Same-Sex Marriage Comes to Washington D.C.
A bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Washington D.C. was signed into law by D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty in December last year. D.C., being a federal district, has its laws reviewed by Congress before they go into effect. The period of time Congress had to review the same-sex marriage legislation expired yesterday, and so today was the first day marriage licenses were issued to gay and lesbian couples.
Washington D.C. also permits voters to block legislation pending a referendum on the issue, but anything that violates the D.C. Human Rights Act is exempted from this policy. The United States Supreme Court decided today in a three-page ruling that the same-sex marriage law was covered by the Human Rights Act exemption. Therefore, the Court refused to grant the petitioners' request to stay the new legislation.
While the life of legal same-sex marriage in Washington D.C. is dependent on the eventual referendum vote, marriage licenses are now available to D.C. couples.
[Via The Associated Press]
Have a question, comment, or response? 1 person does.Maryland Now Recognizes Out-of-State Same-Sex Marriages
Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler has announced that Maryland will immediately begin recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states. While this does not mean that Maryland same-sex couples will be able to wed in the state, it does mean that couples who are married in other jurisdictions — such as New England neighbors Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Vermont — will receive all of the state rights and privileges associated with marriage in Maryland.
New York's highest court reached a similar decision in late 2009.
Have a question, comment, or response? Share your thoughts.CA Gubernatorial Candidate Meg Whitman on Same-Sex Rights
Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO and 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate in California, has been the subject of numerous recent headlines for her political ambitions in the nation's most populous state. California, still reeling from the effects of Proposition 8 that stopped the state from performing same-sex marriages, will be replacing current Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger vetoed the California legislature's attempts to enact same-sex marriage in the state, citing constitutional issues with the attempt, but also opposed Proposition 8.
Meg Whitman granted two interviews, one with Silicon Valley's Mercury News and one with the Los Angeles Times, to discuss her political positions. Describing her political lean as "moderate to conservative" on social issues, Whitman believes that same-sex couples should be permitted to enter into civil unions and adopt children, but that the word "marriage" should be restricted to opposite-sex couples. Whitman supported Proposition 8, calling it a "matter of personal conscience and my faith." Whitman stood out, however, for her belief that Proposition 8 should not apply retroactively, and that the same-sex marriages legally performed before Proposition 8 should still be recognized and valid in the state.
While Family Fairness takes no position on whether Whitman would be a worthy governor for the state of California, it believes that California voters — especially those who believe strongly in the rights of same-sex couples — should be informed about the candidates' stances toward the LGBT community. For more on Meg Whitman's political positions, consult her Meg Whitman for Governor homepage.
Have a question, comment, or response? Share your thoughts.The Gay Tax: How the Estate Tax Marital Deduction Costs Same-Sex Couples $3.3 Million
The Williams Institute of UCLA School of Law has released a study [pdf] that shows that same-sex couples are assessed an average of $3.3 million more in taxes upon the death of their partner than a similarly situated opposite-sex couple. Because estate taxes are set federally, the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits even married same-sex couples from taking advantage of the marital deduction.
Says Michael D. Steinberger, the author of the study:
Even in 2010, when the estate tax is currently slated to be repealed, federal law allows different-sex married couples to shelter an additional $3 million in capital gains when a partner dies. Regardless of your views about this tax, it is a costly implication of legal discrimination against gay and lesbian couples.
The study also estimated that if the current laws are not changed, gay and lesbian couples will have lost more than $3.5 billion in the decade preceding 2011. Steinberger advises that: "As Congress turns to legislation in December to address the estate tax before it disappears in 2010, it should address these inequalities for same-sex couples and their families."
The cost to provide equal benefits to same-sex couples would be one twentieth of one percent (.05%) of the total federal government revenue.
The full study, Federal Estate Tax Disadvantages for Same-Sex Couples [pdf], is available at the Williams Institute website.
Have a question, comment, or response? Share your thoughts.The Evils of DOMA: COBRA and Health Care
I spoke yesterday about the importance of the word "marriage" and why it was impossible to fight for the rights without also fighting for the word. Many current federal programs and benefits only recognize married partners. While we do not yet know how the federal government will deal will civil unions and domestic partnerships following the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—the statute allowing the federal government to ignore same-sex spouses—it is unlikely that the federal definition of marriage will be expanded to include these other relationships. As a result, despite states like Oregon, Washington, and Nevada offering expanded domestic partnerships with all of the rights and responsibilities of marriage, only same-sex partners married under the laws of Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine, or New Hampshire would actually have access to these federal programs.
