There are several areas which need to be addressed to get equality and equal treatment under the law.
DOMA, which denies gays the basic human right to the civil contract of marriage. Gay Marriage, recognized at the federal level, is perhaps the single most important one because it is so fundamental to ALL areas. The Supreme Court of the United States has already said that marriage is a fundamental right. Gays need access to that fundamental right.
DADT -- Don't Ask, Don't Tell, don't pursue -- which has been used to kick gays out of the military. For some reason the only part that is enforced is "don't tell". Kicking people out of the military for breaking the "don't ask" and "don't pursue" parts would be something Obama could do NOW which would send the right message -- and would suddenly get EVERYONE focused on getting DADT repealed.
Hate crime legislation. This is really legislating against the crime of domestic terrorism. Right now criminals are using the fact that they engaged in a hate crime to get REDUCED penalties by appealing to the bigotry of judges and jurors. The "gay panic" defense needs to be eliminated.
ALL of these need to be corrected at the federal level. These are basic, fundamental civil rights issues, and should not be left to individual states, any more than slavery should be left to individual states.
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Comments: 41
I wanted 5 or 6 !!!
and things !!!
What else would you add?
DOMA is just so obviously damaging to the military that I think that will be repealed easily. Hate crime legislation is again a very obvious correction of an injustice.
The anti-gay movement has really relied heavily on denyong gays the right to marry. They have tied everything they can to marriage as a way of denying gays basic rights, from being able to buy or even rent a home to allowing them to have a say in who makes decisions on their health care.
So they REALLY do not want to let go of that one.
But check Loving vs Virginia, where state laws outlawing a particular type of marriage (the miscagenation laws) were all struck down. So we have a precedent.
No one requires Southern Baptists to marry mixed-race couples or honor them with their religious ceremonies, but the states cannot deny the civil contract. A mixed race couple can go to any court and have the marriage performed by the clerk to enter the civil contract, and no state law can supersede that right.
Note that "age of consent" does not DENY the right to marry, but merely delays it until both people are of legal age to enter the contract.
Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html
"what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising "[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution," ibid.? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case "does not involve" the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court. "
The polygamy thing showed that Federal law can dictate who can and cannot marry.
The same is true with the miscagenation laws -- many of which are STILL on the books in somne states. The federal law says that Blacks CAN marry Whites.
>>In fact in some stated (MT included) if you present your selves as married you are legally married. (common law) and it is just as binding as getting a licence and having a ceremony.<<
That actually used to be the norm until someone noticed that it would be possible for gays to get a common law marriage in some states since those common-law statutes did not specify the sex of the people involved. There was a huge concerted and successful effort to overturn the common law marriage statutes in every state where the sex of the participants was not specifically specified.
As to the common law marriage laws I don't know if there is a desigantion of sex in them or not. They are so old it may be that the question never came up.
We are not talking ancient history here. This was a fairly recent development.
On November 23, 2004, Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania signed into law a bill abolishing common law marriage.
http://www.jerrykopel.com/c/miscegenation.htm
Meanwhile, Gov. Romer was correct in assuming Rep. Musgrave's ban on same-sex marriages threatened common law marriages, but his veto message on HB 1198 was in error when he wrote:
"First, experts in family law advise me that the final language in this bill could threaten the thousands of common-law marriages that currently exist in Colorado. This was unintended, but if they are correct in this interpretation, the consequences could be very real in terms of the loss of such things as health benefits, pensions, paternity rights, and child support enforcement."
The hate crimes bill is almost ready for his pen.
"Dont ask" will be next.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
If I die before my partner of 34 years, it will be no consolation that Obama was concentrating on more important things. My partner will still be living in poverty because he will not have access to my federal retirement.
There is no reason he cannot set the Justice department working on the job of overturning DOMA and making marriage legal the same way interracial marriage was made legal.
The marriage one is really by far the most important.
Either "marriage" is a religious term, or it's not.
If it's not, then there is no reason why it can't be applied to everyone.
If it is, then there's no reason why the government should be deciding how it gets used. In that case, the government shouldn't be using the term "marriage" at all. Instead, every government recognized life partnership, regardless of the parties involved and their sexuality, should be termed "Civil Union." All adults who can be legally bound by any other contract should be eligible to have a "Civil Union" partnership, regardless of the sex of the individuals involved. Individuals can call their "Civil Union" whatever name they want to use, including marriage, in their own homes, families, and communities without government involvement.
Problem solved.
See the problem? They ALREADY have a different word for their religious sacrament.
The fact is, marriage has ALWAYS been the civil contract. Churches have their own name for their own sacraments. If you go to a Church to get married you can get the religious ceremony. Afterwords there is a SEPARATE segment where they get the civil contract of marriage. The person marrying them will explain that if THIS part is not done, the STATE will not recognize their marriage, and acting as a representative of THE STATE he will have them sign the marriage certificate
SO Maryland decided to get rid of the tern "marriage" and call it "civil union" for EVERYONE in Maryland.
You should have heard all the squeeling! "Homosexuals are trying to steal our marriages!"
THEY realized the terms were not the same. As a "civil union", not a "marriage", they would not be considered married by any other state. Even in those places where civil unions were allowed, they would not get all the perks of being married. Not to mention the problems at the federal level. Suddenly they would no longer be able to file joint income taxes for one thing.
When the shoe is on the other foot suddenly they realize that "civil union" is NOT "marriage".
That's nice. What if your husband dies? Suddenly you have no retirement. Everything is gone. You will lose everything.
That is what *I* am facing.
>>We have not, nor will we ever expect the government to provide that recognition.<<
Fine. All I ask is that he dies first, that you not get any retirement. Also that members of his family can show up and dispute his will and take EVERYTHING away from you.
>>The fact that the gays are forcing the hands of every American to recognize what they themselves are not willing to provide for seems like a bullshit story to me<<
What in the world are you whining about there?
THINK about that for a moment,
YOU are undoubtably all set, because YOU have fat retirement. Your wife may not be as lucky.
Well goody for you! Not everyone has milllions stashed away to handle things if there is no retirement available.
Tell you what, since you are all set up and have all that retirement coming to you anyway, why don't you just give me all those resources your husband has stashed away so I can make that available for MY partner. Or, failing that, turn your full retirement over to him.
Let me give you a hint. Utter selfishness and complete callousness about the lives of others is not pretty.
>>Everyone in America - that is a legal native - gets retirement John. <<
Really? So if my partner did the heterosexual thing and stayed home as a live-in wife while I worked, then money would magically appear out of nowhere to provide him with a retirement.
How do you think that happens?
In the real world it happens because the money-earning partner earns retirement and social security which his partner can tap when the breadwinner dies.
I am sorry that you are so completely selfish and lacking in empathy. Perhaps you need to try to become an actual human being one day.
You really need to stop whining and get a life. The world does NOT revolve around you.