Tag Archives: DOJ

The Advocate reports that the Department of Justice has requested an immediate stay on the overturn on DADT pending their appeal. Justice Department attorneys filed the request to U.S. district judge Virginia A. Phillips in Riverside, Calif., this afternoon. Should Phillips deny the request for a stay, government attorneys are expected to file an emergency request to the U.S. court …

The three million member American Legion today demanded that the Obama administration defend DADT and appeal its overturn. “Consistent with our long-standing policy of allowing the military to police its own requirements and standards for service, The American Legion requests you appeal this decision and seek a stay on the current injunction,” National Commander Jimmie L. Foster wrote in a …

Some of you will view this as good thing. Via Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly: In a move expected by most legal observers, the U.S. Department of Justice this afternoon filed notices of appeal in two cases striking down the federal definition of marriage, contained in the Defense of Marriage Act, as unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro had …

Box Turtle Bulletin’s Timothy Kincaid reminds us: By my counting, today is the day that the Department of Justice must file an appeal to the court ruling which found that portions of the Defense of Marriage Act to violate the US Constitution. If not challenged, this decision would allow residents of Massachusetts who are in a same-sex marriage to have …

In response to the federal court ruling that DADT is unconstitutional, late this afternoon the Department of Justice filed a brief in support of keep the ban on openly gay servicemembers. Via Advocate: In a 14-page brief, Justice Department attorneys argued that a permanent injunction against enforcing the 17-year-old law — one supported by Log Cabin Republicans, which successfully challenged …

The clip starts out with the awards just given to two anti-gay Congress members by the Log Cabin Republicans.

Calling it “the Boston Massacre of marriage,” the Family Research Council has released a typically hysterics-filled response to the DOMA ruling. Four hundred twenty-seven. That’s how many members of Congress voted to pass the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. One. The number of activist judges it took to strike the law down. Yesterday, a U.S. District Court did its …

“We fully expect that the Obama administration will appeal the decision. It would be unusual if they didn’t. Typically, when a court strikes down a law as unconstitutional, the government appeals it. To be honest, we think that would be good. The federal government wants to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples, and that’s just not enough to stand constitutional …

A district court judge in California has agreed to hear the Log Cabin Republican’s challenge to DADT. Lawyer Dan Woods says U.S. District Court Judge Virginia A. Phillips in Riverside, Calif. agreed Monday to send the case to trial July 13. Woods is representing the Log Cabin Republicans, a group rights group. He says the group hopes to end the …

“We have much to celebrate today. In the year since we last gathered, our nation – and the Justice Department – have taken steps to address some of the unique challenges faced by members of our country’s LGBT community. As you all know, up until last fall, there was not a single line in the nearly 225-year history of the …

Could this be part of the DADT repeal implementation study? A new online inbox that enables servicemembers and their families to comment anonymously about the impact of a possible repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law has gone live. The inbox will enable servicemembers and families to offer their thoughts about how a repeal of the law that prohibits …

Advocate reporter Kerry Eleveld grills press secretary Robert Gibbs about the DOJ’s most recent brief in defense on DADT, which cited a 1993 quote from Colin Powell.

In an announcement posted on their homepage, the Log Cabin Republicans report that the DOJ has been denied in their appeal to stop the LCR’s suit to repeal DADT. In a ruling delivered on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, U.S. Federal Court Judge Virginia Phillips handed Log Cabin Republicans a major legal victory by denying the Obama Administration Justice …

Pretty much every Christianist loon you’ve ever heard of will be outside the Department of Justice in Washington DC at 1:30pm today to protest the recently passed hate crimes act. Wild-eyed luminaries such as Matt Barber, Peter LaBarbera, Gary Cass, Bishop Harry Jackson and their coterie of crazies will be attempting to incite their own arrest by “preaching the Biblical …

Aaaand here we go again. States that allow gay marriage can’t force the federal government to provide benefits to those couples, the Obama administration argued Friday in court papers in a lawsuit by Massachusetts. The Justice Department is at odds with Massachusetts — the first state to allow gay marriage — over a 1996 federal law defining marriage as a …

Smelt Vs. United States, the case that caused all of the DOJ-DOMA brouhaha earlier this year, has been dismissed by a federal judge on the grounds that the litigants had failed to identify any personal harm they had suffered under the institution of the Defense of Marriage Act. Assistant Atty. Gen. Tony West, in his brief filed before U.S. District …

Split California literally, that is. Duncan Osborne at Gay City News reports that the lawyers backing the litigants in the Smelt case, the one that has caused all the DOJ-DOMA furor, have a master plan other than marriage equality. The attorney representing two gay men who sued in state court and now in federal court in southern California to win …

Reactions to this morning’s DOJ-DOMA filing… John Aravosis at AmericaBlog: I guess this is a step in the right direction. I don’t want to fail to praise the administration for doing better, but to some degree the only reason this is “good” is because of how “bad” they did on the previous brief. In the end, they’re still defending a …

“What the White House wants is for a court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act so that the White House and the president don’t have to take the political damage for undermining a law that protects normal marriage. President Obama ran promising he would be open and transparent, and no longer practice the usual politics of Washington, DC. …