DOMA, Supreme Court face tide of Twitter criticism
As the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday over the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, supporters and opponents of the law took to the Web to make their own case.
Enacted in 1996 under a Republican Congress and Democratic President Bill Clinton, the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, defined marriage for federal purposes as a union between a man and a woman.
The law also allowed states to deny legal recognition to same-sex marriages performed outside their borders and barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages licensed by states.
During Wednesday’s arguments, the court’s four liberal justices, plus Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, expressed skepticism about the law’s legality.
Among same-sex marriage supporters, hopes have been riding high for an overturn of the law, as well as a rejection of Proposition 8 in California, in which voters banned same-sex marriage. (The court heard arguments on Proposition 8 on Tuesday.)
DOMA came into being in the 1990s, when same-sex marriage was much more widely opposed; sentiment has been shifting dramatically toward it in recent years.
In 1996, a Gallup poll found only 27% of Americans thought that same-sex marriages should be as legally valid as traditional marriages. By November 2012, that number had nearly doubled to 53%.
Some Twitter users on Tuesday and Wednesday reiterated their belief in marriage as an institution between a man and a woman:
Tomorrow is #MarriageMarch in DC. Please pray for those marching in support of traditional marriage; also leaders deciding on fate of #DOMA. — Jennifer Lea Akins (@jenleaakins) March 26, 2013
Christians: traditional marriage was decided already by God in the beginning. He hasn’t changed His mind & neither should you. #pray — Jeremy Foster (@jeremyfoster) March 27, 2013
So when the left begins advocating polygamy, will they use the infinity sign instead of the equal sign? — Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) March 27, 2013
Human civilization, from the beginning of time, has determined marriage is a union of a man and a woman. The GOP didn’t determine this. — Kelly(@KLSouth) March 27, 2013
Supporters of same-sex marriage denounced that position with heaps of snark:
I’m for traditional marriage, mostly because I want to know how many goats I’m worth. — Sabrina Adult Witch (@introvertedwife) March 27, 2013
I was raised by two women. I turned out to be a sociopathic, drug addicted, murderous, pedophile. Oh wait. No I didn’t. — Rob McElhenney (@RMcElhenney) March 27, 2013
Really glad I got my traditional marriage in under the wire before the Supreme Court had the chance to ruin things by overturning DOMA. — Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 26, 2013
When the Defense of Marriage Act was passed by Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, both of them were having affairs. — Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) March 27, 2013
Others opposed DOMA on more libertarian grounds, arguing that it was a government intrusion on personal rights:
Agree that the government needs to get out of the marriage business entirely. I don’t need my marriage sanctioned by politicians — Neal Boortz (@Talkmaster) March 27, 2013
If the question is “Should we allow gay marriage?” you’re doing it wrong. It’s “Should the state continue to micromanage intimacy?” — Aaron Bady (@zunguzungu) March 27, 2013
Maybe if someone told the Supreme Court that gay marriage was a corporation it would be given the rights of a person. — drunk (@drunk) March 27, 2013
Others just saw the law itself as absurd:
DOMA seems to me an easier isaue than Prop 8 case. How can a couple be married, unmarried, then married again in a 4 hour drive down I95? — davidfrum (@davidfrum) March 27, 2013
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