The high-priced law firm hired by House
Speaker John Boehner to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is
gay friendly.
After President Barack Obama announced
he believes the law that bans federal recognition of the marriages of
gay and lesbian couples is unconstitutional and instructed the
Department of Justice to no longer defend it in court, Boehner
appointed and led a committee that instructed the House counsel to
pickup where the administration had left off.
Paul Clement, a partner in the
Washington, D.C. office of the Atlanta-based law firm of King &
Spalding, filed
his first motion on behalf of the House on Monday.
The National Organization for Marriage
(NOM), the nation's most vociferous opponent of gay marriage, cheered
the news.
“At last we have a legal eagle on
this case who actually wants to win in court!” NOM President Brian
Brown said in a statement. “Paul Clement is a genuinely
distinguished lawyer, a former solicitor general of the United
States, who we are confident will win this case. Thanks to Speaker
Boehner's actions, President Obama's attempt to sabotage the legal
defense of DOMA is not going to work.”
The law firm, however, is a far cry
form the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), the Christian conservative law
firm most closely associated with defending anti-gay rights statutes.
King
& Spalding's workplace policies ban discrimination based on
sexual orientation and gender identity, and the firm has extended
benefits to the spouses of gay partners and employees.