President Barack Obama's 2008 political platform endorsed the repeal of DOMA. On June 12, 2009, the Justice Department issued a brief defending the constitutionality of DOMA in the case of "Smelt v. United States", continuing its longstanding practice of defending all federal laws challenged in court. On June 15, 2009, Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese wrote an open letter to Obama that asked for actions to balance the DOJ's courtroom position: "We call on you to put your principles into action and send legislation repealing DOMA to Congress." A representative of Lambda Legal, an LGBT impact litigation and advocacy organization, noted that the Obama administration's legal arguments omitted the Bush administration's assertion that households headed by opposite-sex spouses were better at raising children than those headed by same-sex spouses.