Updated: On the fall of DOMA, and till death do us part

Two weeks ago, John Arthur and Jim Obergefell flew from their Ohio home to Maryland to marry. They did it in a chartered plane with speciality medical equipment, because John is dying of ALS. Upon return to Ohio, they sued to have their marriage recognized, so that Jim could be listed as "husband" on John's death certificate.  This is important, because John wants to be buried in a family plot, and non-family members must be spouses to be interred there.  If they are not considered married, then Jim will not be eligible to lie by John's side in the future.

And yesterday, a federal judge ruled in their favor.

Throughout Ohio’s history, Ohio law has been clear: a marriage solemnized outside of Ohio is valid in Ohio if it is valid where solemnized. Thus, for example,under Ohio law, out-of-state marriages between first cousins are recognized by Ohio,even though Ohio law does not authorize marriages between first cousins. Likewise,under Ohio law, out of state marriages of minors are recognized by Ohio, even thoughOhio law does not authorize marriages of minors. 

How then can Ohio, especially given the historical status of Ohio law, single outsame sex marriages as ones it will not recognize? The short answer is that Ohio cannot … at least not under the circumstances here. 

By treating lawful same sex marriages differently than it treats lawful opposite sexmarriages (e.g., marriages of first cousins and marriages of minors), Ohio law, as applied to these Plaintiffs, likely violates the United States Constitution which guarantees that”No State shall make or enforce any law which shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws. 

The end result here and now is that the local Ohio Registrar of death certificates is hereby ORDERED not to accept for recording a death certificate for John Arthur that does not record Mr. Arthur’s status at death as ‘married’ and James Obergefell as his ‘surviving spouse.'

Marriage matters, even unto death.  And the DOMA decision from SCOTUS is already reverberating.  John Aravosis writes,

I really think the court granted us nationwide gay marriage in all but name. Yes, the way they did it requires us to go state-by-state and strike down individual state-DOMA laws, but that was the genius of the court’s decision. They paid homage to the notion that the court shouldn’t upend the “democratic experiment” taking place in the states, while at the same time coming up with a decision that basically leaves the states no wiggle room to say “no” to marriage equality for gays once the state DOMAs are challenged. 

So yes, it will take longer for us to get marriage in 50 states – thus a nod to the notion that the court shouldn’t change everything nationwide immediately – but at the same time, they pretty much guaranteed that we’ll win. And this Ohio ruling is quite possibly the first evidence of that fact.

Meanwhile, those of you so inclined might put John Arthur and Jim Obergefell on your prayer list.

Update:  the Attorney General plans to appeal, even though the Court's ruling is specific to these two individuals and can have no possible bearing on any other Ohioan.  From Think Progress:

The day after a judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring Ohio to list Arthur’s husband as his “surviving spouse” on his death certificate, DeWine announced that he wouldappeal this decision and try to strip a dying man of his final wish.
There are marriage equality cases with sweeping national implications. This is not one of them. The judge’s order is limited exclusively to Arthur and Obergefell..... 

Yet, while Ohio has nothing to gain from simply complying with the judges’ order, Arthur and Obergefell have a tremendous amount to lose. Thanks to DeWine’s appeal, Arthur will spend his last days unsure whether he and his husband can someday lie together in his family burial plot. The two men’s final moments will be poisoned by uncertainty over their lawsuit.... 

There is a common refrain among marriage equality’s opponents that discrimination is necessary to remove some kind of “threat” equality poses to straight couples’ marriages. This case is a put up or shut up moment for these voices. ...Who does DeWine think he is serving by filing this appeal? 

Someday very soon, Obergefell will go home, lie in an empty bed, and confront for the first time the prospect of a life without his husband. In that moment of loss, he believes he will find some comfort if the State of Ohio acknowledges that he feels the same pain that he would have felt if he were married to a woman. That’s what DeWine wants to take away. And it will gain the people of Ohio nothing.

Supreme Court to decide: do gay people exist?

Next Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on California Proposition 8, the voter initiative that overturned marriage equality in my home state.  18,000 couples married in the brief window before it passed, and I proudly stand as one of them.  The question now is whether California can legally deny the word "marriage" to devoted couples in legal partnerships.  The crux is what the goal of Prop8 was, and since all it did was take away the word, and not other aspects of marriage, its achievement is purely to make gay people "less than". (I commented on this at the time.)

