Obamafs Shifts May Affect U.S. Legal Plan on Gay Marriage
Published: February 4, 2013 - New York Times
WASHINGTON — The practice of law would be much more
pleasant, many lawyers will tell you over a second Scotch, if it did not require
clients. It is one thing to construct an airtight legal argument and quite
another to deal with the demands of inconstant human beings.
Consider Solicitor General Donald
B. Verrilli Jr.fs most prominent client, President Obama. In May, in
announcing his support for same-sex
marriage, Mr. Obama said the issue should be decided state by state. In his
Inaugural Address last month, Mr. Obama seemed to make a case for a more
national approach.
The timing was awkward. Mr. Verrilli is in the midst
of considering what to tell the Supreme
Court in a pair of momentous same-sex marriage cases to be argued in March.
Just days before the inauguration, he met with lawyers challenging Californiafs
ban on same-sex marriage, who urged him to weigh in on their side. He was
noncommittal, but his clientfs public marching orders until then had suggested
that he should sit that one out.
Here is what
Mr. Obama told Robin Roberts of ABC News in May: gWhat youfre seeing is, I
think, states working through this issue in fits and starts, all across the
country. Different communities are arriving at different conclusions, at
different times. And I think thatfs a healthy process and a healthy debate. And
I continue to believe that this is an issue that is going be worked out at the
local level, because historically, this has not been a federal issue, whatfs
recognized as a marriage.h
That reasoning fits tolerably well with the Justice
Departmentfs position in one of the two cases before the Supreme Court, United
States v. Windsor, No. 12-307. That case is a challenge to the constitutionality
of the federal Defense
of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that defined marriage as the union of a man and
a woman in connection with federal benefits. The Defense of Marriage Act, Mr.
Obama explained in May, gtried to federalize what has historically been state
law.h
Mr. Verrilli will presumably make much the same point
on March 27, when the Supreme Court hears arguments in the Windsor case.
But there is a second case, and there Mr. Verrilli
faces tough choices. On March 26, the day before the argument about the 1996
law, the justices will hear Hollingsworth v. Perry, No. 12-144. It seeks to
overturn Proposition
8, a voter initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California.
If marriage is a matter for the states, as Mr. Obama
announced in May, you might think that California should be permitted to
prohibit same-sex marriage.
The federal government is not a party to the
California case, and it is not required to file a brief or to take a public
position. Ms. Roberts asked Mr. Obama a direct question in May about whether he
had given his lawyers instructions about what to do: gCan you ask your Justice
Department to join in the litigation in fighting states that are banning
same-sex marriage?h
Mr. Obama changed the subject.
All of this might have allowed Mr. Verrilli to
concentrate on the case concerning the federal law and stay quiet in the
California case. There is a precedent for this: the federal government took no
position in 1967 in Loving
v. Virginia, the case in which the Supreme Court struck down bans on
interracial marriage. Nor did it weigh in on the last major gay rights case, Lawrence v.
Texas, which in 2003 struck down state laws making gay sex a crime.
The solicitor general in 2003 was Theodore B. Olson.
He is now in private practice and is one of the lawyers challenging the
California ban on same-sex marriage. On Jan. 18, he and his colleague David
Boies, along with lawyers from the San Francisco city attorneyfs office, met
with Mr. Verrilli to urge him to take a stand in the California case. Defenders
of Proposition 8 made the opposite pitch a few days later.
Mr. Verrilli was noncommittal, but there is now reason
to think that Mr. Olson will prevail in persuading Mr. Verrilli to ignore the
precedent Mr. Olson had set. That is largely because Mr. Obamafs thinking on
same-sex marriage continues to evolve.
In his Inaugural
Address last month, Mr. Obama was no longer talking about leaving the issue
to the states.
gOur journey is not complete until our gay brothers
and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law,h he said, gfor if we are
truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be
equal, as well.h
Mr. Verrilli has until the end of the month to file a
brief in the California case. Paul D. Clement, a former solicitor general who
represents House Republicans defending the 1996 federal law, said he detected
some paradoxes in Mr. Verrillifs predicament.
gIt will be interesting in the end,h Mr. Clement said
dryly at a
Georgetown University Law Center forum last week, gif the litigation
position of the Justice Department and the presidentfs position kind of
realign.h
Mr. Clement said the solicitor generalfs position
always had weight at the Supreme Court. But he added that it may be less
consequential in the California case than in some earlier ones, given the
administrationfs general, if nuanced, support for gay rights.
Thomas C. Goldstein, the publisher of Scotusblog and a lawyer who argues
frequently before the Supreme Court, said the justices were not the only
relevant audience for a brief from the Obama administrationfs top appellate
lawyer.
gPart of what is going on in the Inaugural Address and
part of what would happen in a brief like that is a statement of whatfs morally
right and wrong,h he said. gIt could matter to Americans much more than it
matters to the Supreme Court.h