COBRA is a federal law that allows workers who were laid off by an employer who staffs more than 20 employees to retain their health insurance benefits for themselves and for their spouses and children. Because of DOMA, COBRA does not currently apply to any same-sex couple. This means that the gays and lesbians among the current 30 million unemployed Americans are also being denied affordable healthcare for their families. The repeal of DOMA is necessary, but will still not suffice in the states in which same-sex couples have "won" the rights of marriage but not the word.
While I appreciate to some extent those who say they support civil equality for gays and lesbians but not the conveyance of the word marriage, they must understand that domestic partnerships cannot simulate all of the rights of marriage. Even with the assistance of an attorney and every legal document he could produce, same-sex couples can not be equal until they can marry.
Have a question, comment, or response? 1 person does.California Proposition 8 Anniversary: Revisiting the (Bad) Arguments
The following is an editorial:
In the last year, we had some victories: marriage equality came to Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire, recognition came to Washington D.C., and Domestic Partnerships came to Nevada and were expanded in Washington. And then today, on the one year anniversary of California's Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment that took away same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian residents of Maine wake up with the news that Proposition 1 had passed and their marriage rights were revoked. The battle over Proposition 1 showed that opponents of marriage equality have not developed their arguments much since Proposition 8, but that, unfortunately, those arguments were still working. With that knowledge, I feel obligated to revisit some of the claims made in the debate surrounding same-sex marriage.
On November 18, two weeks after the passage of Proposition 8, The View featured a segment discussing the proposition and same-sex marriage generally. The show's two conservative members, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd, took the stance against same-sex marriage. The video is to the right. I have extracted some of the two ladies' arguments to address:
"...this is minimizing [the struggle for racial equality]. To equate what's going on—and now these protests—and those situations during the civil rights moviement; it just shouldn't even be happening. It minimizes all what occurred."
Civil equality is not a competition; the winners are not the ones that suffered the greatest. Discrimination and the denial of rights should be addressed and remedied whenever it occurs, not just when it is the greatest example of discrimination. To discredit the gay rights movement in this way is to discredit the American feminist movement because women in the Middle East have it worse.
Promoting same-sex marriage does nothing to minimize the black civil rights movement. Rather, it is a continuation and the next step in the fight to win social equality regardless of race, sex, or sexual orientation.
"They should be fighting for the rights rather than the word 'marriage'. There are a lot of people who are arguing there were four judges who decided what was best for the country all of a sudden. This Prop 8 came as a result of that. These protesters, in essence, are protesting what the majority wants."
The rights of marriage and the word 'marriage' itself are entangled. It is impossible to impart all of the rights without also providing the word. This is because the concept of marriage is one that, for the purposes of law, is recognized uniformly through each of the states in the country. Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships do not enjoy such ubiquity; a couple could not travel from Oregon to Nevada and have their relationship recognized even though both states have Domestic Partnerships. Even in states that provide comprehensive Domestic Partnerships, some benefits, like pension agreements, insurance policies, and other private offerings are available only to couples who are 'married'. So it is impossible to to fight for the rights without also fighting for the word.
Further, I believe it is a miscategorization to say that four judges decided what was best. The California Supreme Court did not make any value judgement on same-sex marriage; it simply held that the Equal Protections Clause of the California Constitution made the denial of marriage rights—a "basic civil right"—to a protected class unlawful. The ruling followed 4 years of procedural history and argumentation. To make it sound as if the judges woke up one morning and decided to judicially mandate marriage equality is misleading and dishonest.
The protestors were not protesting what the majority wanted; they were protesting the fact that a slim majority (52% of voters) could strip fundamental rights from a class of people in defiance of the state's three elected branches of government—executive, legislative, and judicial. They were protesting that the will of only 7 million voters in a state of 37 million could decide whether or not they were permitted to marry the person they love. They were protesting the frightening precedent that voters could decide civil rights. To characterize the protesters "in essence" as anti-democratic sore losers is an demeans their message.
"There are some people who go 'because I can, I want to have my dream wedding in a Church and you're saying 'no', so I might sue you because you're discriminating against me' And so you're impeding on their rights and their beliefs."
Gay and lesbian rights are no threat to religious freedom.
"If you're voting yes on Prop 8, then all of a sudden, you're a bigot."
Bigot is not a nice word, and it does not feel good to be called one. But if you did vote yes on Proposition 8, you chose to jealously keep a right that you enjoy from a group of people. It does not matter what your reasons are, because the outcome is the same. People who once could marry their partners are once again legally prohibited from doing so. Your marriage was not affected for better or worse as a result of your vote. The only thing that changed is that we could no longer have ours. You may claim no animus, but you can not strip away a right from a group of people while gaining nothing for yourself and call the action anything but malicious. You may not feel like a bigot, but your vote was one a bigot would cast. Love is not a limited commodity to be hoarded.
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