This week’s bigot is yet another former Bush Administration official, former Solicitor General of the United States Paul Clement. The latest Republican thug to join the great waste of taxpayer dollars that is John Boehner’s defense of DOMA, Clement recently filed a brief in the Second Circuit.
The brief deals with a case where one partner in a long-time lesbian relationship is burdened with a huge inheritance tax because they could not be recognized as a legal couple. How ironic that the Republicans lobby hard against inheritance taxes for the wealthiest Americans but fight to uphold them when it punishes LGBT partners. Clement trots out all the typical homophobic and irrational arguments against marriage equality, leaning heavily on the procreation argument.
What boosts Clement into BWA territory is the astonishing hypocrisy of his new twist on this old bigotry:
the fact that opposite-sex relationships produce unplanned and unintended pregnancies is at the heart of society’s traditional interest in promoting the institution of marriage and providing incentives for these unplanned offspring to be raised in the context of a traditional family unit. Whatever else is true of the procreative potential of same-sex couples, the phenomena of unplanned and unintended pregnancies is limited to opposite-sex couples.
That’s right, the same people who fight reproductive choice and family planning are now relying on unplanned pregnancies as a basis for fighting marriage equality. Is there no end to the madness they will pursue in their hideous agenda? For a more detailed analysis of Clement’s bizarre bigotry, click here.