{"id":2517,"date":"2011-02-23T17:30:19","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T17:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga.php"},"modified":"2011-02-23T17:30:19","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T17:30:19","slug":"obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga","title":{"rendered":"Obama Drops Defense of Anti-Gay-Marriage Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) The Obama administration announced on Wednesday (Feb. 23) it will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, a nearly 15-year-old law that defines marriage as heterosexual unions.<br \/>\nIn a letter to Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder said President Obama has determined the law, widely known as DOMA, is unconstitutional when applied to same-sex couples married legally under state law.<br \/>\nHolder, writing to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the decision came as he and the president reviewed the administration&#8217;s role in current court challenges from legally married same-sex couples in New York and Connecticut.<br \/>\nThe attorney general said Obama considered a number of factors, including a history of discrimination against gays and a &#8220;growing scientific consensus&#8221; that a person&#8217;s sexual orientation cannot be changed.<br \/>\nIn a statement, Holder noted the changing legal landscape since the law was passed, including Congress&#8217; repeal of the military&#8217;s ban on openly gay members and the Supreme Court declaring aws criminalizing homosexual conduct are unconstitutional.<br \/>\nIn a news briefing Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president has long considered DOMA &#8220;unnecessary and unfair&#8221; but the president is &#8220;grappling&#8221; with his views on gay marriage.<br \/>\nFamily Research Council President Tony Perkins called the move &#8220;appalling&#8221; and urged Congress to defend DOMA.<br \/>\nRea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called the administration&#8217;s decision &#8221; a tremendous step toward recognizing our common humanity.&#8221;<br \/>\n<strong>&#8211; Adelle M. Banks<\/strong>, <em>Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) The Obama administration announced on Wednesday (Feb. 23) it will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, a nearly 15-year-old law that defines marriage as heterosexual unions. In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder said President Obama has determined the law, widely known as DOMA, is unconstitutional when applied to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-rns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Obama Drops Defense of Anti-Gay-Marriage Law<\/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\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama Drops Defense of Anti-Gay-Marriage Law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON (RNS) The Obama administration announced on Wednesday (Feb. 23) it will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, a nearly 15-year-old law that defines marriage as heterosexual unions. In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder said President Obama has determined the law, widely known as DOMA, is unconstitutional when applied to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-02-23T17:30:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama Drops Defense of Anti-Gay-Marriage Law","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\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama Drops Defense of Anti-Gay-Marriage Law","og_description":"WASHINGTON (RNS) The Obama administration announced on Wednesday (Feb. 23) it will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, a nearly 15-year-old law that defines marriage as heterosexual unions. In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder said President Obama has determined the law, widely known as DOMA, is unconstitutional when applied to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-02-23T17:30:19+00:00","author":"editor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga","name":"Obama Drops Defense of Anti-Gay-Marriage Law","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-02-23T17:30:19+00:00","dateModified":"2011-02-23T17:30:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58d12601cbe230a61e6f2ea91d341249"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/obama-drops-defense-of-anti-ga#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama Drops Defense of Anti-Gay-Marriage Law"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?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\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58d12601cbe230a61e6f2ea91d341249","name":"editor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dfc\/dfcc0838a84dd70003db24678b13c234x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dfc\/dfcc0838a84dd70003db24678b13c234x96.jpg","caption":"editor"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/editor"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/264"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}