DOJ to meet with Lambda Legal and GLAD
Filed by: Alex Blaze
June 21, 2009 11:30 AM
http://www.bilerico.com/2009/06/doj_to_meet_with_lambda_legal_and_glad.phpNow, if you want to see an actual result of the outcry this week, here it is:
At the meeting -- which hasn't been announced and is expected to include leading gay rights groups like GLAD and Lambda Legal -- both sides are expected to hash out how to proceed with pending DOMA cases.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the meeting will achieve in a long term sense what gay rights lawyers told me they were and are looking for -- an ongoing, less-confrontational interaction with the administration in the context of specific cases. It's also an open question whether the meeting will resolve broader tensions in what has been an unexpectedly rocky relationship.
Nan Hunter, at her excellent LGBT legal blog, says that the Justice Department will have to file a response to GLAD's suit against section 3 of DOMA by this coming Friday. The DOJ will, most likely, defend standing law, but there are definitely ways that they could move forward and defend the law without resorting to the sort of arguments they did in the Smelt brief. We'll see the results next Friday.
