{"id":372,"date":"2011-02-23T13:58:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T13:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html"},"modified":"2011-02-23T13:58:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T13:58:00","slug":"obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama: Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional (Unlike Health Care Reform Law)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Updated Feb. 24 to add Catholic link.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strike>This just in:<\/strike> President Obama has ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage, against lawsuits challenging it as unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p>Check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/2011\/February\/11-ag-222.html\">Justice Department&#8217;s statement from Attorney General Eric Holder here<\/a>, and the story <strike>just <\/strike>posted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/02\/24\/us\/24marriage.html?_r=1&amp;hp\">on The New York Times website<\/a>. As expected, <a href=\"http:\/\/ncronline.org\/blogs\/ncr-today\/bishops-decry-presidents-refusal-support-defense-marriage-act\">the U.S. Catholic bishops have decried this turn of events.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, on the subject of unconstitutional vs. constitutional laws, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20110223\/ap_on_re_us\/us_health_care_lawsuit\">a federal judge has&nbsp;tossed out&nbsp;the&nbsp;lawsuit filed by the American Center for Law and Justice, <\/a>a conservative legal group that claimed the new health care reform law&#8217;s&nbsp;requirement that all Americans have health insurance violates the religious freedom of those who rely on God to protect them.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll post more faith-related links later <strike>today <\/strike>&#8212;&nbsp;I&#8217;m sure the <a href=\"http:\/\/religionclause.blogspot.com\/\">Religion Clause <\/a>blog will have more details on the legal language shortly &#8212; but feel free to share them in the Comments section in the meantime, along with your thoughts.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Updated Feb. 24 to add Catholic link. This just in: President Obama has ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage, against lawsuits challenging it as unconstitutional. Check out the Justice Department&#8217;s statement from Attorney General Eric Holder here, and the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Obama: Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional (Unlike Health Care Reform Law) - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama: Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional (Unlike Health Care Reform Law) - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Updated Feb. 24 to add Catholic link. This just in: President Obama has ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage, against lawsuits challenging it as unconstitutional. Check out the Justice Department&#8217;s statement from Attorney General Eric Holder here, and the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-02-23T13:58:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama: Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional (Unlike Health Care Reform Law) - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama: Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional (Unlike Health Care Reform Law) - Belief Beat","og_description":"Updated Feb. 24 to add Catholic link. This just in: President Obama has ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage, against lawsuits challenging it as unconstitutional. Check out the Justice Department&#8217;s statement from Attorney General Eric Holder here, and the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-02-23T13:58:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html","name":"Obama: Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional (Unlike Health Care Reform Law) - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-02-23T13:58:00+00:00","dateModified":"2011-02-23T13:58:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/02\/obama-defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional-unlike-health-care-law.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama: Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional (Unlike Health Care Reform Law)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}