In what can only be called a frivolous waste of tax payers’ money, House Speaker John Boehner has approved to triple the amount paid to their legal team to battle DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) in legal proceedings. This move is supported by other House Republican leaders.

What I find interesting, and a little maddening, is that Republicans constantly blast Democrats for their “frivolous” spending on the poor, Medicare, food stamps, and Social Security, to name a few, (all programs to help Americans, by the way), while Republican leaders apparently have no problem spending 1.5 millions dollars to defend a law that restricts civil rights.

Apparently, defending marriage and restricting it to only one man and one woman means more than providing food and health care for the down trodden. Is that really what this country, whose deficit is approximately 14 trillion dollars, needs to be spending money on? Is ensuring that two men or two women, who love each other, are not allowed to marry that important?

For Republican leaders, the answer would apparently be a resounding yes!

When asked about the tripled budget to defend DOMA, Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, said, “At a time when Americans are hurting and job creation should be the top priority, it just shows how out of touch House Republicans have become that they would spend up to $1.5 million dollars to defend discrimination in our country.”

And that is exactly what Republican leaders are doing.

As I’ve said before, marriage is not only a religious sacrament, it is also a civil right. Not every straight couple is married in a church. And homosexuals aren’t asking to be married in a church. We are simply asking for the same rights heterosexual couples enjoy (and take for granted), which they receive from the government–the right of inheritance, the right of hospital visits, the right to make medical decisions, and the right to file joint income tax returns. The list goes on and on.

But spending 1.5 million dollars to prevent that from happening means more to Republican leaders than any social program that helps others. This is government-sponsored discrimination at its best!

With the way things are going in politics these days, the America of 2050 I envisioned in my novel Moral Authority really isn’t that far-fetched, is it?