Andrew Cohen, who has served as chief legal analyst and legal editor for CBS News and won a Murrow Award as one of the nation's leading legal analysts and commentators, writes in The Atlantic:
The Human Rights Campaign's misguided case against Paul Clement's law firm ignores the basic tenets behind the counsel of law
The Los Angeles Times's editorial writers have it right when they point out that the Human Rights Campaign has it wrong about Congress's decision to hire Paul Clement to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. Clement's fancy law firm has been hired by Republicans in the House of Representatives to pick up where the Justice Department left off when it decided a few months ago that a key section of the statute should no longer be defended by the government in pending DOMA cases wending their way through the federal courts.
Every client has a right to a lawyer. In a perfect world, every client can choose and pay for a lawyer, and defending the constitutionality of a federal statute (which with approximately 50 percent of all Americans still agree) is no disgrace. If I were Rep. John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, I would probably have chosen Clement, too, to take up the cause. The former U.S. Solicitor General is an excellent attorney and advocate, a conservative, and someone who is familiar with political cases and Supreme Court procedure. It's a no-brainer.
5 Comments
If ever there was anything to solidify Republican congressional support of traditional marriage, this is it.
The tactics they use are cutthroat.
This isn't true. Every defendant that is an American citizen deserves a trial. Irrational, discriminatory laws don't have a "right" to a trial.
What else is new from the homosexal activists. They continue to believe that somehow and someway their homosexuality is a magic wand. They get to do things, and have things that no other American gets.
1. Only they get to make special rules on marriage, for all other Ameicans well obey the law.
2. They get special adoption laws.
3. They get to prevent the citizens from lawfully voting at the polls. Show me any other group that gets to harass like this.
4. They get special gay pride parades.
I could go on but I think everybody gets the picture. So I am not surprised that the American right to councel and the right for duly elected Congress to defend its own laws, is to be denied it the homosexuals are opposed to it.
It is ludicrious. It is like having two seperate Constitutions. The one for the homosexuals, and the one for the rest of us.
The House has already contracted with another law firm to defend DOMA and Mr. Clement will be heading up the team there. So much for the HRC's attempt to stop the defense of DOMA!