Subscribe to Breaking NewsBalliett: Author of DOMA asks for repeal
One week before Join the Impact’s National DOMA protest, the waves of change are already starting to form! Bob Barr, the infamous author of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), wrote an op-ed in the LA Times stating that DOMA should be repealed! This is something worth celebrating, and something we should take to the next level.
Ever since we announced the Jan. 10 National DOMA Protest, we learned that many members of the LGBTQ community do not even know what DOMA is.
DOMA, put simply, is one current reason LGBTQ rights are so hard to come by. When you drill down to the heart of DOMA, it was launched as an effort to keep same-sex couples from gaining the same rights as heterosexual married couples… in other words, it was born out of a need to restrict the rights of the LGBTQ community.
DOMA has been used time and time again to continually restrict the rights of the LGBTQ community in employment, spousal benefits, property ownership, insurance, etc. Many view it as discrimination written into the constitution (I am one of those many).
On Jan. 10, we are protesting to repeal DOMA and to gain 1 million Signatures on our Open Letter to Barack Obama. This letter is meant to serve as a reminder to Obama of the promises that he made to our community, which he wrote in an Open Letter to the LGBTQ Community in early 2008. In that letter, he promised to repeal DOMA.
We drafted a letter that uses his exact words in an effort to remind him just how accountable we expect him to be for his promises. Many requests have been made to broaden this letter and add a request for full gay marriage, or other initiatives to the list.
We do not want to deter from the point of the letter, though: Repeal DOMA. Hold True to Your Promises. Your Words DO Have Meaning.
DOMA Defined:
On September 21st, 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was signed into federal law. DOMA, wrote discrimination into the Constitution with two strict regulations:
- No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
- The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.
To drive the point even further, 37 states slowly but surely adopted DOMA as a state-wide regulation further amending state Constitutions. This appalling law tells the American people that it is OK to discriminate. That it is OK to recognize the LGBTQ community as less than equal. This same law, that the California Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional set the precedence for Proposition 8. This same law has nullified many rights that come with Domestic Partnerships. This law does not just affect members of the LGBTQ community – it also repeals rights from heterosexual non-married couples. This law has nullified the heterosexual rights that come with Common Law Marriage. This law blurred the lines of separation of church and state even further. And this law, is one of many that President Elect Barack Obama has PROMISED to repeal in his “Open Letter to the LGBTQ Community.
DOMA is not a speed bump on the road to full equality. It is not even a road block. DOMA is a gigantic brick wall that is crumbling!
On Jan. 10, we encourage you to find a protest in or near your city. Join in this important national moment, where we will work together to shed light on the negative effects of DOMA. Help us get signatures between now and Jan 10th on the Open Letter to Barack Obama.
Bob Barr, who created the beast, is now in our corner to help us defeat it! He started the wall crumbling, now it’s time we come together this Saturday with our own “demo team” to help tear it down!
Thanks, Amy.
I thought we already had a long enough alphabetic name in LGBT. Now the name has elongated to 5 letters. Some people even care it out to 6 letters.
The longer the name gets the more determined I am to stick to 4 letters. 4 letters is plenty enough, thank you. Much more than that the name gets kind of unwieldy and cumbersome. I am happy to leave the “q” off both for the sake of brevity and also because I do not identity with that.
You damage your credibility when you write: “Many view it [DOMA] as discrimination written into the constitution….” DOMA is not a part of the U.S. Constitution. DOMA is a federal law that has yet to be challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Constitution is not changed by mere Acts of Congress. The process requires an official amendment be passed by the U.S. Congress as well as 3/4 of all state legislatures before it becomes part of the U.S. Constitution.
Morgan,
Do not even get me started on the “balkanization” of sex in the United States. Most people’s eyes glaze over when you start repeating the laundry list of sexual minorities, some of which do not relate to each other either legally or in reality, beyond their being a probable minority status.
LGBTQ? What’s the “Q”? Is it folk that enjoy seeing Avenue Q on Broadway or in Vegas?
I think i’ll just keep to gay and lesbian. It’s to the point covers those of us that are most discriminated against.
Thanks for the information, Amy. I intend to show up and continue protesting this law, and I will continue to send letters, call lawmakers and generally mouth-off about this form of discrimination.
We can all choose to simply critique the writers of these stories or add our own pertinent commentaries…365GAY Editors – perhaps we can have two modes of comments, those specific to the writer of the piece and one that adds to the true conversation?
Curtis Balls is right. DOMA didn’t write anything into any constitution. That’s why there was a failed attempt at a Federal Marriage Amendment which would have done just that (and more). It’s funny that an article that says “…many members of the LGBTQ community do not even know what DOMA is” actually goes on to prove the point about its own author.
Regarding the number of letters in LGBT…, I think “queer” is probably the best term to try to cover the whole range of lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, intersex, two-spirited, and questioning. It’s just one syllable anyway, so it’s easier to say and spell, and it’s easier to do a word search for, given the hundred ways people spell BLQGIT.
I must respectfully disagree with you, Jonathan. When we rally the troops with inaccurate information we can end up looking like fools. It’s not a matter of picking on the author, rather it’s making sure the discussion isn’t tainted with inaccurate information.
DOMA wrote nothing into the Federal Constitution. It is a law not an amendment.
This isn’t news. 365gay ran an article about how Barr regretted writing DOMA and called for its repeal over six months ago.
Way to be on top of the news.
And where is Ms. Balliett getting the bizarre idea that DOMA “writes discrimination into the Constitution”?
It’s a statute passed by Congress, that’s it. Congress can, likewise, change the law at will. The law has a variety of Constitutional problems as well, and could also be struck down in court.
There was an attempt to ‘write discrmination into the Constitution’ (the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment), but that failed both of the times it was proposed. Incidentally, Marilyn Musgrave, the author of the FMA, lost her seat in Congress this year.