Maybe he meant to say "fierce apathy." Or "fierce antipathy." Because if this shit is "fierce advocacy," Mr. President, we'll take benign neglect. Obama's Justice Department filed a brief late last night seeking the dismissal of a legal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act in a federal court in California. Obama didn't have to do this. Other presidents have refused to defend laws that they believed were unconstitutional or unjust. But Obama is defending DOMA. On what grounds?

If [a State] were to permit homosexuals to marry, these marital benefits would, absent some legislative response, presumably have to be made available to homosexual couples and surviving spouses of homosexual marriages on the same terms as they are now available to opposite-sex married couples and spouses. To deny federal recognition to same-sex marriages will thus preserve scarce government resources, surely a legitimate government purpose."

Equality is just too expensive. Sorry, homos, yes we can no we can't.

There's more—and worse—at Americablog. Gay and lesbian people and organizations that are looking for something to get upset about might want to focus on Obama's broken promises and not Bruno's box office.

UPDATE: Not upset yet? Obama's DOMA brief compares gay marriage to child rape and incest. States refuse to recognize the marriages of uncles and nieces or adults and children, argues the Obama administration, therefore there's nothing unconstitutional about states refusing to recognize a marriage between two consenting adults who aren't related to each other. Or as Obama's Justice Department puts it...

The fact that States have long had the authority to decline to give effect to marriages performed in other States based on the forum State's public policy strongly supports the constitutionality of Congress's exercise of its authority in DOMA.

The States, of course, once argued that they could ban interracial marriage based on "the forum State's public policy." Would the Obama administration care to weigh in Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage? Obama's parents' marriage? Correctly decided or not?