Gay Rights are Human Rights

The Obama administration is facing another test of its commitment to human rights: whether or not to extend health insurance benefits to same-sex spouses of federal employees. The administration has to respond to a Ninth Circuit Court ruling in California which mandated the federal government to provide health insurance benefits to spouses of gay federal employees, a right that is enjoyed by millions of straight federal employees and their spouses. The Bush administration argued that this would be a violation of a federal statute as mandated by the Defense of Marriage Act passed during the Clinton Administration in 1996 (DOMA), which defined marriage as a union between man and woman, setting off a series of legal precedents which denied basic government protection against discrimination to millions of gay Americans. The Ninth Circuit court judge argued in his decision that the Defense of Marriage Act violated the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of "due process of law" and is therefore unconstitutional. The case is almost certainly going to end up in front of the Supreme Court.

This issue goes beyond health insurance--which is important enough given the scarcity and the astronomical price tag of health insurance in this country as well as the extensive health coverage the federal government offers to its employees--but goes to the heart of the American ideal that all human beings should be treated equally not on the basis of some political, social, or personal character, but by the mere fact that they are human beings and American citizens.

The main argument of the Right-wing ideologues on this issues rests on the defense of laws which for gays today are almost equivalent to what Jim Crow laws were for the African-Americans some 60 years ago. The Defense of Marriage Act was one of the most cowardly political maneuvers of Clinton who used to drive me nuts with his desire to have his cake and eat it too. It was hailed as a "compromise" by the Clinton Democrats to the far right-wing in what was an all out cultural war in the 1990s. It was at the height of the Democratic Leadership Council's cowering attempts to take off the cloak of liberalism from the party and move to what they called "centrist" position (and we saw how that served them during the ensuing 8 years of Republican dominance). The Defense of Marriage Act is a blatant discriminatory measure, passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President, that claims that millions of Americans can be legally placed outside of the law just because the government does not like their choice of partners in life. It is a slippery slope when the government starts mandating sexuality and taste, crafting discrimination in a legal language that is somehow beyond criticism. The Defense of Marriage Act needs to be repealed today.

The issue is also tangentially connected to another legacy of the Clinton Democrats: "don't ask, don't tell". The policy stated that gay military personnel can serve in the military as long as they are not openly gay; otherwise, the military can dishonorably discharge anyone who is openly gay. The way I read this policy is: you have to remain in the closet because being a homosexual is something the government finds unlawful! This policy strikes me as one of the most cynical, blatantly hateful, anti-American, and stupidest policies in the history of the Democratic Party's governance. The fact that the policy resulted from Clinton's well-intentioned desire to offer equal rights to gay Americans serving in the military is what makes the policy even more breathtakingly stupid. What started as Clinton's progressive move to protect gays in the military from being fired just on the basis of their sexual orientation turned into a fossilization of legal discrimination against gay Americans. The infamous law takes its place right next to the DOMA in a shameful cannon of discriminatory jurisprudence. The human consequences of this anti-American measure can be seen in some 12,500 lives of soldiers who have been fired from the military for being openly gay and whose careers have been ruined.

Obama's opposition to gay marriage is still completely baffling to me. He opposes it on the basis of an antiquarian Biblical definition of an institution which is not religious, but secular and therefore, state-sponsored. Nobody is mandating that Churches preform gay marriage, but at the same time, nobody should mandate that the Churches should tell the state how to regulate its own institution. We have been through this discussion already and it was called the Enlightenment!

However, I am encouraged by Obama's strong, consistent, and genuine support for gay rights which seem to be a cleverly devised policy to make the polarizing debate over marriage moot (by giving gay Americans all the right "married" Americans enjoy but without the name). While in the Senate Obama supported repealing the DOMA, "don't ask, don't tell," as well as the extension of benefits to gay couples, including health insurance, hospital visitation rights, etc. What is even more encouraging is that during his campaign he openly supported the same policies and since becoming President has appointed openly gay Americans to some key posts, including the influential Director of Personnel office John Berry.

But now is also the time for Obama has to step up, issue an executive order, creating a commission composed of legal scholars and gay activists to study a complete overhaul in the government's position towards gay Americans. He also needs to work with Pelosi and Reid in getting them to repeal the DOMA and with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in repealing "don't ask, don't tell." There are already more encouraging signs: the wanna-be Democrat and former Republican Joe Liebermann is sponsoring a resolution to repeal the DOMA. At the same time, the public opinion as well as the opinion of many military personnel is on the Obama side so he should have no problem in ignoring and shaming the Republican right-wingers, such as Tony Perkins and CO., whose shrillness and obsession with this issues raises some serious questions about their own sexuality.

I am confident Obama will do the right thing in this case.