Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Former Solicitor General Paul Clement has left a law firm that has decided not to defend the federal law banning same-sex marriage. Conservatives accuse gay advocates of having intimidated the firm into dropping the case.

Clement, who served under former President George W. Bush, quit King & Spalding after the firm chose to withdraw as representative of the congressional Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group.

The firm was hired by House Republican leaders who disagree with the Justice Department’s conclusion about the unconstitutionality of a section in the Defense of Marriage Act prohibiting gay marriage.

Clement was to lead a team of lawyers at King & Spalding, where he was a partner and head of the national appellate practice, in arguing for the constitutionality of DOMA. He jumped ship and joined Bancroft PLLC the same day King & Spalding said in a terse statement that it had not adequately vetted the offer from the House of Representatives.

The transfer to Bancroft will let Clement continue representing the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, which consists of five members led by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), in defense of DOMA.

Gay advocates had hailed the decision of King & Spalding. But the firm received equally intense condemnation from conservatives, who cited its record of defending Guantanamo prisoners and comments from the legal community praising Clement.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s latrgest gay advocacy group, said the firm chose “to put principle above politics… [and] to stand on the right side of history and remain true to its core values.”

However, the National Organization for Marriage acvused the Human Rights Campaign of intimidating the firm.

“Such blatant attempts by HRC and other gay marriage advocates to marginalize and silence the views of the American people are nothing short of despicable,” the conservative group said.

Congress passed DOMA in 1996. Section 3 of the law requires the government to recognize only marriage between a man and a woman. Same-sex advocates have challenged this section courts for prohibiting gay spouses from receiving Social Security benefits, medical leaves, and federal employee and retiree pensions.

The Obama administration had been defending DOMA despite calling the law “discriminatory” because it was duty-bound to do so until the law is repealed.

However, Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that two new cases were filed in November in courts that had no “established or binding standard for how laws concerning sexual orientation should be treated.”

In previous lawsuits, government lawyers had argued that Congress was constitutionally authorized to enact DOMA in order to preserve the status quo until debate on same-sex marriage is resolved. They told courts that DOMA provided nationwide uniformity in terms of federal benefits.

Holder explained in a letter to Congress, “Each of those cases evaluating Section 3 was considered in jurisdictions in which binding circuit court precedents hold that laws singling out people based on sexual orientation, as DOMA does, are constitutional if there is a rational basis for their enactment.”

The attorney general said that rational basis, however, cannot be used in courts with no precedents. Doing so would create a situation that would force the government to defend the law “under heightened scrutiny,” which Holder said had never been done because it was unconstitutional. Defending a law under such circumstances for the first time could violate the Equal Protection Clause.

“Under heightened scrutiny, the United States cannot defend Section 3 by advancing hypothetical rationales, independent of the legislative record, as it has done in circuits [with] precedent,” he said.

“The legislative record underlying DOMA’s passage contains discussion… that undermines any defense under heightened scrutiny,” Holder added.”The record contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships – precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus the Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against.”

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