Melanie Nathan at Mission Incomplete GetEQUAL Rally in the Castro

Calling on the Repeal of DADT Supporting Senators to Co-Sponsor the Repeal of DOMA -

On September 20, 2011, while the LGBT community celebrated the activation of the repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy, which had prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, activists, including myself, attended GET EQUAL rallies across the country to protest “ Mission Incomplete.”

I was emphatically reminded of  this incomplete mission,  when I noticed on television, that out of the six senators attending a news conference hailing the historic DADT repeal, only three have signed on to “The Respect for Marriage Act” (RFMA) the legislation that supports the repeal of the “Defense of Marriage Act,” (DOMA.)

The repeal of DADT is a milestone, in that gays and lesbians can now serve openly. Yet, other than drawing attention to the iniquities suffered by openly gay members of the military, it does nothing to further equality for LGBT servicemembers. Certainly not until all enjoy marriage equality and the protections provided by ENDA.

Transgender people still serve in silence and LGBT Servicemembers  are denied marital benefits in parity with straight members of the military.

Accordingly, activists and advocates ought to use the DADT repeal activation as an opportunity to enter what is clearly now an historically wide open door. Until this time, we have been tip toeing around legislation always knocking at the back door.   The opening is a view to the offensive inequality suffered by all LGBT members of our American society, whether in uniform or not.

The DADT repeal serves to highlight the discrimination because even though gay and lesbian  servicemembers can serve openly, they are still unequal in the eyes of the law.  Serving openly is not equality. That is why the fight has truly just begun.

The three senators who are co-sponsors of the marriage equality legislation attending the news conference for DADT, on Capitol Hill included Sens. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.); and the three, standing next to them, who have yet to sign on to the repeal of DOMA and who were supporters of  the DADT repeal include Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine).

By standing at the conference and celebrating the conclusion of DADT, the latter three senators are definitely MIA – they are missing in action and ought to show up for equality – not merely the right to exist in the military or the right to exist in society for that matter. De facto existence is a given – yet de jure equality remains elusive!

It would be hypocritical for Senators Lieberman, Levin and Collins, at this point, to remain silent on DOMA and I hope their constituents will call them on this serious omission.  When they show up on the Respect for Marriage Act,  they will provide the votes needed to have the Senate repeal of DOMA. Of course the House has a long way to go; but the Senate will provide an advance trend favoring full equality for same-sex partners.

Nothing short of full equality will suffice. There is no excuse for anything less; that means the repeal of DOMA, the passage of ENDA and an Equality Bill – an omnibus of sorts – that spells out to the individual States in the US  that even though they are free to create their own laws, they are not free to discriminate.  It is un-American to discriminate.  The most basic of American values is equality and freedom. Now is the time for all to share in the magnificent intent of the Constitution.

So like the folks at GetEQUAL have asserted through the rallies, the “mission is incomplete” –  and  it is up to us as a movement to define and lead and compel the mission.   Let’s do it….  DOMA must be repealed immediately.

By Melanie Nathan.
melanie@gayusathemovie.com
www.visualcv.com/melnathan

Senators Co-Sponsoring  DOMA’s repeal:

1. U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI)

2. U.S. Senator Michael Bennett (D-CO)

3. U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)

4. U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)

5. U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)

6. U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

7. U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)

8. U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-OH)

9. U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE)

10. US. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL)

11. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

12. U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN)

13. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)

14. U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA)

15. U.S. Senator Dan Inouye (D-HI)

16. U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA)

17. U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)

18. U.S. Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI)

19. U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)

20. U.S. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

21. U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR)

22. U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)

23. U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)

24. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

25. U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

26. U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)

27. U.S. Senator Mark Udall (D-CO)

28. U.S. Tom Udall (D-NM)

29. U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

30. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Traci Turpin, of Knoxville, who was married her partner in Washington, D.C. last week, returned to her home in Tennessee, where she set about changing her name on her legal documents, including her driver’s license as most newly weds would.

Ms. Turpin says the Social Security office changed her name with no questions, but said after initially issuing a new license, Department of Motor Vehicles employees decided not honor Turpin’s D.C marriage certificate and according to WUSA News, went as far as to have a DMV employee chase Turpin down as she was leaving the office in her car to demand she return the license, saying Tennessee does not recognize same sex marriages.

