United States President Barack Obama's administration will no longer defend the Defense
of Marriage Act, a 15-year-old U.S. law signed by President Bill Clinton that defined
marriage as between a man and a woman.
The United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops issued the following from its Office of General Counsel: “Marriage
has been understood for millennia and across cultures as the union of one man and
one woman. Today, the President has instructed the Department of Justice to stop
defending the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law reiterating that definition of
marriage, passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Democratic President just
fifteen years ago. The principal basis for today’s decision is that the President
considers the law a form of impermissible sexual orientation discrimination. “This
decision represents an abdication of the responsibility of the Executive Branch to
carry out its constitutional obligation to ensure that the laws of the United States
are faithfully executed. It is also a grave affront to the millions of Americans
who both reject unjust discrimination and affirm the unique and inestimable value
of marriage as between one man and one woman. Support for actual marriage is not
bigotry, but instead an eminently reasonable, common judgment affirming the foundational
institution of civil society. Any suggestion by the government that such a judgment
represents “discrimination” is a serious threat to the religious liberty of marriage
supporters nationwide.” Listen to our report: Listen to
the interview by Charles Collins with Father Robert Gahl, Associate Professor of Ethics
at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.