Senate Holds Hearing on Repeal of DOMA
Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D – CA) bill S.598 , the Respect for Marriage Act. This deceptively titled proposal actually seeks to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Although over 80% of Congress voted in favor of DOMA in 1996, President Obama recently directed Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department to stop defending the law. In response, House leadership convened the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group and retained former Solicitor General Paul Clement
to represent the House in the onslaught of same-sex marriage litigation that resulted from the President’s decision. Senator Feinstein’s bill seeks to unilaterally change the definition of marriage by eliminating the two main components of DOMA: the ability of states to determine whether they will recognize marriages performed in other states and the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman in federal law. At the Senate hearing, the testimony of traditional marriage experts was met with belligerent taunts and derision by several of the committee members. Austin Nimocks, Alliance Defense Fund attorney, outlined the numerous benefits for children raised by both a mother and a father. Nimocks also emphasized the importance of maintaining the standard definition and the stability that traditional marriage has on society as a whole. Despite the heckling at the hearing, the bill will probably not be taken up in the Senate since the measure would not find sufficient support in the House of Representatives. Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Jordan Lawrence opined that the societal and fiscal effect of forcing the remaining forty-four states to recognize same-sex marriages would not necessarily alleviate the difficulty of securing federal benefits for same-sex couples.

DADT Update
On Friday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta certified that the military was ready for the repeal of the longstanding policy of homosexuals in the military commonly referred to as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The certification process (signatures by Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the President) was meant to ensure that the repeal did not disrupt the unit cohesion and combat readiness of the armed forces. In sixty days, the repeal process will take full effect. Members of Congress have sent letters to the Pentagon asking for a detailed report of DADT repeal on future recruitment and retention efforts.