Then, on Wednesday, the court will hear arguments on DOMA, the federal law that prevents legally married same sex couples like me and my wife from the over 1300 federal rights and benefits of marriage.  This one seems pretty clearly a fail on the constitutional issue of equal protection, but we'll see.

Zack Ford tells us what these cases are really about.

While there are various legal nuances to how both the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 cases might be decided, the Justices will actually be weighing a more fundamental question: Do gay people exist? 

At the core of conservatives’ argument against marriage equality in both cases is the idea that gay people actually do not exist — only “homosexual behavior” does. ... In other words, people are only really gay when they’re having gay sex — otherwise they’re not. 

Herein lies greatest challenge for gay and lesbian civil rights: the fact that sexual orientation is an invisible identity. Unlike race or gender, it cannot so easily be superficially assessed. Thus, conservatives are counting on doubt and distrust, urging the Court to dismiss whatever gay people actually say about their lived experiences — discount every individual’s coming out story, ignore decades of gay culture and gay history, and disregard the scientific conclusions of the entiremajor medical community. In fact, opponents of equality regularly claim that “the gay agenda” is merely a conspiratorial quest to validate sinful behavior — as opposed to an effort to allow millions of people to participate fairly in society. 

The Court will have the opportunity to weigh the question of whether gay men and lesbians exist in both a legal and practical sense. ...

If any of the Justices determine that the answer.... is “no,” they would have to deny many facts in the process. They would have to discount the government’s Lavender Scare witch hunts of the 1950s, decades of police persecution and brutality, the ambivalence to research HIV when hundreds of gay men were dying of AIDS, and laws that have specifically targeted gays and lesbians for discrimination, like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” They would have to set aside the 38 states that have banned same-sex marriage, many by a majority vote in a constitutional referendum. And they’d have to impose their own understandings of identity upon the millions of people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual and cannot change their sexual orientation. 

The end result of these cases will determine the legality of same-sex marriage, but for the first time, the Court could actually acknowledge that gay people exist and thus deserve protection under the U.S. Constitution. On both a symbolic and legal level, the latter victory could be much more significant.

What can you do?  Come out for equality!  In advance of Tuesday's SCOTUS arguments on marriage equality:

1.  Wear red on Tuesday in support of equality!
2.  Participate in peaceful pro-equality demonstrations, in Washington DC and beyond.  These will be going on in all 50 states, some on the weekend, some on the eve, and some on the day.

It's time!

Episcopal Bishops join Amici briefs

Episcopal bishops have joined two amicus briefs, one opposed to Prop8, and one opposed to DOMA.  Glad to see it!  Will quote when I can.

Other amici joining the Episcopal bishops on both briefs include the Rabbinical Assembly, which is the international association of Conservative rabbis; the Union for Reform Judaism; the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, the professional association of Reconstructionist rabbis; the Unitarian Universalist Association; and the United Church of Christ among others. Groups within the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American, Society of Friends, and The United Methodist Church also signed the brief.

Friends of the Court

We are in the phase of amici, or "friends of the court" briefs being filed with the Supreme Court in advance of the upcoming arguments on Proposition 8 (which rescinded the right of same sex couples to marry in California) and on DOMA, the mis-named Defense of Marriage Act (which prevents the Federal Government from recognizing legal marriages between same sex couples).  

Long time readers of this blog will know that I am legally married to another woman.  We married during that blessed summer of love, the 5 months  during 2008 when marriage between same sex couples was legal, before Prop8 (or as we in California call it, Prop H8) passed.  We remain legally and joyfully married, but our marriage is not federally recognized, which leads to all sorts of difficulties.  So we are quite interested in the upcoming arguments on the Constitutionality of both these laws, which I follow a little bit here and a lot on my other blog, Gay Married Californian.  (My Episcopalian friends may also be interested to know that yesterday was an anniversary, not of our wedding in 2008, but of the blessing of our civil marriage in 2011.  But enough about me.)

Among the surprises in the recent amici briefs were submissions against Prop8 and DOMA by a large number of companies, and also a brief from a large number of Republicans arguing that Prop8 should be overturned.  (Cynics will note that these are generally politicians out of office, and pundits--politicians still in office are afraid to piss off the loud minority opposed to equality.)

Still, it's important progress, and we hope will be noticed by the Court.  David Frum, one of the Republican signatories, explains his change of heart here

I signed it as a long-time opponent of same-sex marriage, worried by exactly the arguments advanced by the Californians who passed Proposition 8 to stop it: that the spread of same-sex marriage would change the way men and women thought about marriage in ways that would discourage them from forming married families. 

