President Barack Obama, whom I openly respect and admire, signed a feckless, watered-down, half-a-loaf “executive memorandum” into law last week granting limited benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. The memo does not affect health care benefits, which can only be extended by an act of Congress, nor does it overturn DOMA—the ridiculous Bush-era “Defense Of Marriage Act.” As I mention elsewhere, marriage does not need defending. Whether you are pro or against gay marriage, the institution itself is not threatened by either same-sex couples or ignorant politicians pandering to our ignorance of both the law and reasonable biblical doctrine. That which God ordained can never be qualified or defined or, for that matter, legislated against by mere mortals. The issue is never whether or not states recognize your marriage as valid but whether or not God does. We put so much emphasis on the paperwork—the state seal on the marriage certificate—while putting far too little emphasis on God’s ordinance, which far too many straight couples disrespect and blaspheme as they themselves undermine their own relationship and defile the covenant the two of them made with God. The very core of DOMA is a kind of haughty self-righteousness, the state portending to speak for God while denying God so much as a morning prayer in schools and disallowing the Ten Commandments in public buildings. If you really want to defend marriage, ban divorce. THAT would be a defense of marriage, and THAT would, perhaps, cause more people to enter into marriage more soberly and prayerfully, knowing there is no legal remedy.

All the rest is just politics and stupid church folk—white and black—claiming to speak for a God they dishonor at every turn. 60% of whom will be divorced and remarried, many of them more than once, in direct contravention of the very bible they beat gay folk over the head with.

Newsweek: Obama vowed to repeal DOMA, calling it “abhorrent” and “unfair.” But last week the Obama Justice Department filed a legal brief in federal court defending DOMA against a lawsuit that claims the act is unconstitutional. In fact, in legal terms, the Obama aides equated same sex marriage to incest, a move that horrified gay rights groups including the Human Rights Campaign. Coupled with Obama’s silence on another campaign promise—his pledge to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military—several high-profile gay activists announced they would boycott a DNC fundraiser scheduled for next week featuring Vice President Joe Biden and several gay and lesbian members of Congress, including Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin. [Newsweek ©]

“I think we all have to acknowledge this is only one step,” said Obama at the signing of the Presidential Memorandum on Federal Benefits and Non-Discrimination. “Among the steps we have not yet taken is to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. I believe it's discriminatory, I think it interferes with states' rights, and we will work with Congress to overturn it.”