The Defense of Marriage Act, Department of Justice and the Catch-22 Obama created for Romney

Twenty-three year veteran MA State Trooper Mary Ritchie, left, worries that if she's killed in the line of duty, her wife of 22 years, Kathy Bush, will be left to face a financially insecure future. She wants Kathy to be eligible for the same survivor benefits other spouses receive. Mitt Romney says Mary shouldn't get them. (GLAD). Chasing after South Carolina primary voters in January, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said:

This is a president also who is attempting to pave the way for same-sex marriage in our nation by refusing through his attorney general to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. I will defend that Act...

This is crowd-pleasing rhetoric, certainly to South Carolina Republican primary voters. It is also a campaign promise he's repeated, and one on which he no doubt will attempt to follow through. But like alll of Romney's plans for America, it is also made with little, if any, thought to the real-world application and implications. It's an interesting exercise to visualize exactly how this Romney administration goal to gallop to DOMA's defense would actually play out'particularly since the fate of the 1996 law is currently at the 10-yard line.

Last week, the House of Representatives' Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of DOMA in Gay And Lesbian Advocates And Defenders' (GLAD) Gill v. Office of Personnel Management case. The law has failed the constitutional test twice in this case and many times in others.

The Supreme Court's decision to hear or not hear the case could be returned any time around election day, give or take a few weeks. (It is very likely to return an affirmative response.) Placing the case in the 2013 docket could make initial briefs and preparing for oral arguments one of the more pressing priorities of the incoming administration's Justice Department.

So, exactly what role our federal government plays in these cases is not some far-off hypothetical; it is'right now'imminent decision time. And these are decisions already well-made by the current administration. It remains to be seen how'or even if'they can be undone in the space of a few short months.

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