announced that it would stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in courts, reigniting debate on the gay marriage issue and whether the federal government has a legitimate role in defining marriage.
Despite conservative views on evolution, the definition of marriage has evolved over time. In the 18th century, children could be married off to the highest bidder, and less than a century ago Virginia law didn’t permit interracial marriages.
Now we have the chance to end the debate on marriage by admitting that DOMA is a mistake. Gay marriage is a ridiculous and clear-cut issue; if two people want to engage in such a paramount and sacred union, they ought to be allowed to do so. Homosexuals are humans first, and to deny that fact is to deny their very personhood.
Furthermore, gay marriage causes no harm to anyone, and the idea of marriage as a sacred, untouchable union has been ruined by the numerous sex scandals, illicit affairs and multiple divorces by the very same people that “defend the sanctity” of marriage.
There shouldn’t be a debate on allowing people to be happy, and by perpetuating the myth that allowing homosexuals to marry degrades the idea of marriage, we dishonor our principles as a free and tolerant society. While I’m glad President Obama has moved forward on this nonissue and stopped wasting valuable resources defending DOMA, I remain disappointed nevertheless.
What Obama has done can be seen as merely symbolic because it changes almost nothing. For the past two years, despite campaign rhetoric to the contrary, his administration has defended and enforced DOMA.
Now, instead of having the Justice Department defending the law and its constitutionality, he’s telling them to just enforce it. Ignoring the irony of the Justice Department continuing to enforce an unjust law, this policy shift should and does do little for the president’s 2012 re-election campaign.
Instead of displaying the characteristics of a strong, self-confident leader, Obama continually proves himself to be calculating and pragmatic – two admirable traits of a leader but two traits that repeatedly lead to his supporters seeing him as frustratingly weak-willed and too willing to compromise.
In his overly generous compromises with Republicans, constant equivocating on campaign promises and silence on the latest union-busting legislation popping up in state legislatures, Obama risks losing both his liberal Democratic base as well as moderate Independents.
Taking such small steps, like declaring the DOMA unconstitutional, does little to rally his supporters, while further distancing himself from conservatives and Republicans, despite the fact that his position on the matter reflects the traditionally conservative view that government should not legislate on social issues. For now DOMA remains the law of the land; all President Obama has done is provide the impetus for repealing the law. The decision to end DOMA now lies in a partisan Congress on the brink of shutdown. Let’s hope the self-professed grown-ups in Congress can end this non-issue so it never gets brought up again.