Respect for Marriage

Some do, some don't.  Now there are some polygamists who are protesting same-sex marriage, saying “Marriage should be only for a man and his wives.”  Right that's plural.   Not sure if polygamist and bigot Dr. Martin Bell realizes that polygamy is illegal. (JakeKaplan.hubpages.com)  Not sure, with his sixth wife being only 14 when he married her, if that is a respect for marriage.  Bell is being investigated for fraud, rape of a minor, false imprisonment, and polygamy.  But let him protest.


The Veterans Affairs office in Hartford doesn't seem to respect marriage either.  A disabled Navy vet is suing because she can't get the same type of benefits that many straight couples get, because she is married to a woman.  The Defense of Marriage Act does not respect Carmen Cardona, an 18 year veteran, and her spouse's marriage.  Obama has stopped defending DOMA, but House Speaker John Boehner is hell bent to defend it, even if it means bankrupting the United States. (LezGetReal.com)


However, there is some Respect for Marriage.  And this is surprising.  Not that a Senate Committee is going to vote on repealing DOMA, but the first place I read about it was on Faux News.  (FoxNews.com) "Sen. Patrick Leahy says the Senate Judiciary Committee he heads will vote next month on legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act."  And the legislation is called Respect for Marriage.


About time we get some respect.

Picking a Fight

What is the definition of Congress?  This week it might be hypocrisy.  On one hand the GOP lawmakers are fighting for eliminating federal aid for family planning and covering abortions. (Forbes.com)  They are demanding that federal money to Planned Parenthood be stopped.  They yell at the top of their lungs that things like NPR and FEMA should not receive any money either.


And here is the hypocrisy.  No spending money, unless...  "House Republicans have agreed to a new contract to pay a private law firm up to $1.5 million to defend the Defense of Marriage Act." (HuffingtonPost.com) The Attorney General had decided back in February that DOMA was unconstitutional and would no longer fight to support it.  But, House Speaker John Boehner thinks this is something that the money should be spent on.


This seems to no longer be just a fight over money.  This is definitely a fight over social policy.  And it looks like the right-wing, homophobic, anti-women's rights group is going to win the fight.

Do it for the Children

Most of the time, the right-wing/evangelical folks use the children to change things: stopping Happy Meals, censoring television shows.  But today, it seemed that the kids just weren't on their side.  Today there was a congressional hearing about overturning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  And there were a bunch of the right-wing/evangelical folks to tell the world how DOMA is just so bad.


There is Thomas Minnery, Senior Vice President for Public Policy, Focus on the Family.  He had written testimony that cited an HHS study that said "same-sex" families were bad for children or "opposite-sex" families were better for them.  Sen. Al Franken actually had the HHS study in his hand and it actually said that children did better in "two-parent" households and that the parents' gender had nothing to do with it. (ThinkProgress.org)

Franken then said that since Minnery had lied he didn't "know how we can really trust the rest of your testimony."


But Mr. Minnery gave more anyway.  Sen. Leahy brought up the issue of not having the "same financial benefits that an opposite sex family would have" without marriage rights.  Minnery went back to "certainly children are better off with parents in the home."   (PamsHouseblend.com)

But, Leahy wouldn't let it go:

• "if you have parents legally married under the laws of the state - one set of parents are entitled to certain financial benefits for their children, the other set of parents are denied those same financial benefits for their children..."

And Minnery had to say yep.  That would be yes.


But, really it is just that some of these whackos simply hate gay people.  And they throw that hate around and blame all kinds of things on gays and their marriages.  Rabbi Yehuda Levin now says that gay marriage is what caused the murder of an 8 year-old Hassidic boy in New York.  "This came in the very aftermath of the marriage bill, my dear friends," he says.  And really, had nothing to do with a heterosexual, divorced observant Jew? (JoeMyGod)

Do it for the children, Rabbi.

Divert Funding

While in a situation on the Federal Government level where money is a huge issue, House Speaker John Boehner now thinks it is ok to divert funding.  And what is compelling Boehner to divert?  Defending an unconstitutional law.


Back in February, President Obama decided that the administration "cannot defend the federal law that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman."  (HuffingtonPost.com)  He did this due to the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause and the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that laws criminalizing homosexual conduct are unconstitutional.


Yet, Boehner now "intends to divert funding from the Justice Department to the U.S. House so Congress can defend the federal law."  He has also hired former Solicitor General Paul Clement, currently with a high-power law firm, to defend the law.  (JoeMyGod)


Interesting.  At the beginning of February, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the DOJ was under a hiring freeze and unnecessary travel had been halted.  This made DOJ workers feel the pressure of budget cuts. (MainJustice.com)  Now, Boehner wants to divert funds from the department to pay off some high priced attorney to defend an unconstitutional law.


So... The GOP was going to generate jobs?  Well, I guess creating one lawyer job is something.  But cutting employment at the DOJ can't help much.


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