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Posts tagged ‘DOMA’

Clinton cannot tell the truth


By Washington Examiner 11/2/15

The Defense of Marriage Act, Clinton argued, was “a defensive action,” and “a line that was drawn that was to prevent going further.” (File photo)

In her immediate post-Benghazi appearance on the “Rachel Maddow Show,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton must have been feeling pretty good — like she could get away with anything.

Perhaps that’s why she went on television and lied about her husband’s reasons for signing the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 bill that established the traditional definition of marriage for all federal government purposes.

“There was enough political momentum to amend the Constitution of the United States of America,” Clinton said, referring to the possible passage of a federal marriage amendment. DOMA, she argued, was “a defensive action,” and “a line that was drawn that was to prevent going further.”

There’s just one problem with this explanation: It’s a lie.lying so long

Buzzfeed’s Chris Geidner studied thousands of pages of records from the Clinton White House and found no mention whatsoever of Clinton supporting DOMA on any such grounds. This is an explanation concocted after the fact, which both Bill and Hillary have been offering ever since the gay marriage bandwagon gained momentum and they feared not appearing to have been on it from the start.

Now, before you faint from the shock that Hillary Clinton would tell an untruth, consider what had happened earlier that very day. One of the useful details that came out in the recent congressional hearing marathon into Benghazi was conclusive proof that Clinton knew on day one that the Benghazi attack had nothing to do with the video she would later claim was the main cause.

It was revealed that Clinton said as much in a call with Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil on the night of the attack: “We know the attack had nothing to do with the film,” she said. “It was a planned attack, not a protest. … Based on the information we saw today, we believe that the group that claimed responsibility for this was affiliated with al Qaeda.”

And the following day, she emailed her daughter, Chelsea, to explain that “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al Qaeda-like group.”

Later, most disgustingly, Clinton commiserated with the father of Tyrone Woods, the Navy SEAL killed in the Benghazi compound, and vowed: “We will make sure that the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.”Partyof Deceit Spin and Lies

It’s worth stopping and considering again what she did. She looked into the eyes of a grieving father and told him a black lie about the reason for his son’s death.hillary-prison-or-potus

Standing in the presence of the caskets of all four Americans killed in Benghazi, Clinton commented on that attack and others in Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia, without drawing any distinction: “We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over a horrible Internet video that we had nothing to do with,” she said.

Every lie has a reason. At that time, the scapegoating of a movie director was an attempt to avoid acknowledging something that made it plain that, contrary to President Obama’s election campaign claim, al Qaeda was absolutely not “on the run.”obama-liar4-266x189

The lie about DOMA is supposed to confuse the issue for progressive voters about why Clinton was so slow to switch her position on the issue of same-sex marriage. The lie about not sending or receiving classified information over her unsecured email — more emails containing classified information were released last Friday — was an effort to keep the public at bay until she can claim her emails are just old news.

The pattern here is clear enough, and has indeed been clear for years. Clinton is incapable of telling the truth if it might reflect badly on her. Everything is spun. The problem with this approach is that it becomes a nearly continuous exercise in covering one’s own rear end by whatever implausible means are at hand.

It’s not the kind of leadership this country needs for the next four or eight years.The Leftist Propagandist In God We Trust freedom combo 2

BREAKING: Supreme Court Invalidates Defense of Marriage Act, Punts on Prop 8


The US Supreme Court has struck down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional in a 5-4 ruling, authored by Justice Kennedy.  Chief Justice Roberts dissented, as did Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito.  The Court’s rationale, per SCOTUS blog: “DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.”  The Defense of Marriage Act was passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1996.  Here is the text of the landmark Windsor decision.

While the federal portion of DOMA has been tossed out (the federal government must now recognize same-sex marriage performed in states that allow the practice), it appears that the high court has not require states to recognize same sex unions from other states.  In Chief Justice Roberts’ dissent, he hints that the Court will dismiss the Proposition 8 gay marriage case from California, based on standing issues.  That decision, Hollingsworth v Perry, will be released in a few minutes.  So it looks like the Court has given gay rights proponents a significant win on DOMA, while preserving some level of respect for federalism on the issue, and has not handed down a sweeping ruling on gay marriage.  We’ll have to wait to see Perry to know for sure, but it doesn’t sound like the Court has established a right to marriage for same-sex couples.  Here are the key grafs from Kennedy’s majority opinion:

UPDATE – The Court, in a 5-4 decision, has declined to rule on the constitutionality of Prop. 8, California’s 2008 amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman.  The decision, authored by Roberts, is a procedural one.  Quote: “ The Ninth Circuit was without jurisdiciton to consider the appeal. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.”  This is effectively a punt.  The Court neither affirmed nor stuck down Prop. 8 — thus, no major precedent is set.  Because the most recent lower court decision tossed out Prop 8, same-sex marriages are likely to resume in California for the time being.  The 5-4 coalition is an unusual one: The majority features Roberts, Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan.  Dissenters are Alito, Thomas, Sotomayor and Kennedy.


UPDATE II
– Kennedy, who wrote the Court’s Windsor opinion invalidating DOMA, dissents on Prop. 8, arguing that the Supreme Court has avoided addressing a crucial principle of democracy: The will of the people.

