The federal government has played a significant and regrettable role in the history of discrimination against gay and lesbian individuals.
The Department of Justice has written a brief in the Golinski case affirmatively advocating for LGBT rights - telling the courts that the Defense of Marriage Act should be overturned, and admitting that the government has participated in a long and sordid campaign to hurt LGBT people in the United States. This is a change from 2009's brief stating that DOMA is constitutional because it is also constitutional to ban incest and pedophilia, but it is also a change from their decision not to defend DOMA. This is more than not defending DOMA. This brief tells the courts and the American people that the LGBT Rights movement is a legitimate force and it deserves to be a significant part of the political process - and that the government was wrong for ever saying otherwise.
One of the main facets of our movement is our drive to be seen as legitimate - our efforts to show everyone that there has been a political institutional system in place that has been the driving force behind discrimination of our people. That system has morphed from simple bans on sexual behavior to a full-blown regime of subversion and debasement of gays and lesbians, of transgender and gender non-conforming people. It has been, in direct terms, an institution meant to stamp us out.