Date: April 25, 2011
Subject: DOMA
I'm writing not as a stakeholder of your firm, but simply as a citizen of the United States, to express my disappointment at the news that your firm will be defending the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act.
Dr. Martin Luther King, borrowing from Rev. Theodore Parker, said that "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." In the specific case of justice for lesbian and gay Americans, this arc isn't nearly as long as we thought it would be. The rate at which Americans are rejecting the discrimination and hatred foisted at their lesbian and gay neighbors is astonishingly quick, and the direction of the debate is unmistakable. That DOMA is unconstitutional (and it is) is almost beside the point; in less than a generation's time, the law (if it survives the courts) will simply be overturned by the nation's legislature out of sheer public pressure - and if your firm continues in its current direction, it will be recorded in the nation's history as a key player on the wrong side of the fight.
Truth be told, I never heard of your firm until this morning; now, you are likely forever linked in my mind (and the minds of millions of Americans for whom the equal rights of lesbian and gay Americans are of interest) with a law that the President of the United States and the nation's Attorney General have rightly deemed unconstitutional and therefore indefensible.
And forever is a long time.
Sincerely,
Red Seven
Washington, DC
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