Since 2009, we have seen a sharp decline in this country in both marriage and childbearing. But that decline obviously has little or nothing to do with same-sex marriage. It has obviously everything to do with the economic crisis—and the long previous years of persistent decline in the wages and opportunities of Americans, especially young Americans. 

As a conservative concerned with stabilizing families to rely less on government aid, I have been convinced: I've been worrying about the wrong thing. Stopping same-sex marriages does nothing to support families battered by economic adversity. Instead, it excludes and punishes people who seek only to live as conservatives would urge them to live. Treating same-sex partnerships differently from husband-wife marriages only serves to divide and antagonize those who ought to be working together. 

....The America of the future is rising all around us. It will be a different and often surprising country. It will be a country that judges personal relationships not by the chromosome pairing of any given couple, but by that couple's mutual commitment and shared responsibility. This is a future that Republicans should welcome—and are welcoming. It's why this amicus brief is gaining signatures every day—and why the party of individual freedom can give voice to gay equality.

 Final amici briefs for overturning Prop8 are due tomorrow.

No news on Prop8 or DOMA before Friday

The estimable Scotusblog (@scotusblog) tweets today,

#scotus is almost sure to act on same-sex marriage (#ssm) late this Friday afternoon so it can hear arguments this March.

And the Supreme Court Decides…

Not to decide.  At least, not today.  They may tell us on Monday.  More likely Tuesday,  or possibly next Friday.  Or maybe the week after that.

Here's a detailed overview on what the cases are and what we might expect.

From an op/ed at ScotusBlog:

I have never before seen cases that I believed would be discussed two hundred years from now.  Bush v. Gore and Obamacare were relative pipsqueaks.  The government’s assertion of the power to prohibit a loving couple to marry, or to refuse to recognize such a marriage, is profound.  So is the opposite claim that five Justices can read the federal Constitution to strip the people of the power to enact the laws governing such a foundational social institution.
...
The striking feature of these cases – not present in any others I have ever seen – is that that they would have been decided by the Justices’ predecessors one way and would be decided by the Justices’ successors another way.
….
Our country and societies around the world will read the Justices’ decision(s) not principally as a legal document but instead as a statement by a wise body about whether same-sex marriages are morally right or wrong.  The issues are that profound and fraught; they in a sense seem to transcend “law.”  Given the inevitability of same-sex marriage, if the Court rules against those claiming a right to have such unions recognized, it will later be judged to be “on the wrong side of history.” 

But the verdict of history cannot decide the legal questions presented by these cases.  The cases arrive today, in this moment, before our cultural transition has completed.  In a sense, it is a shame that there is such pressure to hear the cases now; the judgment for the rest of the nation’s history would certainly favor these claims.  But if they do decide to grant review, the Justices cannot merely choose to embrace the past or the future.  They will have to make a judgment now

Another DOMA case

DOMA is the Defense of Marriage Act. Passed in 1996, before anyone even dreamed that gay couples could marry, its clause 3 forbids the Federal Government from recognizing legally married gay couples.  Which is why my marriage is non-existant to the Fed, leading to a pattern of insults large and small from taxes to customs to pensions. Our attorney and accountant make money of this. We are expected to lie to the IRS (it's the law) and we've been routinely insulted by customs agents.

In the latest case, legally married Edie Windsor protested the fact that the IRS charged her wife's estate over $300,000 dollars in estate taxes that would not have been charged had she been married to a man. Edie and Thea were together for 44 years.

The Federal District Court in NY found no reason why Edie's and Thea's marriage should be so disadvantaged or how this disadvantage would somehow promote straight couples marrying or bearing children.

That brings to 5 the cases that have found DOMA unconstitutional. The furthest along is in the 1st circuit (where the 1st circuit appeals court just found DOMA unconstitutional).  There are 3 cases in CA (on appeal to the 9th).  The current case, if appealed, will go to the second circuit.

This is headed to the Supreme Court, for sure.

More here.

Update:  From the decision.

These are interests in the choices that heterosexual couples make:  whether to get married, and whether and when to have children.  Yet DOMA has no direct impact on heterosexual couples at all;  therefore, its ability to deter those couples from having children outside of marriage, or to incentivize couples that are pregnant to get married, is remote at best.  It does not follow from the exclusion of one group from federal benefits (same sex married persons) that another group of people (opposite sex married couples ) will be incentivized to take any action , whether that is marriage or procreation. …the Court cannot see a link between DOMA and childrearing.  DOMA does not determine who may adopt and raise children  Nor could it, as these matters of family structure and relations "belong [] to the laws of the States and not to the laws of the United States." 

