If you believe that law dork’s brief is so lousy, let us see what you can produce you vapid, flea-brain, mama’s boy. Chris G, and his talents, will change the world, and you’re nothing more than a crazy drunk festering behind a computer screen who can’t do anything about it.

“Anti-Geidner,” get a life, you lame slob!

Indeed, those citations from the Smelt brief should now be thrown back in the DOJ’s face for the point that Bill and PhoenixRising note: in all other cases, when states have had differing marriage laws, the federal government has recognized as married couples whose marriage is recognized in the state where they reside. “Hey, remember in Smelt when you were talking about the first-cousin marriages and the 16-year-olds’ marriages? Those marriages were recognized by the federal government. Why aren’t ours?”

Fight the battle with your enemy’s weapons.

The other, newer line of precedent comes from Romer v. Evans, which states that laws used to express disapproval of homosexuals or homosexuality do not meet the “rational basis” standard; the Court does not consider animus toward homosexuals to be a rational basis for a law.

Kennedy’s opinion in Lawrence does not acknowledge that he is using “heightened scrutiny” for laws that discriminate against homosexuals. It is moreover questionable that that is his entire framing of the issue, given that his opinion strikes down not only the Texas statute under which Lawrence and Garner were prosecuted (which only prohibited homosexual sodomy), but rather nullifies ALL anti-sodomy statutes (including those in Georgia and Virginia, which prohibited heterosexual sodomy as well). Had Kennedy thought the law problematic only for its discrimination against same-sex couples, he could have adopted O’Connor concurrence, which would have left the GA and VA statutes standing.

In my haste to remind people that I *had* voiced concerns with the original Smelt brief, which you might recall nonetheless led to quite a bit of disagreement with me from the gay community, I skipped over the fact that you and others argued quite forcefully that handing the brief over to a “true believer” might be a smart move.

Apologies.

When is oral argument? I’ve become a junkie since Varnum.

Aaaaand I can pretty much stop reading there, then.

DOJ finds it objectionable that federal benefits would vary from state to state — seemingly unaware that benefits vary now from household to household.

Did DOMA maintain the status quo? If you think the status quo was limiting benefits to heterosexual couples, sure. If you think the status quo was deferring to the states for the definition of marriage, not at all. Status quo is a fuzzy concept.