Same Sex Marriage

[WHEN IS THE RIGHT TIME FOR SAME-SEX COUPLES TO RECIVE THEIR RIGHTS?]

What effects does DOMA have on same-sex couples while they try to receive their martial rights? How does it hold same-sex couples back from reviving their legal rights and benefits? What moral effect do conservative republicans take? Civil unions and partnership don’t with gaining same-sex couples their rights. They only hinder them.

"Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license," wrote U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker in a 136-page decision. According to DOMA (Defense of marriage act) marriage is the legal union between a man and women as husband and wife (Soloman 2012 pg1). California’s Proposition 8 bans gay marriage, and the latter centers on Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars recognition of same-sex marriage at the federal level. Singling out one specific group and taking away their rights simply because of their sexual preference is unconstitutional. Introduction: DOMA is an act that was put in place by President William Clinton stating that marriage is the legal union of one man and one woman (Soloman, 2012). The key word/ phrase in the definition are "legal union". A legal union or marriage is another word for contract. A contract is an agreement between two people that creates an obligation. But to begin a non-void contract there must be: 1) Consideration, 2) Contractual capacity, 3) Genuine assent, 4) an Offer and Acceptance, 5) Legality, and 6) Written (Adamson. 2009). Citizens that want to engage in a same-sex marriage cannot begin to start a contract (getting a marriage license) because of the act that was put in place in 1998. Once there is an act to repeal DOMA same sex marriage will be able to thrive. Problem: Everything DOMA stands for is un-American and unconstitutional on many different levels. It holds a specific group of American citizens back from reaching equality. In the eyes of our federal government and our American society same-sex marriages are not representing America in the best light that shows our marvelous American qualities: Independent, Hardworking, Personally ambitious, Risk-taking, Commitment, Skepticism, and Honesty. DOMA doesn’t merely stop same-sex couples from becoming socially equal, but federally and economically equal too. They aren’t getting Tax breaks, Estate planning, Government, Medical, Employment, Death, and Family Benefits. Tax breaks: Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities. Estate Planning: Inheriting a share of your spouse's estate while being tax exempt. Government Benefits: Receiving public assistance benefits, Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses. Receiving veterans and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans. Medical Benefits: Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility. Making medical decisions for your spouse if he or she becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes of their treatment. Employment Benefits: Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse's employer, taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness, receiving wages, workers' compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse. Family Benefits: Filing for stepparent or joint adoption. Applying for joint foster care rights. Receiving equitable division of property if you divorce. Receiving spousal or child support, child custody, and visitation if you divorce. (NOLO.com) Even though these are only a few of the benefits that same-sex couples aren’t receiving because of DOMA. Even though same-sex couples have the right to partnership they are still not eligible for federal benefit programs and they are not being recognized under federal laws. A partnership is merely a legal or interpersonal relationship between two individuals who live together and share a common domestic life but are neither joined by marriage nor a civil union. In a nutshell a partnership is a license to live you’re your significant other (dictionary.com). DOMA continually violates the EPC (equal protection clause) of the 5th amendment from the US constitution by discriminating against this particular group of people because of their sexual preference. In the case of Common Wealth of Massachusetts vs. Health and human services in 2009 the attorney general Coakley argued that DOMA is discriminatorily [laws] denies the rights and protections afforded by over 1100 federal statutory provisions to more than 1600 same-sex couples that are legally married under their state laws. She also argues that DOMA of marriage and spouse [should be] declared unconstitutional both generally and as applied to Massachusetts Medical Program, which provides health care to those of low-income residents (Soloman 2012). Coakley is simply saying DOMA is felonious, same-sex couple’s rights are disappearing because of sexual preference and all of this is illegal under the EPC. Even though marriage is a state issue, federal government is playing a key role in holding same-sex couples back from being seen as equal (Solman 2012). DOMA is a modern day version of previously overruled issues such as; Jim Crow law, Grandfather Clause, and Black Codes. These programs were put in place by the American government to hold African American, Native American and other minorities back by taking their right to vote away. Without their vote they have no voice and without a voice they weren’t able to make any decision to help them move forward in the American society, way of life. Same-sex couples can’t start a normal life with the entire benefits heterosexual married couples receive.
