Aug 22, 2008  |  By: DYANA BAGBY  | COMMENTS     

ATLANTA — Local resident Rob Calhoun and his husband, Clay, were devastated when Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, the same year Georgia passed its own law against gay marriage.

“We were so demoralized,” Rob Calhoun said. “But we were also shocked the community didn’t come together more [to oppose it]. There was an apathy about marriage equality in the mid-1990s. Nothing like we see now.”

The gay rights movement’s increased focus on marriage isn’t the only change since 1996. Bob Barr sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act when he served in Congress as a Republican representing Georgia’s 7th District. Now running for president as a Libertarian, Barr advocates repealing part of the law.

In a recent interview, Barr, who served in Congress from 1995-2003, delineated between two sections of DOMA: a full faith and credit clause that protects the rights of each state to implement its own definition of marriage, and a section that defines marriage as only between one man and one woman under federal law.

“This [second part] was intended to apply to federal programs, such as survivor benefits, Social Security [and others],” he said.

Barr said it is the second part of DOMA he would work to repeal if elected president.

“Over the years and over the last year since I’ve been more active in the Libertarian Party, I’ve talked with a number of individuals, including members of Outright Libertarians [a gay Libertarian group], and have come to view the second part as having been used as a club, or the tail wagging the dog,” Barr said. “It has become in effect a national definition of marriage. This is not what I intended.”

Barr called that portion of DOMA a “mistake” during a May 25 speech to the Libertarian Party’s national convention. The speech is currently posted on YouTube.

“Let me tell you — I have made mistakes,” Barr said in the speech. “But the only way you make mistakes, the only way you get things done, is by getting out there, in the arena….

“As I mentioned to you all last night, and I reiterate here today — standing before you, looking you in the eye — the Defense of Marriage Act, insofar as it provided the federal government a club to club down the rights of law-abiding, American citizens, has been abused, misused and should be repealed. And I will work to repeal that.”

The speech was a far cry from what Barr said during congressional hearings on DOMA 12 years ago, when he was considered one of the most rightwing, anti-gay Republicans of the time.

“The very foundations of our society are in danger of being burned. The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundations of our society: the family unit,” Barr said then. “We all must stand up and say we support this. Enough is enough. We must maintain a moral foundation, an ethical foundation for our families and ultimately for the United States of America.”

Let states decide

Barr and his campaign staff declined to answer follow-up questions about the legal chaos that could follow if the part of DOMA that bans federal recognition of gay marriages was repealed, with the rest of the law still intact.

Would the hundreds of federal benefits of marriage only be given to gay couples who live in states that allow gay marriage, forcing gay people who live in states like Georgia to move to Massachusetts or California if they want their relationships treated equally under federal law?

Barr did say he supports allowing a gay American who legally weds a foreign partner to bring his or her partner into the U.S. as a legal family member. But whether the federal government would recognize the marriage if the second portion of DOMA is repealed is unclear.

“The response from the campaign staff is we won’t answer hypothetical questions,” said Barr’s campaign manager, Russell Verney, who also managed Ross Perot’s presidential campaign.

The part of DOMA Barr still supports — which says that states don’t have to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states — relates to the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause, which states “full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.”

Gay rights advocates have argued that the clause means states should have to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. But Barrr argued that Congress has the authority to define exactly what comes under the clause.

“I don’t think it’s a question of ...