The real next front should be DOMA, forget CA. DOMA is the Key

Posted in GD, want to repost here for my friends...

I can not tell you how happy I am that so many of you read my story. I did come home last night, and my husband was waiting at the door for me, and it was great we were still married! We were sad because we are now "special" and we do not want to be... We want everyone who wants to get married to get married.

Quickest way to defeat the Right, REPEAL DOMA.
The real battle that needs to be waged is DOMA. You see, DOMA does something that goes further than just stopping gay people from getting married, it strips gay men and women their constitutional rights under the fair faith and credit guaranteed in Article IV, Section 1.

Why is this the next battle front...

When a man and a women go to Ohio and marry, and years later move to Virginia, they are not required to get re-married. The state of Virginia accepts that if Ohio says they are married, then they are. This is with all contracts. For me and my husband, we do not get the same respect, our rights under the fair faith and credit clause is removed from us. My (now rare) CA marriage is not given the same rights as other people's CA marriage.

How does this tie it all up...
If we can get DOMA repealed the marriage battle is over, because you can go to one of the 4 states that do allow marriage and get married, and go home. It is only because of DOMA that they tell you to piss off. The Fair Faith and Credit clause is the key to getting what we want.

I flew to CA to get married, I do not live there. I live in West Virginia! WV does not recognize my marriage, but only because DOMA says they do not have to... So your state does not have to allow gay marriage, but the constitution says it has to recognize those preformed legally in another state... this was a key that our founding fathers put in to stop the very thing we are seeing.

Do not get me wrong, PROP 8 SUCKS ASS (and not in a good way), but if we can repeal DOMA, then the issue of one state allowing marriage and one not becomes MOOT, and from there, everyone will just give up the fight. Think about it... you can go to Mass, get married and fly back to Texas... and Texas has to give you the same rights as they give every other married couple in the state.

DOMA IS THE KEY, THE FAIR FAITH AND CREDIT IS THE LOCK.

several more states have gay marriage. taking this to a federal level before first having majority state support, wont work. i just dont think we have the political clout.

If there was NO DOMA all we would need is ONE STATE to allow gay marriage (we have 4) and the rest is MOOT. The FAIR FAITH AND CREDIT clause would do the rest.

Just like people keep saying, CASC was not about Gay Marriage, it was about was Prop 8 legally passed... IF you want to take DOMA to court (it has lost twice as it is) you do so NOT on the "Allow Gay Marriage" front, but on the question of restoring Fair Faith and credit to someone who has a legally binding contract.

SO FAR, EVERY TIME DOMA GOES BEFORE A COURT IT LOOSES. Little do you know, they have said before that the only thing stopping Gay marriage from become the law of the land is DOMA, and they has said that it would have a hard time standing up in court.

On another note...

Here is the thing, NO LONGER is my vote free. For to long the DEMS have given me lip service and expected my vote. NO MORE! They want my vote, EARN IT. Promises don't mean shit to me anymore. What I do in 2010 and 2012 has a lot to do with what is done right now....

I have long advocated pushing for what the states will countenance - and many states that are not ready for equal marriage are conducive to the idea of civil unions. Repeatedly, in different states, polls show 60%+ favoring civil unions, while 40%+ favor marriage equality.

So on a two-pronged front, push for marriage where we can and push for civil unions which give full legal rights as marriage (albeit without the name), AND push to repeal DOMA. The number of states with marriage equality and/or civil unions will swell from a half dozen to 20 or 25 - and when DOMA is repealed, Voila!, everybody is married.

It is the Federal level that matters, anyway, dealing with any inter-state complications (gay couple owns two homes - one in their home state, one a vacation home in a state that does not recognize gay marriage - upon a death, can that out-state property be passed on to the survivor?), IRS, etc.

And I am taking my first step in my fight for true LEGAL equality. My wife and I are on our way to IOWA! In July we will marry with family in attendance. We will then come home to Indiana and go through the name change process. My wife works for DHS and we will submit ourselves as a married couple to her government insurance plan. We will file income tax jointly . We will do everything any other married couple would do. WE WILL SEE what the powers that be have to say. We wonder where the denials will start. We will fight the state and federal government for the same rights as any other legally married couple. We will see.

PS: We are going to a town of population of under 1000. The county clerk and the recorder were very helpful and supportive on the phone. They want us there. The economy of Iowa has gained from marriage equality. By time the repugs can try to change the Iowa constitution, the Chamber of Commerces will have rainbow flags on their websites and businesses all over Iowa will be telling them to shut up and get with the program.