The government needs to step up and repeal DOMA with the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA) because DOMA is a firewall to same-sex marriages. When same-sex marriages are entered into in a state that accepts them, they are protected and have all of their necessary rights. But once they cross state lines to a state that doesn’t accept them they immediately disappear (Soloman 2012). This completely undermines the intrastate laws (married in one state married in all, the state that your “law” is valid in is supposed to follow them to the next state). If RMA would federally step in and uphold the standard of marriage as well as allow same-sex marriage to be upheld in every state no matter what their laws say. This act needs to be in place because without it same-sex couples that travel will get the short end of the stick every time. Flanigan vs. University of Maryland Hospital system, two homosexual men (partners at the time) were taking a cross-country trip when Flanigan got extremely ill. His domestic partner Lambda rushed him to the local hospital. He tried explaining Flannigan’s death wishes to the doctor but he was ignored even though they had all the correct documentation proving that they were in fact legal partners. Lambda wasn’t view in the state of Maryland as legally being Flannigan’s domestic partner (Lambdalegal.org). The United States does not accept domestic partnership let alone view them as legal marriages, many innocent lives have been destroyed over that, and DOMA is the mastermind behind it. When Thea Clara Spyer died, she left behind her partner and love of 42 years, Edith Windsor. The loss in 2009 hit Windsor hard, and the New Yorker suffered a heart attack a month after her partner’s death. While still recovering and mourning, she learned she had to pay $363,053 in federal estate taxes on her inheritance. She was, essentially, being required to pay for the loss of her soul mate — because, even though the state of New York recognized their marriage, the federal government didn’t. Under Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, that’s exactly what the federal government is doing: prejudicing treatment based on couples’ sexual orientation. The small but weighty part of the law passed by Congress in 1996 violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by requiring the federal government to exclude legally married gay couples from the benefits and burdens accorded all other married people (bangordailynews.com) Repealing: DOMA must be repealed by RMA in order for those lives that have been interrupted so that they may start to place the pieces of their lives back into the puzzle of life. Just because this is not the social norm doesn’t mean that it isn’t a way of life. Marriage from a secular (non-religious) point of view has been divided into two categories: 1) Legal Rights and Benefits, 2) Personal reward of a committed loving relationship recognized in marriage Salder (2011) explains in her quarterly journals. These two things are the assumption of martial goods. Most conservative republicans agree that it is, but they look at it as being a religious matter, even though it is more than that. It’s a social and economic issue. The law determines who is eligible for marriage, arbitrates divorces and assigns special rights and responsibilities on the basis of marital status, but it says nothing about what marriage consists of. The significance of marriage is primarily the way that it distinguishes married people so as to assign certain rights and responsibilities. Same-sex couples or unities aren’t getting the same benefits and rights to their partner as heterosexual couples are receiving.
