Congressman Tim Huelskamp

When it was announced that the Justice Department will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the President once more demonstrated his desire to cold-shoulder America.

The American people were given a clue about the president’s attitude toward them back in 2008 when he sneered at Americans who “cling” to their guns and religion; now we know exactly what he meant.

The decision not to defend DOMA is a complete slap in the face to the rule of law in America. The U.S. Constitution establishes a system of checks and balances within our federal government, but such a fact and hundreds of years of precedent have gone ignored.

Essentially, the judicial branch will now ignore a law that passed the House and the Senate with bipartisan support and was signed into law by a Democrat president.

Cleary, the enactment of DOMA showed no political gamesmanship on the part of one party. Even if Obama does not like something because of his politics, he has a constitutional obligation to defend it. His only other alternative is to seek a change in the law.

But in the case of marriage (and on many other issues), the Obama knows his position is so out of the mainstream that not even the liberal-controlled Senate would vote to repeal DOMA.

Beyond ignoring the fundamental legal rules that govern our nation, the president has blatantly disregarded the will of the people.

First, he snubbed it by telling lawmakers, the direct representatives of the people, that he would ignore the law they passed.

Second, he is making it easier to upend the constitutional amendments that voters have passed in their states.

In more than half of the states, voters have defined marriage as being between one man and one woman only, 42 states have passed similar DOMA laws, and the President’s refusal to defend the federal DOMA puts those at stake.

If the president thinks he is on the side of the people, he is sadly mistaken. Numerous states he won in 2008 have enacted constitutional defenses of marriage, including California, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, and Wisconsin – with widespread support across racial and ethnic lines.

As the author of the Kansas Marriage Amendment, voter turnout when the Kansas amendment was on the ballot was nearly 40%, more than double the traditional turnout for similarly-scheduled elections.

And even though liberal Republicans and Democrats opposed to traditional marriage have occupied the governor’s mansion in the past decade, the amendment passed with 70% of the vote in Kansas.

In the past, DOMA defenses had included, among other reasons, the explanation about the important role that children play in marriage.

In handing down opinions on the matter between 1996 (when DOMA was originally passed) and 2008, several courts have identified this as the strongest defense of traditional marriage.

In fact, more than 40 years of social research makes it absolutely clear that having a married mother and father in the home is by far the best arrangement for children.

In the last two years, however, Department of Justice would not include this in their briefs, offering half-hearted defense, but clearly avoiding that which has been identified as the most effective means of protecting existing law.

But there is more than just law and legal strategy to take into consideration. To ignore the role of marriage and family in the vitality of the U.S. undermines our culture.

Families are the core units of society, with parents and other adults responsible for passing on the values which have made American life so successful throughout our history.

Though the president has disregarded the law in his decision to end defenses of DOMA, there is one group he has not overlooked: those who brought him to Washington. His decision to skirt the rule of law has the fingerprints of the Left all over it.