Not too difficult obviously.
Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Tony West (pictured left) spead some mighty bullshit today in an interview with Talking Points Memo about the DOJ, theObama administration and gay rights.
“Those are difficult cases because as you know the administration has a long standing policy view on this — supports the repeal of DOMA and supports the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’…The Department of Justice, notwithstanding the administration policy view which is strongly held by us, has an institutional responsibility to defend the constitutionality of congressional statutes, whether we agree with them or not.”
West also said that the DOJ was discharging its responsibility to the tradition of the Justice Department while making adjustments to the arguments in line with the administration’s views.
“I think that the best example — let me give you one — in the Defense of Marriage Act — you’ll notice that we have not only discharged our responsibility to defend the constitutionality of a congressional statute, but we’ve done so in a way which reflects the policy values of this administration,” West said.
Nothing in the Constitution or federal law requires the DOJ to defend laws the administration believes are unconstitutional and a law is not constitutional simply because Congress passed it.
DADT and DOMA *are* unconstitutional according to a handful of courts where Obama elected–elected–to use the power of the Executive to single-handedly prop up anti-gay discrimination where it was struck down
As for Mr. West, and the DOJ it didn’t seem too”difficult” invoking disgusting homophobic canards, like bestiality and pedophilia, when you defebded DOMA. Did it?