Benefits and Legal Rights: Same-sex couples don’t get the same health benefits and rewards as heterosexual married couples receive in the United States. Same-sex couples don’t receive hospital visitation rights, transference of property without taxation, access to records, worker compensation benefits, proxy, child custody, rights to inheritance and exemptions as heterosexual married couples receive. Same-sex unions and marriages are not the same until they incorporate all of the key components that a heterosexual couple receives. The concern isn’t what the union is called, but what they gain because of it. Today’s society still looks at marriage historically and culturally; marriage has been universally between a man and women. But we live in a time period were the only thing constant is change; marriage is no longer a heterosexual right but a human right. Reske (1993) say's, he hopes that laws banning homosexual marriage would be looked back at as a shock and horror just as slavery and other discriminating act preformed in our American history which people now view. Miscegenation was once banned just as same-sex marriage is, but as times change so does what is acceptable. In 1967, in Loving v. Virginia, the nation's supreme court knocked down state anti-miscegenation laws. 1948 the year California's Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage (the first state to do so) because of the court case Perez v Sharp, most Americans opposed the idea. In 1958, when half the states still had laws prohibiting interracial marriage, 96 percent of Americans opposed black-white marriages. By 1967, when the Supreme Court decided the Loving v Virginia case, 16 states still had anti-miscegenation laws on the books. More shocking, 72 percent of the American public still opposed interracial marriages. (Dreier 2013). In 1967, the Supreme Court justices, no doubt influenced by the civil rights movement, were ahead of public opinion. Based on the 14th Amendment's "equal protection" and "due process" clauses, the court ruled that states did not have the right to ban marriage between people of different races. How is this any different because the genders have changed? Republican parties believe of same-sex marriages will exhibit an unacceptable intolerance of homosexuality or unjustified homophobia, and undermine marriage (Salder 2008). From my view of what conservative republicans want they would have to ban everything that undermines the bible, starting with having children out of wedlock, then sex outside of marriage, and war upon many other things. There is no way that the ban on gay marriage is in anyway shape or form not contradicting to our bill of rights. Church and state should be separate like it is with the Democratic Party. There is no way we as a country can follow every rule and regulation set forth by the bible because we’re human. Some Americans might ask “why do I have to pay for something I don’t believe in” referring to same-sex marriage, that will allow people to put off taxes because they don’t agree with them. Some may also take it to a religious place, quoting the bible, “marriage is between a man and women” and they do not believe that their tax dollars should have to go towards something they don’t believe in. People without children won’t have to pay school taxes in their area, then that would trickle down to people that don’t believe in our prison systems. They feel as if the death penalty would be easier or they shouldn’t be taxed to help a criminal live comfortably. But the founders of this country didn’t put taxes in place because we like them they’re in place because we need federal funding for the program to help keep them running. Personal Reward: The legal view of marriage today is virtually without content. The conservative party symbol of marriage is only ‘real’ when children are conceived, but because same-sex marriages are a result of some incapacity. But what happens with the heterosexual married couples that decide they don’t want to have children? Their problem more so lays in the physical makeup of the parents instead of how well they take care of children. Conservatives like a two-parent system, one female one male. Instead of there being a mother and a father there would be two mothers and no father, or two fathers and no mother. It takes away from the nurturing motherly role or away from the fatherly manly role, when there are either two mothers or two fathers. But either way there is a possibility that one role will be missing, for instance in a single family home (Gallagher 2009). Or in family’s where there is a deceased parent, divorce, one parent is in the army, one night stand, or one of the parental roles aren’t in the picture anymore. Common (2009) gives examples that the idea that conservative opposition to same-sex marriages deeply concerned with the symbolic power or public meaning of marriage in culture. People in same-sex relationships share large ideas of marriage: they see consensual, companionate, domestic and sexual relationships that values commitment, stability, family and shared responsibility. Consistent with these aspects of the ideal, proponents believe they are fighting first and form most for: juridical equality, social visibility for homosexuals, and social recognition of gay and lesbian committed relationships. Whereas opponents are fighting to uphold the sex based gender roles arbitrarily not by sex of the spouse. Therefore, conservative opponents of same-sex marriage can concede that given that small percent of the population that would opt for same sex marriages, the partial effects of same-sex marriage would be minimal, while maintaining that cultural effect would be dramatic. Conclusion: We as Americans need to take a good look at what we are doing to this particular group of people. If Americans can’t accept the fact that DOMA is unconstitutional and is taking away many of our hard working American citizen’s rights to marriage because of gender, are we really a country of freedom, and liberty. "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 discrimination. 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." (Warren 1963). Warren expresses the realist aspect of marriage it from a secular point of view. Everyone deserves a chance to get married. Marriage shouldn’t be denied to a citizen because of their race then why is it acceptable to deny that right because of gender? The leaders of this country need to come together and make a final decision in the highest of high courts. This type of discrimination towards human beings in ridiculous in the year two thousand and thirteen, thirty-one out of the fifty states use their constitution to ban same-sex marriages and unions. Change need to come. GLBT couples need an act or some form of legislation that cannot be stepped over or removed put in place by federal government to protect them from this type of ignorance.