The Obama administration has decided to appeal two cases that struck down part of the odious Defense of Marriage Act today.

Having absolutely no sense of shame, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division then went to speak at an LGBT event in Cleveland later in the afternoon, speaking on what a great thing it was that the DOJ would be looking out for gay rights. I am seriously not making that up.

Within hours of the filing of the notices of appeal, the head of the DOJ Civil Rights Division, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, spoke at the LGBT Heritage Day Celebration in Cleveland, Ohio.

Focusing primarily on the importance of enforcement of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act to DOJ’s mission, Perez did not mention the DOMA cases or the challenge to the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in his remarks.

I can’t imagine why he would have thought it’d be awkward to go to an LGBT rally and talk about how your department is protecting a law to screw gay people out of equal rights under the law.

The gay community isn’t taking this sort of thing lying down though; witness the truly impressive protest by GetEQUAL recently.

Adding insult to injury: in order to avoid having a discharged gay soldier inside at the big fundraiser GetEQUAL was protesting, the DCCC returned his check and barred him from attendance.

That’s right; they’re so committed to avoiding dealing with this issue that they turned down a 5k check from a gay war veteran, and former Democratic Congressional candidate no less.

Yessir, President Fierce Advocate is on the case.