I Forgot To Mention DOMA Got Overturned Last Week

Will the wedding be in Peoria... or Cherryville?

When it comes to my personal preferences, I'm more into Kenneth Anger's 1954 classic, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, than into worrying about DOMA. And compared to Scorpio Rising, I never even gave a hoot about Pleasure Dome. Like DOMA. But that's just me... personally. If gay liberation and equality means being able to join the military and shoot up a bunch of Third World peasants or if it means turning into a conventional zombie and having a wedding with a gay chuppah... god bless. I'm on your side... politically. Some of my best friends are gay-married now (lesbians; marriage was always a thing to protect women anyway, right?)

In case you don't know DOMA from Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome the former is short for the Defense of Marriage Act and was meant to defend marriage from the LGBT community members who wanted to buy into the craziness with the chuppahs and whatever Christians calls chuppahs in their traditions. It passed in Congress with huge bipartisan support in 1896 and was signed into law by President Willard Mitt Romney William Jefferson Clinton. Under DOMA, neither the federal government nor any backward, bucktoothed redneck state is required to recognize a same-sex marriage even if it's legal in another state that's part of the modern world. And that means no insurance benefits for government employees, Social Security survivors' benefits, and no filing of joint tax returns. So here's where the problem comes in-- it discriminates financially against gay married couples. That's the part I don't like.

A little background. Bob Barr (R-GA), then a full-fledged fascist imbecile (he's changed somewhat), introduced the bill. It passed in the House 342-67, only one Republican (Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin, a closeted conservative who had been outed 2 years earlier by right-wing hate-monger Bob Dornan on the House floor) and 65 Democrats voted against it. 118 Democrats voted with the GOP, and among Democrats still in Congress who thought that was a good idea, we find Jim Clyburn (SC), Rosa DeLauro (CT), Richard Durbin (IL), Tim Holden (PA), Steny Hoyer (MD), Marcy Kaptur (OH), Robert Menendez (NJ), Colin Peterson (MN), and Chuck Schumer (NY). Voting against it we find mostly who we'd expect: Xavier Becerra (CA), Sherrod Brown (OH), John Conyers (MI), Barney Frank (MA), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL), John Lewis (GA), Jerry Nadler (NY), Nancy Pelosi (CA), Charlie Rangel (NY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Louise Slaughter (NY), Pete Stark (CA), Maxine Waters (CA), Henry Waxman (CA)... you get the picture. By the way, House closet cases who voted NO include David Dreier (R-CA), Phil English (R-PA), Mark Foley (R-FL), Denny Hastert (R-IL), Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Bill Paxon (R-NY), and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA).

The Senate was even more dismal, of course. It passed 85-14, Teddy Kennedy leading the 14 Democrats who opposed it, which included both the Hawaiians (Akaka and Inouye), both the Californians (Boxer and Feinstein) and, oddly, the same John Kerrey who's running for the open Senate seat in Nebraska as a conservative. That was brave of him. John Kerry (MA) and Ron Wyden (OR) also voted "No." Ready to get sick? Some of the Democrats who voted yes: our current vice president, Tom Harkin (IA), Pat Leahy (VT), Frank Lautenberg (NJ), Barbara Mikulski (closet case-MD), Patty Murray (WA), Harry Reid (NV) and, worst of all... Paul Wellstone (MN).

So here's the story. Thursday, the First Circuit Court of Appeals found, in a 3-0 decision, that DOMA is unconstitutional. Boehner expropriated taxpayer money to hire a lawyer to defend it. Two of the three judges who declared it unconstitutional are Republicans, Juan Torruella and Michael Boudin.

Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Barney Frank (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jared Polis (D-CO), David Cicilline (D-RI), and John Conyers (D-MI), the 6 lead sponsors of the Respect For Marriage Act, which will repeal DOMA, has spearheaded an amicus brief, joined by 127 additional House colleagues, filed in this case, which explained to the Court in detail why DOMA is unconstitutional. They issued this joint statement Thursday after the decision:

“Today’s decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that DOMA is indeed unconstitutional is a major victory in the march toward justice for married gay and lesbian couples. By ruling that DOMA violates the Equal Protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the Court has reaffirmed that lesbians and gay men cannot legally be singled out for special discrimination. This decision underscores the reality that there is absolutely no federal interest served by denying married same-sex couples the federal responsibilities and rights that other married couples receive, and that the harm caused to these families is unjustifiable. 
 
“It has been 16 years since Congress enacted DOMA, and the materials and arguments being made to defend the law do not withstand the test of time or scrutiny. All loving couples deserve the same opportunity to marry and to have their marriages treated with equal regard by the government. Moreover, the increasing momentum challenging DOMA-- by the public, in the courts, in Congress, and in the Obama administration-- demonstrates that it is simply a matter of time before this discriminatory law is thrown out, once and for all. That day cannot come soon enough for the thousands of families being harmed by this shameful law on a daily basis, and that is why we, along with many of our colleagues, will continue to fight for its end, be it through the Congress or the courts.”

A week earlier, Claudia Wilken, a district court judge for the northern district of California, ruled that Congress had acted unconstitutionally in discriminating against gay couples when they originally passed DOMA. She also overturned another 1996 law withholding federal tax benefits to long-term health insurance plans for state employees if they included domestic partners. So, here I am, all excited and feeling like "we" won-- and I'm against marriage as a function of the state, gay, straight or otherwise.