Or put another way, last night, BP and I found out the nice young couple next door is expecting a baby.  "Wow", I said, "They must not know we're married lesbians!"

Breaking: DOJ won't defend sec. 3 of DOMA

I have been following several federal cases that challenge section 3 of DOMA, which forbids the Federal Government from recognizing legal same sex marriages. (The other section says that STATES don't have to recognize them).

Numerous challenges have been brought that point out that the Federal Government is treating legally married citizens differently according to their gender. The furthest along is in Massachusetts, where a Federal Judge found for the married couples, and appeals were being files to take it to the Circuit court of appeal, and from there possibly to the Supreme Court. There are other cases pending too.

Now, the Dept of Justice announces they will not defend section 3 in two cases in the 2nd District court. (Despite claims otherwise, they are not required to defend if they don't want to). Other cases, confusingly, will continue to move forward; it appears this is specific to the 2nd district because there isn't already precedent there. but they will make it clear in other cases of their belief that strict scrutiny applies.

After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination.

....

Furthermore, pursuant to the President ’ s instructions, and upon further notification to Congress, I will instruct Department attorneys to advise courts in other pending DOMA litigation of the President's and my conclusions that a heightened standard should apply, that Section 3 is unconstitutional under that standard and that the Department will cease defense of Section 3.

....

Much of the legal landscape has changed in the 15 years since Congress passed DOMA. The Supreme Court has ruled that laws criminalizing homosexual conduct are unconstitutional. Congress has repealed the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Several lower courts have ruled DOMA itself to be unconstitutional. Section 3 of DOMA will continue to remain in effect unless Congress repeals it or there is a final judicial finding that strikes it down, and the President has informed me that the Executive Branch will continue to enforce the law. But while both the wisdom and the legality of Section 3 of DOMA will continue to be the subject of both extensive litigation and public debate, this Administration will no longer assert its constitutionality in court.

Some commentary:

According to an administration official, Robert Bauer has been reviewing the legal landscape since he became White House counsel in 2010. As the Justice Department noted today, in the 15 years since Congress passed the act, the Supreme Court has invalidated laws criminalizing gay sex, lower courts have ruled DOMA unconstitutional, and Congress agreed to abolish the ban on gays serving openly in the military.

The announcement today does not overturn the law. That would take an act of Congress or a final finding by the judicial branch, probably the Supreme Court. But it changes the vector of the legal cases considerably. Privately, the administration believes that five justices of the Court, including Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote, would find parts or most of DOMA invalid if the federal government withdrew its arguments in defense of it.

Update Detailed legal argument in the letter from AG Holder to Speaker Boehner here.

More at Gay married Californian.

Important: DOMA is still the law of the land and we are still denied our 1400 rights. This just means that DoJ will not defend section 3 in federal court. It's an improvement, but the game is still very much on.

New DOMA case: arguments begin today.

On Friday, a new DOMA case began: Golinski v OPM. I've told you previously about the ongoing effort of Karen Golinski, an employee of the Ninth Circuit court of appeals, to get medical coverage for her wife. (The Ninth Circuit is hearing the Prop8 appeal.)

Chief Judge Kozinski, who heard her employee grievance, agreed, because the Ninth does not allow discrimination on the basis of orientation. But the Office of Personnel Management refused to comply because of DOMA. (It's a great irony that OPM is headed by John Berry, the highest ranking gay appointed by President Obama.)

Now, Ms Golinski is suing OPM in US District Court. The Advocate reports,

Part of Lambda's argument against OPM in this case is that DOMA is unconstitutional, specifically because it discriminates based on sex and sexual orientation and it infringes on the right to privacy. Lambda is arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which in 2003 overturned laws against sodomy, set a precedent for the federal government respecting one's familial relationships.

Lambda Legal also plans to tell district court judge Jeffrey White that he need not find DOMA unconstitutional to rule that Golinski's spouse is entitled to health insurance. "OPM, under the authority of President Obama, is part of the Executive Branch of the federal government, and lacks authority to override internal personnel decisions made by the Judicial Branch as it works to end discrimination against lesbian and gay court employees," says a press release from Lambda Legal.

