Why the DOMA decision by SCOTUS is so important

For the most part I try to keep this blog centered on music, but every once in a while I like to throw my viewers a glimpse of my personal life. In order to do that, especially with the title of this post, here is some back story. Two of my dad’s brothers are gay. One of the two has been in a relationship with his partner for around 25 years. A couple years ago at a family gathering, which happened to be when the same-sex marriage debate took off, my uncle’s partner explained to me why it was such a big deal.

According to a post on about.com, under current laws a same-sex couple is denied benefits given to man-woman couples, such as assumption of spouse’s pension, automatic inheritance, automatic housing lease transfer, bereavement leave, child custody, divorce protections, domestic violence protection, exemption from property tax on partner’s death, immunity from testifying against spouse, insurance breaks, joint adoption and foster care, joint parenting (insurance coverage, school records), medical decisions on behalf of partner, certain property rights, sick leave to care for partner, visitation of partner’s children, visitation of partner in hospital or prison, wrongful death (loss of consort) benefits, among others.

There are also 1100 Federal benefits that man-woman marriage recieve that same-sex couples did’t get even if they are legally married because of DOMA, or the Defense of Marriage Act, which was signed by President Clinton in 1996.

As my uncle’s partner explained it to me, he said “if, god forbid, (my uncle) was in a car accident and on life support all of the decisions would go to next of kin and not me, and we’ve been together since you were a little boy.”

For me, I love to see everyone around me happy and treated equally. On June 26, The Supreme Court of the United States declared DOMA unconstitutional based on “the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and federalism.” However, neither the ability of states to maintain their own versions of DOMA or parts of it were addressed.

I asked my uncle about what it all means and what happens next and he responded with this:

“The fact that DOMA has been overturned means that when gay couples get married in the States where marriage is legal, the Federal government will recognize them. So gay married couples will have all of the rights that straight married couples get. There are still open questions about what happens when the gay couples move to States where gay marriage has not been enacted yet.”

He also mentioned that “they get all of the 1100 rights we talked about last time…..we think. There are different definitions of marriage pertaining to those rights.”

 SCOTUS also ruled that the proponents of Proposition 8 did not have legal standing to appeal a U.S. District Courts’ ruling that the proposition is unconstitutional. The state government had refused to defend the law. Same-sex marriage in California does not resume until the district court removes a stay of effect it issued, pending appeals, that prevents its ruling from reversing the amendment to the state constitution.

My uncle said that “In the other case, the Supreme Court decided that the groups that argued the appeal of the Prop 8 ruling from the Federal District Court in the 9th Circuit, didn’t have the right to do that. They didn’t have standing.”

To summarize, he said that “It means that in California, gay marriages will resume probably around the end of July. It also means that Federal rights will go to gay married couples when the States they live in legalize gay marriage…It will be a long haul.”

For more information on what the SCOTUS ruling did and didn’t do, check out this article by Chris Geidner.

It seems silly to me that people care so much. So many people stand by the thought that “marriage should be between a man and a woman only.” I can understand that traditional thought. But I can’t agree with it. Growing up we are taught that people get married when they fall in love. Well, for couples like my uncle and his partner they are in love, very much so. We live in a world where people have married dolls, a roller coaster and even a dolphin. But it’s looked down upon when a same-sex couple wants to marry.

I hear people often talking about rights and wrongs alongside American law. It seems to me that in a nation built upon separation of church and state, Christian lawmakers, and really Christians in general, seem to be the ones with the biggest problem. I went to Catholic school for eight years growing up and one of the many tenants of Christianity is not judging others. What people do with their personal lives is their own business, and people should be able to do what they want. I’ve also done a lot of research on the economic impact of gay marriages and it’ll literally bring hundreds of millions of dollars to state and local economies. We’re at a time when states and the fed are all strapped for cash, so it makes sense to allow same-sex couples to wed to help stimulate things a little.

Equality, boons to local economies, separation of church and state. In reality, it seems to me that things such as gay marriage are things that America was built on. Land of the Free, we should make it that way.

What do you think? I welcome and respect all opinions on the issue.