This insidious bill was passed into law, in 1996, proposed and backed by religious right wingers, and signed into law by none other than good old’ bubba’ Clinton. A rather strange alliance, wouldn’t you agree? You wouldn’t normally have expected the two to work together, but this was a very special piece of legislation.
What it does: The defense of marriage act, sets forth federal guidelines for just what exactly the United States federal government recognizes as a marriage, that being, a union between one man and one woman. Pretty nice, huh? Going further than that, it gives a state, which does not allow same sex marriages, the right to ignore a marriage license issued by another state to a homosexual couple. Sure this violates our constitution’s full faith and credit clause, but if we just ignore the legality issues, we can keep on going as though nothing is amiss. When you boil it down, this is nothing but anti-homosexual legislation, that’s what it’s there to do, screw over homosexuals, and deny them any recognizable marriage status, in the eyes of the federal government, and as many states (Currently 36 do not recognize homosexual marriages) as is possible, be it constitutional or not. This exempts homosexual couples from many special tax conditions, as well as over 300 other benefits, and special conditions. Not only that, but it denies homosexual couples any protection, or rights in the event of a divorce, custody hasn’t any meaning to a couple that wasn’t legally married in the first place. This is a humiliating and degrading denial of rights.
Now, why was this legislation passed? Well, just look at it’s name, the “defense of marriage act”. The religious right apparently felt threatened by the prospects of homosexuals getting married, so they wanted some laws in place to make it stop, congratulations, problem solved, and those uppity homosexuals are put right in their place. Why would president Clinton want to sign such a piece of legislation? It’s hard to say, most likely he wanted to keep from alienating Christian conservatives so close to re-election, though who can say for sure? To be honest, I don’t care what political motive he had he still dropped the ball on this one.
Anyway, does any of this seem a little hoaky to any of you? Legislation designed to fill the people’s wishes, and defend the sanctity of marriage? Is this what it’s really doing? Is this what the people even really want? The act got off to a rather auspicious start, being signed by president Clinton, quite a figure he is to defend the sanctity of marriage, isn’t he? Apparently it’s worse for a loving homosexual couple to tie the knot, then to break your marriage vows and have a series of affairs, I’m just glad a man like Clinton was in office at the time, to defend the sanctity of marriage for us all. But then, is there even an overwhelming view among American’s that the “sanctity” of marriage be preserved? How many American’s are truly worried that the idea of it would be lessened by homosexual marriages. . . how many even believe that it’s a serious endeavor at all? Judging by the ratings of shows such as “Who wants to marry a millionaire” “Meet the parents” “Joe Millionaire” and “Married by America” I’d say that there isn’t an overwhelming feeling of concern among the American people over the idea of marriage being made a mockery of, or if such concerns do exist, people are being uncharacteristically quiet about it. So this is a piece of legislation, which denies rights to certain peoples, and not others, to fit a supposed desire among the people, which doesn’t seem to exist at all. . . so what are we left with? Hate legislation, pure and simple, is all that this is. It’s unjust, and unfair, and hopefully will be repealed.
But then, perhaps I shouldn’t complain so much, I mean it takes a very special thing to cross party lines, and bring right wing republican congressmen, and a democrat president together, if there were more cooperation like this in our government, maybe the world would be a better place. I just wish that that thing which bought them together, wasn’t the overwhelming desire to screw me over.
What it does: The defense of marriage act, sets forth federal guidelines for just what exactly the United States federal government recognizes as a marriage, that being, a union between one man and one woman. Pretty nice, huh? Going further than that, it gives a state, which does not allow same sex marriages, the right to ignore a marriage license issued by another state to a homosexual couple. Sure this violates our constitution’s full faith and credit clause, but if we just ignore the legality issues, we can keep on going as though nothing is amiss. When you boil it down, this is nothing but anti-homosexual legislation, that’s what it’s there to do, screw over homosexuals, and deny them any recognizable marriage status, in the eyes of the federal government, and as many states (Currently 36 do not recognize homosexual marriages) as is possible, be it constitutional or not. This exempts homosexual couples from many special tax conditions, as well as over 300 other benefits, and special conditions. Not only that, but it denies homosexual couples any protection, or rights in the event of a divorce, custody hasn’t any meaning to a couple that wasn’t legally married in the first place. This is a humiliating and degrading denial of rights.
Now, why was this legislation passed? Well, just look at it’s name, the “defense of marriage act”. The religious right apparently felt threatened by the prospects of homosexuals getting married, so they wanted some laws in place to make it stop, congratulations, problem solved, and those uppity homosexuals are put right in their place. Why would president Clinton want to sign such a piece of legislation? It’s hard to say, most likely he wanted to keep from alienating Christian conservatives so close to re-election, though who can say for sure? To be honest, I don’t care what political motive he had he still dropped the ball on this one.
Anyway, does any of this seem a little hoaky to any of you? Legislation designed to fill the people’s wishes, and defend the sanctity of marriage? Is this what it’s really doing? Is this what the people even really want? The act got off to a rather auspicious start, being signed by president Clinton, quite a figure he is to defend the sanctity of marriage, isn’t he? Apparently it’s worse for a loving homosexual couple to tie the knot, then to break your marriage vows and have a series of affairs, I’m just glad a man like Clinton was in office at the time, to defend the sanctity of marriage for us all. But then, is there even an overwhelming view among American’s that the “sanctity” of marriage be preserved? How many American’s are truly worried that the idea of it would be lessened by homosexual marriages. . . how many even believe that it’s a serious endeavor at all? Judging by the ratings of shows such as “Who wants to marry a millionaire” “Meet the parents” “Joe Millionaire” and “Married by America” I’d say that there isn’t an overwhelming feeling of concern among the American people over the idea of marriage being made a mockery of, or if such concerns do exist, people are being uncharacteristically quiet about it. So this is a piece of legislation, which denies rights to certain peoples, and not others, to fit a supposed desire among the people, which doesn’t seem to exist at all. . . so what are we left with? Hate legislation, pure and simple, is all that this is. It’s unjust, and unfair, and hopefully will be repealed.
But then, perhaps I shouldn’t complain so much, I mean it takes a very special thing to cross party lines, and bring right wing republican congressmen, and a democrat president together, if there were more cooperation like this in our government, maybe the world would be a better place. I just wish that that thing which bought them together, wasn’t the overwhelming desire to screw me over.