All Married Couples will receive equal treatment from the Federal Government
The full array of American opinion on gay marriage has been on display all week, with decisions and rhetoric that cover all bases.
President Barack Obama's administration announced today that the Labor Department will draft rules allowing same-sex married partners who work for the federal government to take leave to care for an ill spouse -- just as heterosexual married couples already could.
That's just one step. In a memo to Obama today, Attorney General Eric Holder said the government has taken many others, working over the last 12 months to ensure “that committed and loving married couples throughout the country would receive equal treatment by their federal government regardless of their sexual orientation."
The Social Security Administration announced that it will extend survivor benefits, lump-sum death benefits and aged-spouse benefits to same-sex couples in states that grant inheritance rights to gay couples under state law. Federal law bars the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs from issuing directives that conflict with laws in states that do not recognize gay marriage, but the Social Security Administration suggested that it may have some leeway. For example, if benefits are granted when a couple lives in a state recognizing gay marriage and the couple later moves to a more restrictive state, the benefits could continue.
Furthermore, some states allow for certain inheritance rights in a "non-marital legal relationship," such as a civil union. Ohio, however, is not one of those, according to information from the Social Security Administration.
In addition to the Social Security announcement, the acting director of the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that VA will allow, on a case-by-case basis, married gay couples to be buried side-by-side in VA cemeteries. The word "marriage" will not define the standard, because of state laws that use that word restrictively. Instead, VA will consider national-cemetery burial benefits for anyone in a "committed relationship."
Additionally, VA will issue stipends to cover funeral and burial costs to the "survivor of a legal union." The old rule used the words “eligible surviving spouse,” which could create obstacles for married gay couples.
June has always been a big month for brides and grooms. But June 26 marks the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down the section of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, that prohibited the federal government from providing benefits to same-sex married couples.
After that ruling, the Justice Department quickly set out to identify "every federal law, rule, policy and practice" in which marital status was a factor, seeking to expunge DOMA's "discriminatory effect," Holder said. His 9-page memo today laid out the results and announced the VA and Social Security news.
Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, said today's actions "take us ever closer to the day when all American families enjoy full and equal justice under law." She urged Congress to pass the Respect For Marriage Act "and make marriage equality the law of the land."
That is unlikely. The Republican Party has a majority in the House of Representatives and enough members in the Senate to block bills recognizing gay marriage. The opposition is so strong that Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, who last year began supporting gay marriage, said that his stance on the issue would make it hard for him to win the GOP presidential nomination if he ran.
"It puts me at odds with my party in many respects," Portman said in a videotaped interview for the Wall Street Journal's website with Peter Robinson, a fellow with the conservative Hoover Institution. In the interview, posted Tuesday, Portman said that he believes that treating people as they are is “a conservative position."
"My God," he continued, "is a God of mercy and justice and grace and acceptance. So I'm very sort of reconciled with my position on this, which is that my son and others who are gay and lesbians ought to be able to lead their lives as my wife and I have for 28 years now."
But politically, “It probably makes it difficult for me to win a primary election at the national level."
A different set of opinions was voiced on Capitol Hill during the 2014 March for Marriage on Thursday, sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage. The event did not get widespread press coverage, and in interviews with the Daily Signal, an online news platform created by the Heritage Foundation, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, Republican of Kansas, said the media has promoted "homosexual marriage" and "a breakdown of families."
“We've reaped the whirlwind of disaster because of that for numerous years," Huelskamp said.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum, a Republican from Pennsylvania and one-time presidential candidate, told the Daily Signal that the media have tried to “redefine what marriage is, so through that redefinition it makes it obvious that anybody should be able to get married and as many people as they want should be able to get married, because it simply is a relationship and nothing more than that."
And former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, another former presidential candidate, called it "inexplicable" that in the current culture, "if you take a stand against tradition, you're somehow open-minded, but if you believe that those traditions are there for a reason and that they have served us well, then you are a hater. I don’t follow that."
Nationally, 55 percent of Americans support gay marriage, a new high, according to the Gallup polling organization. But that does not translate to legalization in every state. Ohio voters banned gay marriage in 2004, but activists say voters appear willing to reverse that decision now. Yet groups pushing for the right may wait to go to the ballot, saying they want to make sure the time is right rather than risk losing.
By
By 
Comments