In the end, what the Court fails to grasp or accept is the basic premise of the initiative process. And it is this. The essence of democracy is that the right to make law rests in the people and flows to the government, not the other way around. Freedom resides first in the people without need of a grant from government. The California initiative process embodies these principles and has done so for over a century.

Public opinion has shifted in a big way since 2008, and one might imagine that Prop. 8 would fail in California if it were held today.  But Kennedy believes that the clearly defined will of a majority of Californians five years ago deserves a real hearing in court.  The bottom line of today’s dual rulings: The debate over gay marriage will continue in the states, which is where many federalists believe it belongs.

Developing…

God’s Design Challenged Again


‘Marriage Equality’ Spells ‘Marriage Extinction’

wedding rings

Next week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the most critical cases of our time related to marriage equality. On Tuesday, March 26, attorneys will make the pitch both for and against California’s Proposition 8. This, of course, is the Golden State’s pro-marriage amendment. It maintained the timeless definition of natural marriage as between man and wife.

Then, on Wednesday, March 27, the high court will consider the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed in 1996 with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by then President Bill Clinton. It, likewise, secured the definition of legitimate marriage for purposes of federal law.

 Although both cases certainly address a multitude of legal and political issues, they also involve a number of moral and cultural considerations that, if wrongly decided, will literally shake Western civilization to the core.

The stakes could not be higher. Of central concern is whether the Supreme Court will put its official stamp of approval on that cartoonish contradiction-in-terms labeled “same-sex marriage.” Ultimately, these nine justices will decide recklessly either to deconstruct, radically redefine and render functionally trivial the age-old institution of natural marriage – or leave it alone.

They’d better leave it alone.

Here’s the bottom line: Homosexual activists don’t want the white picket fence. They want to burn down the white picket fence. The endgame is not to achieve so-called “marriage equality,” but, rather, to render marriage reality meaningless.

In a recent column headlined, “The Revolt of Intelligence Against ‘Marriage Equality,” worldview expert Rick Pearcey addressed one prominent “gay” activist’s admission that the destruction of natural marriage signifies the left’s ultimate cultural coup de grâce.

“Masha Gessen, a lesbian and a journalist, spoke frankly about this at a conference in Sydney, Australia,” he wrote. “‘It’s a no-brainer that we should have the right to marry,’ she said. ‘But I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. … ‘Marriage equality’ becomes ‘marriage elasticity,’ with the ultimate goal of ‘marriage extinction.’”

Still, if counterfeit “same-sex marriage” becomes the law of the land, then a whole lot more freaky deaky will follow before marriage extinction inevitably occurs.

One of liberals’ favorite Alinskyite defense mechanisms is to ridicule the opposition if confronted with some irrefutable argument against some hallowed left-wing delusion. Such is the tactic employed whenever a thinking person walks into the room and points out this big ol’ gay elephant: Once the government pretends that some vague combination of “love” and “consent” are all that a “marriage” requires, then other “arbitrary” and “discriminatory” parameters beyond a binary male-female prerequisite must also go poof.

That is to say, if the Court magically divines some constitutional right to “same-sex marriage,” then full “marriage equality” necessarily demands that polygamous, incestuous and any other equally aberrant nuptial cocktail be likewise permitted.

It’s a “no-brainer,” right?

To that end, I’m very concerned with the Supreme Court’s recent history of radically redefining that which cannot be redefined. Though examples abound, I’m thinking specifically, as concerns the topic at hand, of the Court’s 2003 holding in Lawrence v. Texas.

In Lawrence, the liberal majority, for the first time in history, radically redefined male-on-male sodomy – hitherto classified “a crime against nature” – as a “constitutional right.”

In his characteristically brilliant dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia voiced my concerns better than I can: “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices,” he wrote. “Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision.”

So, if the high court removes one natural marriage parameter for one special-interest group, then “equal protection under the law” requires that it remove all natural marriage parameters for all special-interest groups.

Liberty Counsel made these very points in a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the Supreme Court: “Ultimately, there is no principled basis for recognizing a legality of same-sex marriage without simultaneously providing a basis for the legality of consensual polygamy or certain adult incestuous relationships,” noted the brief. “In fact, every argument for same-sex marriage is an argument for them as well.”

Another brief filed by 18 state attorneys general voiced similar concerns: “Once the natural limits that inhere in the relationship between a man and a woman can no longer sustain the definition of marriage, the conclusion that follows is that any grouping of adults would have an equal claim to marriage,” they wrote.

The brief further observed the self-evident “no-brainer” that legitimate marriage is “optimal for children and society at large.”

It’s all very simple. If anything is marriage, then everything is marriage. And if everything is marriage, then nothing is marriage at all. “‘Marriage equality’ becomes ‘marriage elasticity,’ with the ultimate goal of ‘marriage extinction.’”

I sincerely hope that the honorable and learned men and women who sit upon the highest bench in the land can recognize that all of these San Francisco-style social-engineering games are a deceptive means to a destructive end.

And it’s not the emotionalist end they’ve dolled-up and dished out. The left’s fierce push for “gay marriage” has nothing to do with “marriage equality” and everything to do with “marriage extinction.”

Or, as Ms. Gessen candidly put it: “[I]t’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.”

I just pray that at least five justices still think it should.

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