Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr
will be the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for gay GOP group Log
Cabin Republicans.
Barr, a Republican turned Libertarian,
authored the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 bill that bans
federal agencies from recognizing the marriages of gay and lesbian
couples.
In 2009, Barr came out against the law
he authored.
“It truly is time to get the federal
government out of the marriage business,” Barr wrote in an op-ed
published in the Los Angeles Times.
Barr argued that DOMA had run afoul of
the federalist principle of states' right to self determination
because it only protects those states that don't want to accept the
marriages recognized by another state. It is “one-way federalism,”
Barr wrote.
Furthermore, Barr argued, the law
punishes those states that do choose to grant marriages or civil
unions to gay couples by invalidating those unions on the federal
level.
“[T]he heterosexual definition of
marriage for purposes of federal laws – including, immigration,
Social Security survivor rights and veteran's benefits – has become
a de facto club used to limit, if not thwart, the ability of a state
to choose to recognize same-sex unions.”
Barr is expected to address the Log
Cabin Republicans at their annual 2011 national dinner, which will
take place at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas on April 30.
Former Republican National Committee
Chairman Ken Mehlman, who
came out gay last year, is also expected to attend the event.