Loganotron

Read Bob Barr’s full letter about repealing DOMA here. Here’s an excerpt:

In effect, DOMA’s language reflects one-way federalism: It protects only those states that don’t want to accept a same-sex marriage granted by another state. Moreover, the heterosexual definition of marriage for purposes of federal laws — including, immigration, Social Security survivor rights and veteran’s benefits — has become a de facto club used to limit, if not thwart, the ability of a state to choose to recognize same-sex unions.

Even more so now than in 1996, I believe we need to reduce federal power over the lives of the citizenry and over the prerogatives of the states. It truly is time to get the federal government out of the marriage business. In law and policy, such decisions should be left to the people themselves.

In 2006, when then-Sen. Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he said, “Decisions about marriage should be left to the states.” He was right then; and as I have come to realize, he is right now in concluding that DOMA has to go. If one truly believes in federalism and the primacy of state government over the federal, DOMA is simply incompatible with those notions.

Let me just call out one line in particular too:

“It truly is time to get the federal government out of the marriage business. In law and policy, such decisions should be left to the people themselves.”

I could not agree more. Let the churches decide who gets “married.” The state and federal governments should only recognize people as having civil partnerships that grant equal rights for all partnered couples. The end. Leave marriage to the religious institutions. Fine by me. Of course, some churches would be willing to marry gays and lesbians. They already do. How does the government justify its laws that prohibit certain churches from practicing their religion as they see fit (i.e. marrying whomever they choose to marry)? Seems like governmental religious meddling to me…