Bob Barr's incredible (and very public) journey of self-discovery continues. In the past, I've found it charming, but now it's getting a little self-indulgent. Barr's latest introspective flip-flop is his about-face on the Defense of Marriage Act, which he now realizes he was wrong to draft and champion back in 1996.

However, as Kip points out, Barr's epiphany is unpalatable. Barr does not regret DOMA because it was explicitly calculated to undermine the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution:

he Hawaii court was clearly leaning toward legalizing same-sex marriages. So the first part of DOMA was crafted to prevent the U.S. Constitution's "full faith and credit" clause — which normally would require State B to recognize any lawful marriage performed in State A — from being used to extend one state's recognition of same-sex marriage to other states whose citizens chose not to recognize such a union.

So, that's a feature, not a bug. No, Barr regrets it because, on some level that we mortals are not given to understand, it was supposed to promote federalism:

The first part of DOMA, then, is a partial bow to principles of federalism, protecting the power of each state to determine its definition of marriage. The second part sets a legal definition of marriage only for purposes of federal law, but not for the states. That was the theory.

I've wrestled with this issue for the last several years and come to the conclusion that DOMA is not working out as planned. In testifying before Congress against a federal marriage amendment, and more recently while making my case to skeptical Libertarians as to why I was worthy of their support as their party's presidential nominee, I have concluded that DOMA is neither meeting the principles of federalism it was supposed to, nor is its impact limited to federal law.

In effect, DOMA's language reflects one-way federalism: It protects only those states that don't want to accept a same-sex marriage granted by another state. Moreover, the 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.

What's missing is any indication of how Barr could possibly have believed that there would be a different result — how any rational person could have believed that DOMA would have led to anything other than "one-way federalism," or that it would be used as anything other than a weapon of same-sex marriage opponents.

Maybe Barr should get a diary or a Livejournal account or something to talk about this sort of thing.

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