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[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Con. Res. 11 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

112th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. CON. RES. 11

      Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the Obama 
 administration's discontinuing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

_______________________________________________________________________

                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                April 6 (legislative day, April 5), 2011

  Mr. Inhofe submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was 
               referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

 
      Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the Obama 
 administration's discontinuing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

Whereas, on February 23, 2011, President Barack Obama ordered the Department of 
        Justice to drop its defense of a central part of the 1996 law that bars 
        the Federal Government from recognizing same-sex unions, the Defense of 
        Marriage Act (adding section 7 of title 1, United States Code), and both 
        President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder concluded the law is 
        unconstitutional;
Whereas President Obama himself has said that marriage is something sanctified 
        between a man and a woman;
Whereas, passed by significant majorities in both chambers of Congress and 
        signed into law by President Bill Clinton, the Defense of Marriage Act 
        has never been overturned in any Federal lawsuit challenging that Act's 
        constitutionality by a Federal court, yet the Department of Justice has 
        decided not to defend that Act in Federal court;
Whereas, on the contrary, the Department of Justice is vigorously defending in 
        numerous Federal courts across the country President Obama's signature 
        health care reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 
        (Public Law 111-148), and the related Health Care and Education 
        Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-152), after the bills 
        involved barely passed both chambers of Congress on party line votes, 
        and whose critical individual mandate provision has been declared 
        unconstitutional by separate Federal district courts in the cases of 
        Florida v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, Case 
        No.: 3:10-cv-91-RV/EMT (N.D. Fla., Jan. 31, 2011), and Virginia ex rel. 
        Cuccinelli v. Sebelius, 728 F. Supp. 2d 768 (E.D. Va. 2010); and
Whereas the vast majority of Americans believe that marriage should continue to 
        be what it always has been--the legal and spiritual union between one 
        man and one woman: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), 
That Congress--
            (1) condemns the Obama administration's direction that the 
        Department of Justice should discontinue defending the Defense 
        of Marriage Act; and
            (2) demands that the Department of Justice continue to 
        defend the Defense of Marriage Act in all instances.
                                 <all>
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