Skip to footer

Anti-gay laws don't need defending, says US attorney general

Any state attorney general who believes that a law banning same-sex marriage is discriminatory is not obligated to defend them, said Attorney General Eric Holder.

|
Keith Bedford/Reuters/File
United States Attorney General Eric Holder speaks at a Human Rights Campaign gala in New York, February 8.
  • By Associated Press

| WASHINGTON

Attorney General Eric Holder says that state attorneys general who believe that laws in their states banning same-sex marriage are discriminatory are not obligated to defend them.

For an example of a discriminatory law, Holder turns to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case that led to public school integration. Had he been attorney general in Kansas in 1953, he told the New York Times, he would not have Kansas's separate-but-equal statute.

An attorney general should apply the highest level of scrutiny before reaching a decision on whether to defend laws that touch on core constitutional issues like equal protection, said Holder during an interview Monday with the Times. He says the decision shouldn't be political or based on policy objections.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Anti-gay laws don't need defending, says US attorney general
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0224/Anti-gay-laws-don-t-need-defending-says-US-attorney-general
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe