What a crazy week huh? Voting Rights Act gets “gutted” and the Defense of Marriage Act gets shut down (in part. Read the bottom of this post for other details).
Ken Ulman posts on his Facebook page this morning “Huge ruling made by SCOTUS on DOMA. Huge step forward for equality.” Ummm…what? What do you have to say about the VRA Mr. Ulman? Both rulings were huge and deserve some commentary from a political leader. That can be interpreted in a couple of negative ways. As my Facebook friends pointed out and I agree with wholeheartedly you cannot pick and choose which equality issues to care about. Now maybe he was busy yesterday and just didn’t have the chance to make a statement but if that’s the case, don’t say anything about either one. Or make a statement about both. Sigh…
Here’s the point about DOMA from my good friend and mentor
Only DOMA **SECTION THREE** was struck down today. That bars federal recognition of legally married same-sex couples and denies more than 1,000 federal benefits such as Social Security, pension benefits and preferential tax treatment.
Sections One and Two define marriage as between “one man and woman” and allow states not to recognize legally valid same-sex marriages from other states. Those provisions have not being challenged yet.
Stay tuned and thanks for reading!