The Massachusetts attorney general, Martha Coakley, asked that a federal court strike down the existing ban on gay marriage. Coakley filed suit against the ban, arguing that the law conflicts with a states individual rights to be able to define marriage or recognize civil unions in each state.
The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act has been challenged in federal courts twice this month. Arguing that the act is unconstitutional, gay rights groups brought a case before the judge earlier in May. Activists describe that it is unfair to allow benefits to straight couples but not to same-sex couples.
In Massachusetts., the attorney general’s offices is arguing that it is a state’s right to be able to define marriage. They claim that the Defense of Marriage Act could potentially deny couples Medicaid and several other same-sex couple benefits in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts has 15,000 same-sex couples that have married in the stated following the 2004 law making marriage legal for same-sex couples. There have been no indications of which side the rulings will favor.
David Weigel, a journalist who covers and blogs about conservatives and libertarian politics for the Washington Post, got into some controversy when tweeting about ‘bigots’ who fight against same-sex marriage. While he did retract from his endorsement of the term, he reiterated his opposition to laws which discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation:
I’m a bystander in the same-sex marriage debate — I haven’t given to any cause on either side. But in 2006 I did vote against a Virginia same-sex marriage amendment, which passed. I didn’t, and don’t, think social issues should be subjected to votes like that. I don’t support much direct democracy in general — this is a republic, and we shouldn’t throw these kinds of decisions to the electorate at large.But why was I willing to be so disrespectful to one group of activists? Unlike with most activists, I don’t really see the direct impact on their lives, or on the lives of the people who agree with them, of the cause they oppose. Antitax protesters are threatened by higher taxes. Anti-health-care-bill protesters fear their coverage will get worse. Anti-meat-eating protesters believe animals are being murdered and the environment is being made worse.
Even the birther movement has always made a kind of sense — oust Obama from office, and you get a chance to reverse what damage you think he’s done to your country.
But who’s threatened by legal same-sex marriage? Whose life is made worse? If there was science suggesting that children raised by same-sex parents are worse off than children raised by traditional families, that would be one thing, but I haven’t seen it. We’ve watched legal same-sex marriage in several European countries and several states, and it hasn’t ushered in some decline in the quality of life, or marriage, for those who don’t participate in it.
That’s what I don’t understand. That’s my bias, for now. I’ll happily entertain arguments for the contrary.
So, often the debate about same-sex marriage claims to be one that has religion and the faith community one side and the LGBT community on the other. Leaders of faith all across the country are debunking that myth and explaining how their faith and belief in the scriptures leaders to support same-sex marriage. Rev. Dennis W. Wiley, a Baptist minister, and Robert M. Hardies, a Unitarian minster, detail in the The Washington Post detail how their belief in fight injustice is their guide to support same-sex marriage.
Our solidarity exposes two of the myths perpetuated by opponents of marriage equality and by the media. Let’s call these myths “God vs. gay” and “black vs. white.”
Opponents of marriage equality would like us to believe that one cannot be both pro-God and pro-gay. Yet we lead a coalition of nearly 200 D.C. clergy who support marriage equality precisely because of our commitment to God’s inclusive love and justice. Our clergy are black, white, Latino and from every ward in the District. We are Baptists and Jews, Catholics and Methodists, who have worked side by side for years on issues ranging from peace to affordable housing, and who now stand together again to raise a faithful voice for justice. Let us be clear: God vs. gay is a myth we reject. God vs. injustice is a truth we affirm.
Meanwhile, opponents of marriage equality have tried to use this issue to divide our communities along racial lines, and the press often plays into their hands. The gay community is repeatedly characterized as a group of well-to-do white folks, while all people of color are portrayed as heterosexuals who oppose gay marriage. This is the myth of “black vs. white.” To suggest that the struggle for marriage equality in Washington affects only a small number of white people from Dupont Circle is an affront to the rich diversity of the District’s gay and lesbian community, and it erases the lives of thousands of gay and lesbian people of color, some of whom are members of our churches.
David Boies, the attorney who is part of a bi-partisan effort to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage, writes an excellent counter-offensive to opponents of marriage equality in the Wall Street Journal.
The occasional suggestion that marriages between people of different sexes may somehow be threatened by marriages of people of the same sex does not withstand discussion. It is difficult to the point of impossibility to envision two love-struck heterosexuals contemplating marriage to decide against it because gays and lesbians also have the right to marry; it is equally hard to envision a couple whose marriage is troubled basing the decision of whether to divorce on whether their gay neighbors are married or living in a domestic partnership. And even if depriving lesbians of the right to marry each other could force them into marrying someone they do not love but who happens to be of the opposite sex, it is impossible to see how that could be thought to be as likely to lead to a stable, loving relationship as a marriage to the person they do love.
Moreover, there is no longer any credible contention that depriving gays and lesbians of basic rights will cause them to change their sexual orientation. Even if there was, the attempt would be constitutionally defective. But, in fact, the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians is as much a God-given characteristic as the color of their skin or the sexual orientation of their straight brothers and sisters. It is also a condition that, like race, has historically been subject to abusive and often violent discrimination. It is precisely where a minority’s basic human rights are abridged that our Constitution’s promise of due process and equal protection is most vital.
It is time to end discrimination against gays and lesbians and allow marriage rights for all.
The Bishops of the Episcopal Church have backed the blessing of gay and lesbian unions at their recent convention in Anaheim.
Mike Angell, who is studying to become an Episcopal priest at the Virginia Theological Seminary, said yesterday’s decision comes as a relief. “I have a number of friends — straight and gay — who requested me to perform their weddings once I’m ordained,” said Angell, who believes in equality for gay parishioners. “I would have felt limited and compromised blessing hetero couples but not gay couples. It’s an issue of justice.”
Regardless of how one church or another feels about blessing same-sex marriages, it is not up to the government to choose which religious marriages will get recognized by the state and which won’t.
