Wasting Government Money To Defend Unconstitutional Law

The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives can't seem to find the money to fund social programs, cover everyone with healthcare, provide funds for Headstart and other education needs, or to save Medicare and fix the coming problems with Social Security. But they have no problem finding the funds to give more tax breaks to the rich and to corporations (both of which are making record amounts of money). And they also seem to have no trouble funding their own bigotry.

A few weeks ago a federal judge ruled the homophobic Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) --which restricted marriage to exclude same-sex couples -- to be unconstitutional. The ruling was justified by the equal rights amendment to the Constitution, and recognizing this, President Obama ordered the Justice Department to just let the ruling stand -- and not to waste the time and money in trying to appeal the decision.

But the president's decision (and the judge's ruling) offended the homophobia of many Republican members of the House of Representatives. They decided to waste the government's money -- not their own money or the Republican Party's money -- to appeal the decision as far as they could. To that end, they have now hired a very expensive attorney -- former solicitor general Paul Clement. Clement, who normally charges $900 an hour, is giving the House Republicans his homophobia discount -- he's only charging the American taxpayers $520 an hour to take the case.

You can bet that this attorney will be billing the government for many thousands of hours at that discounted but still exorbitant rate (especially considering his law firm got him by guaranteeing him over $5 million a year and they'll be wanting to make that money back somehow). This is a ridiculous and very wasteful expense, since DOMA is clearly unconstitutional. The House is just throwing away government money to satisfy their own homophobia and that of their base constituency.

Now this may not be a huge amount of money when compared to the total federal budget, but this is money that doesn't have to be spent (and shouldn't be spent). It is rather strange that it's the House Republicans throwing this money away by taking on the appeal of a court decision. These are the same people that endlessly complain about the federal government over-stepping it's constitutional boundaries by doing things not specifically designated by the Constitution, and yet there is no part of the Constitution that gives the House of Representatives the right to appeal court decisions (an action that is clearly the job of the Justice Department in the Executive branch of government).

And making the wasteful move even dumber is the fact that a recent survey by the CNN/Opinion Research Poll (done on April 9th and 10th) shows that a majority of Americans now think same-sex marriages should be recognized with the same rights as traditional marriages. Here are the numbers (including a demographic breakdown):

FAVOR OR OPPOSE SAME-SEX MARRIAGE?

All Americans
favor...............51%
oppose...............47%

Men
favor...............45%
oppose...............54%

Women
favor...............57%
oppose...............40%

Whites
favor...............52%
oppose...............46%

Non-Whites
favor...............51%
oppose...............48%

Under 50
favor...............60%
oppose...............39%

50 and over
favor...............42%
oppose...............56%

Under $50,000
favor...............46%
oppose...............53%

Over $50,000
favor...............59%
oppose...............40%

No College
favor...............42%
oppose...............57%

Attended College
favor...............59%
oppose...............39%

Democrat
favor...............64%
oppose...............35%

Independent
favor...............55%
oppose...............43%

Republican
favor...............27%
oppose...............71%

Teabaggers
favor...............31%
oppose...............67%

West
favor...............61%
oppose...............37%

Midwest
favor...............54%
oppose...............45%

Northeast
favor...............55%
oppose...............45%

South
favor...............41%
oppose...............57%