{"id":996,"date":"2004-07-23T13:33:04","date_gmt":"2004-07-23T21:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/07\/23\/house-approves-bill-forbidding-courts-from-touching-doma\/"},"modified":"2004-07-23T13:33:04","modified_gmt":"2004-07-23T21:33:04","slug":"house-approves-bill-forbidding-courts-from-touching-doma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=996","title":{"rendered":"House Approves Bill Forbidding Courts from Touching DOMA"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the San Francisco Chronicle:<\/p>\n

Washington — The House voted Thursday to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act — an unprecedented incursion into judicial terrain — as Republican leaders continued their drive against same- sex marriages despite the recent failure in the Senate of a constitutional amendment to ban them. […]<\/p>\n

The bill would prevent federal courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court — from considering challenges to the 1996 law that permits states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.<\/p>\n

No companion measure has been introduced in the Senate, and it’s unlikely that one would be taken up this year before Congress adjourns. Democrats accused Republicans of trying to keep the same-sex marriage issue alive for the election.<\/p><\/div>\n

Some initial thoughts:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Since the Republicans aren’t bothering to introduce a Senate version of this bill, it’s hard to believe that they’re serious about it. The Democrats are probably right to say that this has more to do with the upcoming election than with serious lawmaking.\n
  2. The fact that they’re proposing this law shows that the anti-SSM Republicans in congress who, just last week, were saying “there is no alternative to amending the US Constitution” were acting in bad faith. (The idea for this non-constitutional path to protecting DOMA from the courts has been kicking around among Republicans for months).\n
  3. If I narrowly consider only the SSM debate, I wish that this bill would become a law. It would take the “federal courts are going to force Tennessee to recognize Massachusetts gay marriages!” argument off the table, which I think would take a lot of wind out of the national anti-SSM campaign. Meanwhile, SSM advocates would remain free to pursue SSM through elected officials and through equal rights lawsuits.\n
  4. Even if this bill becomes law, I don’t think it would slow down the progress of SSM rights. I’ve been convinced that the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the constitution would not, in practice, require any state to recognize another state’s same-sex marriages. (Gabriel Rosenberg <\/a>has the full scoop on this).\n
  5. I don’t think this bill has any realistic chance of passing both the Senate and House. Even if it did, the Supreme Court might find a way to overturn it. So there’s not much chance it’ll become law.\n
  6. So it’s unlikely. But if this bill defied the odds and became law, I’d be frightened of the precedent. What would prevent Congress from using this law to shield all sorts of discrimination – against gays, and also against Jews, Christians, the disabled, women, minorities, and anyone else they take a dislike to – from court scrutiny? If Congress can shield its laws from court oversight, then it’s good-bye separation of powers.<\/ol>\n

    UPDATE: Added item 5. Also, Trey<\/a>, Kevin Drum <\/a>and Andrew Sullivan <\/a>have more on this..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    From the San Francisco Chronicle: Washington — The House voted Thursday to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act — an unprecedented incursion into judicial terrain — as Republican leaders continued their drive against same- … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}