A Step Forward And A Step Back

The road to true equality for all citizens in the United States has been a long and rocky one -- and it is far from finished. Minorities, women, persons with non-christian (or no) religious beliefs, immigrants, and persons with a same-sex sexual preference all still have a long way to go before getting rights equal to those given to white American-born males. But progress is slowly being made. This last week saw a step forward for equality -- and a step back.

The step forward was taken by the Obama administration. The administration announced that it will not defend any laws that prevent same-sex married couples from receiving the same military benefits that are offered to heterosexual married couples. Attorney General Eric Holder said:

“[t]he legislative record of these provisions contains no rationale for providing veterans’ benefits to opposite-sex couples of veterans but not to legally married same-sex spouses of veterans … Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Veterans Affairs identified any justifications for that distinction that would warrant treating these provisions differently from Section 3 of DOMA.”

The legislation being referred to is the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (which the Obama administration has also refused to defend in court). Some of the benefits that following DOMA would dent to same-sex married military couples are medical and dental benefits, basic housing allowances, travel & transportation allowances, family separation benefits, military ID cards, visitation rights in military hospitals, survivor benefit plans, and the right to be buried together in military cemeteries.

The idiotic "don't ask, don't tell" law is history now, and gays/lesbians can serve openly and proudly in all branches of the American military. Considering the sacrifices that the military demands of its soldiers and sailors (which could even mean the loss of life), it simply doesn't make sense to give benefits to some in the military and deny those same benefits to others. The spouses of gay's/lesbian's in the military deserve the same consideration given to those
of heterosexuals. Since the same sacrifices are demanded of all members of the military, the benefits should also be the same.

Of course, the right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives will try to fight for DOMA and its restrictions. They have replaced the Obama administration in trying to defend it in court. This is because they put their own archaic religious beliefs over freedom, equality, or the United States Constitution (even though they have sworn to do otherwise). It is of interest that the military cannot do this -- they are required to uphold the Constitution, regardless of their religious beliefs.

The step back was taken by the governor of New Jersey -- Chris Christie. After both houses of the New Jersey legislature passed a bill giving same-sex couples the right to marry, the governor vetoed the bill. The governor admitted the civil union laws of New Jersey have been a failure, and same-sex couples joined in civil unions are not being given the same rights that married couples enjoy. He says he's going to appoint an ombudsman to make that system work better.

The governor's position has the same nasty stench of "separate but equal" that the South tried to use to defend segregation over a half-century ago. They tried to convince the Supreme Court that they were not discriminating against African-Americans by keeping them out of white schools because they provided them with equal school facilities. It was a lie. The facilities were never equal. But the Supreme Court saw through their specious argument.

In a landmark decision (Brown vs. Board of Education), the Supreme Court said that even if the separate school systems had been funded the same, that did not mean they were equal. They declared unanimously that "Separate is inherently unequal" -- meaning that the very act of providing separate facilities proved discrimination, regardless of how they were funded.

Separate = unequal. That was true in 1954, and it is true today. The very act of separating any group for different treatment, regardless of what group is being separated, is tantamount to discriminating against that group (denying them equal rights). Even if the governor was able to provide civil union benefits that were the same as marriage benefits (which is doubtful), it would still amount to an unconstitutional unequal treatment.