Montana Congressional Delegation Statements About DOMA, Prop 8

Jun26 by D Gregory Smith

In stark contrast, here are the statements issued by Montana’s Congressional delegation in light of the historic DOMA and Prop 8 rulings today:

Gay Rights in America (Photo credit: Poldavo (Alex))

Daines “I am disappointed by the Supreme Court’s ruling today. Marriage, as the union of one man and one woman, matters for our children, and I remain a strong believer in defending the family.

While I do not agree with the Court’s ruling concerning the application of federal benefits, I am encouraged that the Court did not rule against states’ rights, ensuring that the voice of the people, not a ruling from a court, is the driving force behind marriage laws in Montana and the other states.”

Tester: “The Supreme Court today made the right decision. The federal government has no place telling Americans who they can love and who they can marry.”

Tester affirmed his support for same-sex marriage earlier this year, saying “how Montanans define a family should be their business and their business alone.”

Baucus: “Today is a proud day in American history when we can say to all Montanans, Americans and their children: your love and your family are just as good as everyone else’s under the law. For too long, same-sex couples and their children have been denied more than 1,000 federal rights and obligations that married couples enjoy. That was wrong. In the United States of America, no one should be treated as a second class citizen simply because of who they choose to love.

I believe each of us has a moral obligation to leave this place in better shape than we found it, and today’s decision puts our country on the right side of history. Now it’s time to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and guarantee all Montanans the same opportunity to succeed in the workplace.”

What Do the DOMA and Prop 8 Decisions Mean for Gay Marriage in Pennsylvania? (princelaw.com)

In One of His First Acts as Congressman, Daines Supports Unconstitutional DOMA

Jan3 by MontanaRiverRat

Today, the country bid a not-so-fond farewell to the 112th Congress (including Denny Rehberg), and swore in the new 113th Congress with Steve Daines.

What was the first thing this shiny new Congress did?

Well, Daines, who ran on a “more jobs, less government” platform, cast one of his first votes in favor of the House continuing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) which denies hundreds of benefits to legally married same-sex couples.

Apparently when Daines said “more jobs” he meant “more jobs for lawyers defending blatantly unconstitutional archaic laws.”

DOMA is the Clinton-era law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions. This law denies benefits to the same-sex partners of military members killed while fighting for our country. It also prohibits the federal government from recognizing bi-national same-sex couples in immigration cases, which has led to several high-profile deportations. It also refuses to acknowledge same-sex spouses in relation to Social Security survivor benefits.

This law is clearly unconstitutional, which is why in early 2011 the Obama administration’s Department of Justice announced they would no longer defend the law. Our illustrious House members though chose to pick up the torch of bigotry and continued to defend the law at the taxpayer’s expense. Thus far, Steve Daines, John Boehner and the Republicans in the House have spent more than $1.7 million defending this law.

The latest expenditure in support of DOMA was actually buried within the House of Representative rules that the new Congress approved today. Generally these rules simply lay out the process for how the House will run. To bury an appropriation inside this bill is an unprecedented abuse of the process.

This is just the latest example of the clear hypocrisy of Daines and his tea party colleagues advocating for smaller government except for when they don’t.

DOMA, ruled as unconstitutional ten different times in seven different cases, will face the US Supreme Court later this year.