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WASHINGTON, D.C., March 3, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The leader of a top conservative group has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to disclose whether a statement by President Obama announcing he would not uphold the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was timed to coincide with a legal document filed just hours later by opponents of the federal law.

“Less than three hours after Attorney General Holder’s announcement, litigants seeking to strike down California’s traditional marriage definition enacted by Proposition 8 filed a ‘Motion to Vacate Stay’ in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,” wrote Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in a Freedom of Information request.  “On pages 7 of 23 and 10 of 23 the Motion cited to and quoted from the Attorney General Letter.”

Perkins said he was “troubled by the lightning-fast integration of concepts and actual language” from the Attorney General announcement and the motion to stay. “Even the appearance of collusion between the Department of Justice and litigants is highly damaging to the rule of law in America,” he said.

Perkins has sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Department of Justice for records of communications regarding same-sex ‘marriage’ litigation or policy discussion between the DOJ and a number of law firms and organizations that are involved in opposition to either Proposition 8 or the Defense of Marriage Act.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder had issued a press release stating that, “the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny,” and that a portion of DOMA as applied to same-sex couples was “unconstitutional.” Holder said that the “fully concur[red] with the President’s determination.”