I have been consistent in that regard. It’s also been my expressed concern with Rep. Baldwin’s Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act (H.R. 2517).

“Frank, remember, defended the odious first DOJ DOMA brief. He earns skepticism for motive when he does something like that. I’ve seen this connection made elsewhere in the (infinite) blogosphere, even among people that tend not to rush to negative judgment.”

Oh, help. First, Frank was initially misled by folks like John Aravosis to flip out unnecessarily over that brief. When Frank got a chance to read the brief himself, he realized that it had some unfortunate bits (as I’ve commented, particularly in treating as objective fact ideas that were just Congress’s beliefs) but overall was not as bad as was being claimed.

Second, what was so “odious” about that brief? If you say it’s the references to states’ having different laws about which marriages to recognizes (some states allow 16-year-olds to marry, some don’t; some states allow first cousins to marry, some don’t), then take it up with Lambda Legal, which made the same citations in its briefs arguing in favor of SSM recognition.

I don’t see the difference between “trying to export” a right from one state to another — by hypothesis here, against the other state’s will — and “trampling of states’ rights.” Maybe I’m missing something.

My point about the certainty provision is that the arguments that will likely be used against it likely aren’t that different from those that will be used against the effort to repeal the provision that permits one state to disregard the SSMs performed in another. That’s Nadler’s point, too. I don’t think he’s “disingenuously” dismissing anything, but rather that he thinks the provision adds little or anything to the quiver of arguments currently available. Is it really “naive” to think that? (sob)

Newspapers can decide whatever they want. The NY Times has long listed same-sex commitment ceremonies — even before they were legal marriages anywhere — in their “marriage” section. State or federal law can be followed or disregarded, as long as the paper maintains a clear and consistent policy. The states that would strictly ban SSMs don’t have laws banning sexual orientation discrimination anyway (with maybe a couple of exceptions), so people couldn’t sue there. And the laws that do exist probably don’t cover announcements anyway. AND even if they did, the papers would be safe in announcing that they’re only reporting on marriage validly recognized by the State of X. This argument seems to me weak.

The tax concern is real, but quite minor, I think. Right now there’s the opposite problem; a same-sex couple validly married in MA, for example, that wants to file a joint state return must also create TWO federal returns — one for a single person (the official one, that’s filed), and a second, dummy return that’s used as the basis of the joint state return. This is nuts. All resisting states would have to do in this case is the opposite — simply require those with federally recognized marriages to submit a dummy federal form listing themselves as single. It seems, again, that all of the burden falls on the individual.

You might be right about what’s a quicker route to repeal of DOMA; there we just have a disagreement that can’t be resolved unless there were two parallel bills and we had a controlled experiment. Maybe there’s no difference, maybe there is.

I take your response to the second point. Maybe you’re right about how Frank decides which bills to introduce or support.

The only other thing I think needs emphasis is that context matters. Frank, remember, defended the odious first DOJ DOMA brief. He earns skepticism for motive when he does something like that. I’ve seen this connection made elsewhere in the (infinite) blogosphere, even among people that tend not to rush to negative judgment.

Sorry for filling your comment box,
John

For Nadler, Eleveld or you to pretend that this is not a completely rational — and painfully obvious — concern that will be raised about the “certainty provision” shows either a lack of insight as to politics or a willful abandonment of reality.

The “certainty provision” means that the federal government will say there are legally married couples in Alabama and Idaho. Newspapers will need to decide: Do we count the state definition or the federal definition in our marriage announcements? What about in their obituaries? If state tax law is based off of federal filings, the state will need to allow joint filing or re-vamp their process.

For Nadler to disingenuously dismiss concerns about the impact of this provision on non-marriage equality states is to admit that he has no real thoughts that this will be passed into law anytime soon.

I think a straight DOMA repeal gets us a lot further a lot quicker. The certainty provision is a whole separate bill for later down the line.

As to the second point about Frank not being averse to fail-likely bills, I think he sees this as a strategic process of bills. If anything, I think it shows how seriously he is taking this that he’s willing to draw this line in the sand.

And then there’s my point, unanswered, that Frank isn’t consistently averse to supporting bills that have little chance of passing. I cite one example in the first post: “Barney Frank, Reconsidered.”

But isn’t that always the rub. Wether it’s Sacramento or Washington, the readership (and I assume the Advocate feels that’s who they are, um, advocating for) are NEVER going to like the “wheels of Washington move slow” argument. And so like with UAFA, you get an entire group of pissed off LGBT that feel their interests aren’t being met because well they don’t have the rights they want. And they have media (and particularly columnists who can just spout at will) egging them on?

But so it goes, I suppose whether we are talking about Advocate readers or Glen Beck viewers, our media is a disgrace in explain the process and analyzing the situation. Instead? They do rage and cheap shots. But maybe their goal isn’t an educated electorate. Why would it be? Drivel is cheap and easy to produce.