GOP Triples Funding for Anti-Gay DOMA Defense

House Speaker John Boehner

While we don’t generally discuss how the government spends our money here at Talk About Equality, this seems a bit pertinent.

While the country continues along the road to further debt crisis, and while thousands are occupying Wall Street to demand changes to how big corporations do business, the Republicans have tripled the amount the government is spending to keep gay and lesbian couples apart.

DOMA has lost in federal court cases no fewer than 14 times, while the Department of Justice has spent millions in legal fees trying to fight to keep it. Earlier this year, after yet another blow to the constitutionality of the statute, Obama’s Department of Justice has decided to stop defending it. Within moments, John Boehner and House Republicans decided to take up the mantle of defending traditional marriage from the horrors of gays and lesbians being afforded the same rights as heterosexuals.

As there are dozens of court challenges to DOMA in the works, the cost of defending it isn’t cheap. California Republican Rep. Dan Lungren signed off on a change order to the contract with outside counsel Paul Clement, who is handling the defense of the anti-gay 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It allows Clement’s fees to triple to $1.5 million.

John Boehner and other House Republicans decided that after Obama refused to continueHouse Republicans, if you recall, decided that since the Justice Department and President Obama refused earlier this year to defend DOMA (calling the statute unconstitutional), Republicans would hire outside counsel to do so. The proliferation of court cases ensured this outsourced defense would get expensive. DOMA is expected to arrive at the Supreme Court within a couple of years. With same-sex marriage now legal in six states and the District of Columbia, DOMA conflicts are blossoming in areas of tax law, immigration law, Social Security and the like.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, has urged the Department of Homeland Security to take same-sex families into consideration in deportation cases. Her constituents,Bradford Wells and Anthony John Makk are in Washington today, beginning a round of visits with congressional offices to highlight their case. They are married, gay and bi-national: Makk is a citizen of Australia who has been denied spousal immigration rights.

Pelosi today issued this statement on the GOP contract:

“It is absolutely unconscionable that Speaker Boehner is tripling the cost for his legal boondoggle to defend the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act. At a time when Americans are hurting and job creation should be the top priority, it just shows how out of touch House Republicans have become that they would spend up to $1.5 million dollars to defend discrimination in our country.”