Full Story from Lez Get Real

Click here for gay marriage resources in Tennessee.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

“We’re not trying to be treated differently or better than anyone else,” said Lindzi Campbell. “We just want protection for our families. Stability.”

Campbell and her partner Jesse Dykhuis are one of three gay couples who filed the suit Tuesday in Hennepin County alleging, among other things, the State violated their right to marry. It’s a lawsuit two years in the making. “Two years of fundraising, relentlessly asking people for help,” said Dykhuis.

Full Story from WDIO

Click here for gay marriage resources in Minnesota.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Negre de Alonso said she disagreed with giving gay couples the right to marry but added that she would not block debate on the issue.

“I will guarantee that we’ll add this matter to the agenda because I have always guaranteed the debate,” she said.

Full Story from On Top Magazine

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Rev Denys Hatton, vicar of St Gary’s in Folkham, said: “I am more than happy to perform a gay blessing as long as I am allowed to pick the reading. And since you ask, I would kick things off with a spot of Corinthians, where St Paul makes it abundantly clear that homosexuals are ‘unrighteous’.

“Then I’d crank it up with a quote from Romans where St Paul describes them as ‘degrading’, ‘depraved’ and ‘indecent’.”

Full Story from The Daily Mash
Click here for gay marriage resources in England.
To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Several gay couples are now expected to register to get married as early as next week. Mexico City is one of the first capitals in Latin America to fully recognise gay marriages.

Judith Vazquez and partner Lol-kin Castaneda hope to become one of the first couples to marry under the new law. “It’s the end of our fight and the beginning of life in freedom in Mexico City,” Ms Vazquez told the BBC. “This is a great, historic moment for the whole of society in Mexico City,” added Ms Castaneda.

Full Story from BBC News
Click here for gay marriage resources.
To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Moderate Party candicate Ken Block said through a spokeswoman that he also supports gay marriage.

Proponents of gay marriage believe the state is closer to approving the measure since Republican Gov. Don Carcieri (kuh-CHEHR’-ee), a social conservative and gay marriage opponent, can’t run again because of term limits.

Full Story from CT Now
Click here for gay marriage resources in Rhode Island.
To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

But even as gay couples line up to tie the knot, the Catholic Church and President Felipe Calderon’s conservative party are gearing up to fight the law, the Washington Post reports.

Same-sex unions are legal in Colombia, Uruguay, Brazil, and Ecuador, as well as Argentina, where two gay men wed in December, but Mexico City is the first place south of the border to formally allow gay marriage. A local cardinal blasted the law as “perverse” and Calderon said it violates the Mexican constitution, which “speaks explicitly of marriage between a man and a woman,” but advocates note there has been no popular backlash against gay marriage in the city.

Full Story from Newser
Click here for gay marriage resources.
To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

A senior bureaucrat made a last-ditch effort to have the references reinserted into the new manual before it went to press in November, but Kenney refused to budge. The news report said Kenney ensured that two paragraphs from an earlier draft were not included in the new 63-page manual, which replaces a 1995 edition of the manual.

According to the Canadian Press, the draft included this paragraph under a section titled Towards a Modern Canada: “Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969 and more recently, civil marriage rights to same-sex couples was legalized nationwide in 2005.” Under the section on citizenship rights, the earlier draft said: “Equality Rights — Canadians are protected against discrimination based on race, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation or age.”

Full Story from The Province
Click here for gay marriage resources.
To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Last Friday Judge Maria del Carmen Gioco had appealed Liberatori’s ruling by stating that her decision had to be revoked by the Contentious Administrative Court after she considered it had not made part of the process.

“Attorneys are obligated to follow due process in every case, and to make everyone comply with the law. In this case, the judge denied our unconstitutionality request, and for that reason, the attorney’s capability is limited. Hence, the judge understood it was not necessary to communicate her decision to Court,” said Florencia Kravetz, the couple’s lawyer.

Full Story from the Buenos Aires Herald
Click here for gay marriage resources.
To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.