On May 11, 2013, Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke at an event commemorating the 40-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade at the University of Chicago Law School. She wished that they had ruled solely on the Texas law being debated, highlighting a few important flaws in Roe v. Wade:
- The ruling gave opponents a singular target - the Justices themselves who, many complained, should not have had the ability to dictate national policy on such a personal, subjective issue when they had not been elected to do so.
- Such a sweeping ruling "...stopped the momentum that was on the side of change..." at a time when many states were already expanding abortion rights.
- The fact that the debate was not argued in terms of women's rights, rather as an issue of privacy rights that secondarily extended to women's ability to terminate a pregnancy. This allowed states, while adhering to the technical specifics of the ruling by not outlawing abortion outright, to attempt to carve up abortion policy piecemeal, sometimes to the degree of rendering the Roe ruling somewhat inconsequential.
A big fear of the current gay rights cases coming before the Supremes this year is that it could fall into the same misguided arguments that Roe did, for many of the same reasons. Gay rights have been on the move over the past couple of decades, even with DOMA and DADT making arguably backward steps. The gay population has been steadily increasing as more and more come out of the closet, and children are being better nurtured than before, allowing them to become more comfortable and accepting of themselves at an earlier age. The one advantage that gay rights has over Roe is the context of the debate. It's not an issue of privacy, as marriage is already deemed a right for all consenting people of adult age. But it ultimately renders gays to be non-people in the eyes of the government, and that's where the debate will likely hinge. DOMA was an attempt to manage that criticism - by "defining" marriage, you can exclude all but the model you specifically want, and try to avoid the bigotry tag. The problem is that DOMA is highly unconstitutional, because it excludes a considerable portion of the population - a portion that grows by the year. And not for nothing, but it's becoming a sizable voting block as well. Politicians who continue to try to exclude them are going to have a backlash of careers being cut short. President Obama already sees this coming, and has simply ordered the Justice Department to NOT defend DOMA in the courts. It would be better if the more die-hard, fundamentalist elements of my Christian brethren would quit worrying about DOMA - let it die, and they can continue with their own lives of adultery and hiding in the closet, while publicly bashing gays and pleading for the sanctimony of marriage to the press. Hasn't it become a bothersome little norm, that the loudest preachers of sanctimony and gay bashing either turn out to be gay or have been philandering around like the playboy of the modern world? It would be more comical, if they weren't using their considerable power to attack others. If we can get rid of DOMA, we may just be able to chip away at the facade of sanctimony.
As individuals, religion is often a part of our marriages. But as a country, marriage is a legal partnership, nothing more. This country has never cared what religion you are (we have an amendment to prove it) when it came to marriage. We have a wide array of religions, and we are free to perform our marriage ceremony in whatever religious context we like. But the country only cares that we file for the license, and address our marriage one way or the other to the IRS and, once every decade, to the Census Bureau - that's ALL. The country has no requirements for marriage, other than age and consent between the parties - the country will marry you itself, through the courts - it needs no religious backing to do so. DOMA was a way to change the parameters, and that makes it legally exclusionary - and that will ultimately mean it's defeat. Even if there is failure this time around in front of the Supremes, the country has made it clear that the status quo won't last much longer - and state after state is coming around to that reality.
My concern at this point is that we are focusing on cosmetic issues at a time when our country is floundering. Gay or straight, what is doing us in is our economic instability. We have a government who has propped up the markets with stimulus money, yet jobs are still scarce, largely because of lack of access to qualified workers, due to insufficient training. We have an economic structure that has a CEO making anywhere from 350- 450 times what the lowest paid worker makes - the disparity is even worse when you include the total pension and retirement packages. And many of these CEOs are running failing companies. This disparity has much more to do with the political connectedness of these CEOs than the market dictating the compensation. The evidence of that fact is seen throughout the rest of the world, where CEO pay in the same marketplace (say, the auto industry) is only a fraction by comparison. This is largely due to two things: some socialized economies set limits on executive pay, and most other companies around the world tie executive pay to the financial stability and success of the company. It's mostly just the US that ignores this connection.
We have a president who preaches fiscal toughness, yet freely spends without concern for deficits or the future generations tied to a crushing level of debt they had nothing to do with. He wants to raise income tax wage rates of the wealthy, while ignoring that the wealthy don't pay wage rates much anyway - they are rich because of investments and, as such, pay Capital Gains rates. But we never cease to hear the need for "the wealthy to pay their fair share..." I have never once heard what their fair share is. Does anyone know? They already pay over 80% of the country's revenues. What exactly IS their fair share? And "fair share" is a bit of a misnomer, considering where the majority of the country's money goes. Our biggest expenditures are social programs and health care. Social programs like welfare and food stamps are a necessary evil. We would like to not have to need them, but people need to survive, so we accept them. But we also move the poverty line down to make more people eligible for benefits. On the surface, it seems like a nice gesture, looking out for the downtrodden. But it also serves to keep people in the system. You see, if you work enough hours, you can work yourself right into ineligibility. Yet our minimum wage is debilitatingly low compared to our ever-increasing cost of living. So very often, people will choose to not work because, between all of the programs they can qualify for, they actually make more money in the system than they would working. This is not a healthy way to utilize our money.
Health care I can understand the impetus to nationalize the system - the belief that costs can be lowered, while the status quo of care maintained. It's a complete farce, the way we do it, but I get it. But our government's solution is to leave the control in the hands of the insurance companies, while forcing them to take all applicants, no matter the pre-existing condition. Fine, I get it, even the pre-existing still need some way to afford care and receive it. But when the insurance companies cry foul, that they will be spending a fortune on pre-existing claims, with no revenue (in the form of premiums) to have ever been collected, what does our government do? Mandate that everyone is required to purchase insurance policies, giving the companies the revenue stream they so desire. Nice bribe, I guess... And all of this could maybe be overlooked - except for the fact that millions of people will still be without health care coverage. Wasn't that the entire purpose of this "takeover?"
All this only skims the surface of issues plaguing our country right now, so here is my plea: gay marriage is so unimportant to the stability of our country, could we just please allow them to marry, so we can address more important things? That's all gays want - they are just as important AND unimportant as us heteros - just treat them the same. They've never looked for privilege, only that they aren't held as "less than." They can provide familial stability, which we sorely need. They provide a nurturing to children (especially gay children) that we sorely need. There is simply no reason to deny them their rights as American citizens. This is all so matter-of-fact that it's irresponsible to have invented issues where there were none - and then let it drag on for decades. Let gays be free to live as they choose - like the rest of us - so that we as a country can start tackling more pressing issues. Our country is in need of serious people right now, so we need the circus of bigots to leave the stage, please.
