Tag Archives: DOMA

Respect for Marriage Act Passes Senate Judiciary Committee

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Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed (by a vote of 10-8) the Respect for Marriage Act, as reported on Queerty. This act would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined a marriage as between one man and one woman for the country. The Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t force states to legally recognize homosexual marriage; however, for those states that do, this would allow same sex couples the right to federal benefits accorded to married heterosexual couples.

ThinkProgress reports that a White House Official made the following statement on the committee’s vote: “The President has long believed that DOMA is discriminatory and has called for its repeal. We should all work towards taking this law off the books. The federal government should not deny gay and lesbian couples the same rights and legal protections afforded to straight couples.”

While I’m glad to hear of the vote and President Obama’s words of encouragement, I’m also a realist. The Respect for Marriage Act has little hope of passing in the Senate, where conservative Republicans lie in wait to tear this act asunder. And though President Obama made many promises in his election bid, I’ve yet to see many of them fulfilled.

Still, I won’t give up hope. I’ll take this as a good sign, that we are headed in the right direction. We might not get there tomorrow or next year, but that doesn’t mean we won’t eventually get there! After all, we’ve traveled a long way down the road to equality–6 states recognize gay marriage, DADT has been repealed, and hate crime laws and anti-bullying bills are being passed in many states.

Gay rights have come a long way, and with determination and fortitude, we’ll go all the way to full equality.

Whether conservatives or Christian fundamentalists like it or not, the closet doors are open and we aren’t going back in!

 

House Speaker Boehner Triples Budget in Defense of DOMA

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In what can only be called a frivolous waste of tax payers’ money, House Speaker John Boehner has approved to triple the amount paid to their legal team to battle DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) in legal proceedings. This move is supported by other House Republican leaders.

What I find interesting, and a little maddening, is that Republicans constantly blast Democrats for their “frivolous” spending on the poor, Medicare, food stamps, and Social Security, to name a few, (all programs to help Americans, by the way), while Republican leaders apparently have no problem spending 1.5 millions dollars to defend a law that restricts civil rights.

Apparently, defending marriage and restricting it to only one man and one woman means more than providing food and health care for the down trodden. Is that really what this country, whose deficit is approximately 14 trillion dollars, needs to be spending money on? Is ensuring that two men or two women, who love each other, are not allowed to marry that important?

For Republican leaders, the answer would apparently be a resounding yes!

When asked about the tripled budget to defend DOMA, Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, said, “At a time when Americans are hurting and job creation should be the top priority, it just shows how out of touch House Republicans have become that they would spend up to $1.5 million dollars to defend discrimination in our country.”

And that is exactly what Republican leaders are doing.

As I’ve said before, marriage is not only a religious sacrament, it is also a civil right. Not every straight couple is married in a church. And homosexuals aren’t asking to be married in a church. We are simply asking for the same rights heterosexual couples enjoy (and take for granted), which they receive from the government–the right of inheritance, the right of hospital visits, the right to make medical decisions, and the right to file joint income tax returns. The list goes on and on.

But spending 1.5 million dollars to prevent that from happening means more to Republican leaders than any social program that helps others. This is government-sponsored discrimination at its best!

With the way things are going in politics these days, the America of 2050 I envisioned in my novel Moral Authority really isn’t that far-fetched, is it?