One of our community's old nemeses, former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, has become a for-now ally.
Some years back, Barr authored the Defense of Marriage Act signed into law by Bill Clinton. DOMA holds that no state can be forced to recognize same-sex marriages performed in another state, and then goes on to forbid the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions (e.g., no joint tax filings, no social security inheritance, no green card for non-U.S. same-sex spouses). While the first half of DOMA basically restates what many constitutional scholars believe is already a state's prerogative to set and interpret marriage law, the federal prohibition is truly noxious and unforgivable.
But Barr gets some positive karmic points for his testimony this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). Unlike his fellow Republicans such as Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who disgraced himself by calling for a federal constitutional amendment that would prohibit his state from ever approving gay marriage, Barr blasted the proposed FMA, saying:
Part of federalism means that states have the right to make bad decisions - even on the issue of who can get married in the state. Resisting the temptation to use the federal government to meddle in state matters is the test of this conservative principle. Indeed, it is the test separating conservative federalists from hard-line social conservatives, willing to sacrifice the Constitution in their understandable anxiety over the sorry state of modern morality....
[T]he amendment supported by Governor Romney...takes a moral decision out of the states, where it is most likely to be made with the optimal benefit to everyone, and hands it to a couple of lone elected officials. To be frank, I do not appreciate their presumption to dictate morals to my fellow Georgians through misuse of the federal Constitution....
[T]he Governor is pleading for this Congress and the federal government to protect him against the Massachusetts state constitution, the Massachusetts legislature, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and most ironically, the people of Massachusetts.
So, for today, two cheers for Bob Barr!