It's worth reminding you that OPM itself has already been sued twice on DOMA (other entities are also defending DOMA suits). First in Gill v OPM. In this case, a legally married Massachusetts resident sued for a federal work benefit for her wife. Federal Judge Joseph Tauro found that the clause of DOMA that prevents federal recognition of legal same sex marriages was unconstitutional. Obama's Department of Justice is appealing the ruling. (The appeal is necessary if it is to extend beyond Massachusetts--it has to get into the Circuit courts of appeal and up to the SCOTUS).

The second case, currently pending, is Pederson v OPM, which challenges state and private entities that rely on DOMA to deny benefits to married same sex couples.

Now we can add Golinski v. OPM. As always, I will follow these at Gay Married Californian.

Picture from the Advocate

Part of DOMA declared unconstitutional by 3rd District

From The Advocate:

In a major victory for marriage equality advocates, a federal judge in Boston ruled on Thursday in two separate cases that a critical portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.

In one challenge brought by the state of Massachusetts, U.S. district judge Joseph Tauro ruled that Congress violated the constitution when it passed DOMA and took from the states decisions concerning which couples can be considered married.

In the other, Tauro ruled that DOMA violates equal protection principles of the constitution as embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. ....

"In the wake of DOMA, it is only sexual orientation that differentiates a married couple entitled to federal marriage-based benefits from one not so entitled," Tauro wrote. "And this court can conceive of no way in which such a difference might be relevant to the provision of the benefits at issue."

Since Obama's administration was defending DOMA, we'll see if they go up the foodchain of appeal, and whether they fiercely advocate for second class citizenship....

More on this at Gay Married Californian

Obama argues for DOMA

Americablog is reporting on the DOMA case coming before the Federal Court. The lawyers for Obama are using all the old arguments. According to Americablog:

We just got the brief from reader Lavi Soloway. It's pretty despicable, and gratuitously homophobic. It reads as if it were written by one of George Bush's top political appointees. I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn't just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn't motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn't be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles). He argued that DOMA doesn't discriminate against us because it also discriminates about straight unmarried couples (ignoring the fact that they can get married and we can't).

He actually argued that the courts shouldn't consider Loving v. Virginia, the miscegenation case in which the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban interracial marriages, when looking at gay civil rights cases. He told the court, in essence, that blacks deserve more civil rights than gays, that our civil rights are not on the same level.

And before Obama claims he didn't have a choice, he had a choice. Bush, Reagan and Clinton all filed briefs in court opposing current federal law as being unconstitutional (we'll be posting more about that later). Obama could have done the same. But instead he chose to defend DOMA, denigrate our civil rights, go back on his promises, and contradict his own statements that DOMA was "abhorrent." Folks, Obama's lawyers are even trying to diminish the impact of Roemer and Lawrence, our only two big Supreme Court victories. Obama is quite literally destroying our civil rights gains with this brief. He's taking us down for his own benefit.

Here is the case.

The violence of DOMA laws

Episcopal Cafe reports why Defense of Marriage Acts (DOMA) are religious violence:

1) DOMA Laws violate sacred texts. Many of the arguments against gay and lesbian civil unions or marriage appeal to biblical texts from Genesis, Leviticus, Romans, or I Corinthians. But such arguments impose upon the texts a twentieth century understanding of sexual identity alien to the Jewish or Hellenistic cultures in which these texts arose.

2) DOMA Laws elevate heterosexual marriage to idolatrous status. In some communities of faith, defending “marriage” has become all but an item of confessional status (it is absent from any historic Christian Confessions). This arrogates to a majority – heterosexuals – special privileges (economic, social, and spiritual) not available to sexual minorities.

3) DOMA Laws scapegoat gays and lesbians. As Rene Girard argues, scapegoating is a chief manifestation of religious violence. It is difficult to see what real threat is posed to heterosexual intimacy, much less to civil society, by the desire of homosexuals for similar rights. It is easy to see how DOMA laws organize consent over and against a relatively voiceless and powerless group.

4) DOMA Laws sacrifice homosexual rights, and damage civil society, in the interest of religious purity. One measure of the justice in any society is how well it cares for vulnerable members. Sexual difference marks individuals as both vulnerable and “dangerous.” And as Mary Douglass showed, any “danger” against which a law must defend is invariably constructed around some purity interest. DOMA Laws require gays and lesbians to sacrifice rights others take for granted, and render them subject to legalized forms of exclusion and discrimination. They damage the deep trust that is the most important social practice in civil society.

