Holder: State AGs May Choose Not To Defend Same-Sex Marriage Bans

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he does not believe that state attorneys general need defend laws that they believe are discriminatory, such as bans on same-sex marriage that remain on the books in many states. Gay rights, Holder said, is one of “the defining civil rights challenges of our time.” To date six AGs, all of them Democrats, have refused to defend such bans. Holder said that, when laws are concerned with key constitutional issues like equal protection, a state’s chief legal officer must apply a high level of scrutiny – without political bias – in determining whether to defend it.