One of the community’s staunchest advocates in Congress, U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, is sponsoring legislation to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.
Nadler has long been on record in defense of equal marriage rights. Who can forget his attack on the vile, anti-gay Marriage Protection Act in 2004? “One would think that the possibility that somewhere a lesbian or gay couple might live out their years peacefully and happily were a greater threat to the future of the United States than al Qaeda.”
In his latest charge to take down DOMA, the representative – chair of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties – is focusing on marriage, not civil unions and not domestic partnerships.
Nadler recently told the Bay Area Reporter, “Historically domestic partnerships and other relationships have been an interregnum until we get to marriage, which we need to push for as soon as possible.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Civil unions and domestic partnerships have served important purposes, but we, in the push for equality, have identified marriage as the prize. To include civil unions and domestic partnerships would probably derail Nadler’s legislation.
Certainly to include civil unions and domestic partnerships would muddle the issue for Congress and for state lawmakers trying to decide whether to introduce their own bills to legalize gay marriage or to offer same-sex couples a parallel to marriage.
To include civil unions and domestic partnerships would confuse citizens as well, some of whom by now must think gay people want three times the legal forms of partnership recognition as straights.
So, what would Nadler’s bill accomplish?
The bill would repeal Section 2 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states that ban same-sex marriage to refuse to recognize legal same-sex marriages from other states. Gay couples can legally marry in Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, and will be able to marry in New Hampshire beginning in January 2010.
But today, a heterosexual couple married in Massachusetts will be recognized as such in Florida, yet not a gay couple.
Today, a heterosexual couple married in Iowa can move across the border and still be considered married in Illinois, yet not so a lesbian couple.
Today, a heterosexual couple wed in Vermont will be recognized as married in Texas, yet not a same-sex couple.
How is this so?
Well, heterosexual couples are protected under the Full Faith and Credit Clause in the U.S. Constitution that says, “Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other state.” Congress, and with his signature Bill Clinton, stripped gays and lesbians who would eventually legally marry of that constitutional protection in 1996.
Repealing DOMA and enacting a “certainty provision” requiring one state to recognize the marriages of another could provide stability for married same-sex couples and their family members.
No doubt there will be fights among states and states and fights among states and the feds with a repeal, but eliminating DOMA and enacting the “certainty provision” is critical.
And the bill would repeal Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing legal same-sex marriages.
Today, the federal government is denying same-sex couples in Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts the marriage rights it affords opposite-sex couples across the country. Those rights and responsibilities number more than 1,000 and include Social Security survivor payments, the opportunity to jointly file taxes and guaranteed leave from work to care for an ailing spouse.
Look for the bill when Congress returns from its August recess, and urge the members of your congressional delegation to support passage.