Defense of Marriage Act violates 14th Amendment and must be repealed
While researching gay rights in our state, or lack thereof, for a class paper, I shamefully realized I had not been staying particularly up to date with an issue I feel passionate about. I was delighted to discover that in February, President Barack Obama and his administration declared they would no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), only to become disheartened they aren’t really going to do anything about its repeal. However, Democrats in Congress have recently begun efforts to repeal the act through a bill entitled the Respect for Marriage Act. Needless to say, House Speaker John Boehner and Republicans have launched their own efforts on the defensive side of the DOMA spectrum. DOMA is unconstitutional and openly discriminatory against gay and transgendered citizens of the United States. There are two principal provisions of the act. One defines marriage as “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” The other declares that no state, nor the federal government, is required to recognize any “relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as marriage under the laws” of any other state.
Supporters of DOMA often raise religious arguments to defend the sanctity of marriage and to claim homosexuality is an abomination, and while dozens of retorts could be made against fundamental interpretations of scripture (including these supporters’ hypocritical insistence on picking and choosing which textual laws to abide by), the fact is that this is a secular nation with a separation between church and state, and there should be no need to justify these invalid arguments with such retorts. The issue deals with the denial of human rights, not a debate over procreation or an analysis of Sodom and Gomorrah.
One needs to look no further than the 14th Amendment to determine that DOMA violates the U.S. Constitution. The Equal Protection Clause of this amendment prohibits the enforcement of any law that denies citizens of the U.S. any rights or immunities that all U.S. citizens are entitled to. By not allowing certain individuals to marry, DOMA denies them the hundreds of federal rights and responsibilities that are included with the status of legal marriage, including joint tax filing, inheritance of property, making spousal medical decisions and joint adoption.
Despite DOMA’s supporters’ political or religious affiliations, to continue to deny citizens of this country the right to happiness and federal benefits based solely on an uncontrollable, biological factor is simply inhumane and unacceptable. Even with the support of Obama’s decision, Democrats will no doubt have a difficult time repealing the act against a Republican majority, which is why I can only hope supporters of DOMA educate themselves on not only its constitutional violations but also on the common decency of respecting fellow human beings.