Seen a friend do that just recently and lose (Fed Civil Service)

4 states in 5 years. Great! At that rate we only have 32.5 more years to wait for our "inalienable" rights. Hell means I only have to wait till I'm 85 to marry. Yippy.

i just dont think we have the clout to remove doma yet. if you think so and are workign toward it, i will support you.

We shouldn't have to pick up and fly to another state to get married. We should be able to get married in any of the fifty states. That's why I favor addressing this on the federal level. Otherwise, there will be some conservative states like Idaho where it may never ever be possible to get marriage equality.

Besides, some low income people probably couldn't afford to fly off to Iowa or Massachusetts to get married. They should be able to get married right where they are.

I do of course favor repealing DOMA, but when it comes right down to it, we need federal civil rights legislation similar to the civil rights bill passed in 1964 which legalizes gay marriage nationwide.

If this is the stance you are going to take, then to be honest, brace yourself for a lot of disappointment.

At the core of what you are saying, I get it, I understand it, and I agree. That said, this ALL OR NOTHING stance is not going to help us get anywhere ever.

In the Real world all 50 states are not going to allow gay marriage. Given that marriage is a state issue, the best we can ever hope is that our marriage (regardless of where it is from) is recognizance where you live, that is what the US Constitution says should happen. That we can do! That we can do with the repeal of DOMA.

I am always shocked at the position that I see on this forum, that the solution is ONE WAY, and that ONLY BIG STEPS are acceptable.

I wish you understood that once DOMA is repealed, that for a while you are going to have to fly across the country to get married... but because your state is will be FORCED to acknowledge that VALID marriage lics... that keeping the BAN on gay marriage in your state becomes MOOT, and them the economics of the issue steps in, and most states will allow gay marriage... WE WIN.

I believe that the Latino community is pivotal in this state. In the last election they were influenced by right-wing Catholic fear tactics. In the next election, the Latino community could be motivated by the fear that the Prop 8 ruling has allowed a simple majority to be able to remove rights from a protected minority through the initiative process, and more and more progressives are recognizing the value of standing up for civil rights.

The fact is with opposition to gay marriage still as high as it is now nationwide, and as spread out as it is, it's just not practical politically to expect senators from say Kansas to support the repeal of DOMA, heck I'd be surprised if senators in swing states like PA would be willing to vote to overturn DOMA.

While we do have something like 10 senators who have openly endorsed gay marriage, that's not anywhere near enough to repeal gay marriage.

I think the better idea to push for quicker nationwide marriage equality is to go into the states where we can win and get gay marriage legalized, and if that's not possible then civil unions for gays. We also ought start fighting back against gay marriage ban amendments in places that have it that seem likely to reject gay marriage bans now. By making gay marriage/civil unions for gays legal throughout more of the country people will probably be quicker to come to their senses and see that gay marriage isn't a bad thing to fear like too many do now.

Don't think that those 4 years will be wasted if DOMA isn't overturned in that time however, at gay marriage's current rate of growth in support as many people who oppose abortion will support gay marriage in 2012, and you know how conservative politicians aren't shy to shout their opposition of it to everyone they see with that kind of support. 2012 ought to be the time to attack DOMA through the legislature if the courts haven't axed it by then.

DETROIT — U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, said Saturday in an interview with Michigan Messenger that the votes are in place in the House Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Gay rights advocates have been working to get the law repealed as more states pass laws allowing same-sex couples to get married.

“Well in my committee, yes, but in the House and Senate, that’s a different question,” Conyers said in terms of a DOMA repeal passing.

Asked if he supported marriage equality for the gay community, the congressman replied, “Sure. I always have.”

A repeal of DOMA would open the door to allowing marriages of same-sex partners performed in others states to be recognized throughout the state, as well as the federal government.

http://michiganmessenger.com/19294/conyers-says-he-has-votes-to-repeal-defense-of-marriage-act

You're trying to take down a scaffold. You don't know where all the loose screws are. You don't know its weakest points. There may be a "magic point" that you can use to bring the whole thing down -- but it's unlikely -- and if there is such a point, it's unlikely you'll identify it correctly

What do you do? You rattle the hell out of that suckah. You pull here, you pull there, you watch what happens, and you try to learn from it. If you can't bring the whole thing down, bring a piece of it down. If you can bend it here, that weakens it somewhere else. If you can take an entire state, take it: that gives you leverage over the Congressional delegation there, and you can dent DOMA and DADT

You have the numbers; you just need folk swarming on this thing