5) DOMA Laws confuse legislation with religion, and violate the First Amendment, as Ann Pellegrini and Janet Jakobsen have argued. It is entirely permissible (although ethically subject to scrutiny) for private communities to shape the boundaries of association in whatever ways members agree upon. It is a violation of the First Amendment’s protection of free association to inhibit by law some forms of association that pose no harm to the common good, and a violation of the freedom from an established religion when religiously-inspired exclusions are written into law.

6) DOMA Laws perpetuate an association of sex with power, and thereby do damage to any sacramental sensibility that might remain in association with even heterosexual marriage. As Hendrik Hartog and other historians have shown, marriages have shifted in the modern era from patriarchal patterns of coverture to social contracts in which couples seek mutual fulfillment. Such contracts might be compatible with a sacramental sensibility, since they entail pledges of sexual fidelity and commitments to share social resources and responsibilities, along with (one might argue) other gifts of God. DOMA Laws associate sexual fidelity with legislated forms of coercive power, and inhibit the deep trust and mutuality intrinsic to modern (and sacramental) marriage. They establish hierarchies of relationships, and associate heterosexual unions (and sexual practices) with dominance.

Read more and links to Religion Dispatches here.

One small step in one conservative state

February 6, 2009

Greetings from Wyoming,

Friends, we are still the Equality State! After a week of up and down actions and emotions, the House of Representatives defeated the Defense of Marriage Amendment in the Committee of the Whole in a resounding 35 to 25 vote earlier today.

The week began on Monday when the House Judiciary Committee voted 5 to 4 to pass on to the House floor a bill to add “Sexual Orientation” to all the present laws of Wyoming that list group[s] to be protected under the law. That now seems to be buried on the Speaker's desk waiting to see if it will come to a vote.

Tuesday dawned early as the House Judicial Committee met to consider the Defense of Marriage Amendment (DOMA). The room and the hall outside was full of people to testify on both sides of the issue. “WY Watch” an arm or close associate of Focus on the Family was there in force including an imported lawyer, to tell us all how we must define in our Constitution that marriage is the union between one man and one woman. After 6 ½ hours of testimony ranging in three segments from 8:00 AM to 6”30 PM the committee voted 5 to 4 in favor of passing the resolution on to the House with a Do Pass recommendation.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent in building opposition to the bill and enlisting allies to lobby against this resolution. These, again, were long days of talking and talking and talking to representative and getting information together for our allies on the floor. The work was being done to prepare for the third reading of the bill when it had to have 2/3 majority of the house to pass. The expectation was that yesterday or today the resolution would be brought to the committee of the whole reading and would pass. Our hopes were pinned on that third reading vote.

This morning the resolution came up for a vote in the House, Committee of the ‘Whole. There were two Representatives who spoke in favor of the Resolution and six or seven who spoke against it, including one I had talked with and who felt it would best be served by going to the people for their vote. He spoke against the resolution and voted against it. And after a voice vote, a stand up count of votes and a roll call, the House voted the resolution down by a vote of 35 against—20 for. I was stunned as were my friends in the gallery.

My friends who spoke out against this resolution felt vindicated and appreciated once more as we realized we are not the bad guys we were painted as by those in favor of this DOMA Resolution. All of us at Wyoming Equality are thankful for our friends in and out of Wyoming who have been there for us as we have worked so hard to defeat this resolution. LGBT folks and our allies (of which there are so many) are grateful for all the work that has gone into this effort; the calls, the letters, the emails, the talking to folks, and the hours of leg work. We are especially thankful for all those Representatives who supported us throughout this time and especially in the vote this morning.

Bob Spencer
Social Change Coordinator
Wyoming Equality

Join the Impact again

We will not give up, and we are not done. Time to join the impact again, this time to support the repeal of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act). This federal law, supported in one of his more craven moments by then-President Clinton, specifically allows states to refuse to recognize gay marriages or civil unions from any other state. It is even considered a failure by its hard-right author, B1-Bob Barr, on purely libertarian grounds (Barr's recent editorial in the LA Times here). Barack Obama is on the record as opposing DOMA: you can joint a petition campaign and encourage him to live up to what he said. (Am I being too cynical that I suspect he won't?)

This weekend, on 10 January, once again JoinTheImpact is facilitating peaceful protests around the country against DOMA. See if there is a protest in a city near you, and join the impact.

Hey, no one said this would be easy. No one said we would win soon. We can't give up and we are not done.