Outraged over a legal brief filed by the Obama administration comparing gay and lesbian Americans to pedophiles and people committing incest, gay and lesbian donors to the Democrat Party are pulling their support of a June 25 Democrat National Committee fundraiser with Vice-President Joe Biden aimed at the LBGT community.
ABC News reports former Clinton advisor David Mixner has withdrawn from the event, blasting the Obama brief as a "sickening document" that "could have been written by the Rev. Pat Robertson."
"Using the worst of stereotypes, it intimates that we don’t have constitutional guarantees, invokes scenarios of incest, of children and advocates that we don’t have the same rights as others who have struggled for civil rights," said Mixner. It "undercuts every conceivable argument that the LGBT community would use to fight for the repeal of DOMA. Right-wing nut cases can now just simply quote horrible stuff from this hateful brief and proclaim loudly it was filed by the Obama Justice Department.”
Along with Mixner, other major Democrat figures like gay blogger Andy Towle and Alan van Capelle of the Empire State Pride Agenda are also boycotting the event.
The origial author of DOMA, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, is former Congressman Bob Barr. Now a top opponent of the legislation, Barr was the 2008 Libertarian presidental nominee.
In the Obama brief, called "gratuitously homophobic" by gay Democrat activist John Arvosis, the Obama administration repeatedly compares gay and lesbian citizens who want to marry to pedophiles, stating in part:
Both the First and Second Restatements of Conflict of Laws recognize that State courts may refuse to give effect to a marriage, or to certain incidents of a marriage, that contravene the forum State’s policy. See Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws § 134; Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 284.5 And the courts have widely held that certain marriages performed elsewhere need not be given effect, because they conflicted with the public policy of the forum. See, e.g., Catalano v. Catalano, 170 A.2d 726, 728-29 (Conn. 1961) (marriage of uncle to niece, "though valid in Italy under its laws, was not valid in Connecticut because it contravened the public policy of th[at] state"); Wilkins v. Zelichowski, 140 A.2d 65, 67-68 (N.J. 1958) (marriage of 16-year-old female held invalid in New Jersey, regardless of validity in Indiana where performed, in light of N.J. policy reflected in statute permitting adult female to secure annulment of her underage marriage); In re Mortenson’s Estate, 316 P.2d 1106 (Ariz. 1957) (marriage of first cousins held invalid in Arizona, though lawfully performed in New Mexico, given Arizona policy reflected in statute declaring such marriages "prohibited and void").
Unlike the Republican, and now Democrat, parties, the Libertarian Party is committed to marriage equality and overturning DOMA.
