Is It Time for Equality For All?
Massachusetts' attorney general, Martha Coakley, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the U.S. government that seeks federal marriage benefits for about 16,000 gay and lesbian couples who have legally wed in Massachusetts. The state is challenging the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Finally!
I think most liberty minded individuals see the obvious constitutional violations going on with the DOMA, unfortunately I am not convinced that this Supreme Court, with or without Sotomayer, will allow themselves to see it as well. But what else can you call a federal law that denies access to over 1,000 programs (saving that large of a number for a later article) just because the person that they choose to dedicate their lives to is a member of the same sex.
Federal Income Tax Credits, employment and retirement benefits, health insurance coverage, Social Security payments, etc. We deny these, and many other, benefits to the spouses of homosexual Americans for no other reason than we don’t like who they choose to love.
The funny thing is that we heard the same arguments that are being made now against homosexual marriage as we heard when individuals of different races wanted to marry. They were as wrong then as they are now, yet a significant number of people seem to not learn from our own history. So, we have to relive the same fights we have already gone through because of these individuals being bullheaded.
I am hoping that we have sense and reason prevail on this case and the clear violation that the law has on the 14th Amendment (and the basic rights of man) will be rejected by our legal system as it should be. It is time we start to live the American ideal of equality instead of just giving it lip service.