Federal Judge to Federal Government: Give in on Same Sex Benefits

I have always thought that figuring out that different treatment for same sex couples versus straight couples was unconstitutional was a no-brainer. Finally, a federal court judge has reached this obvious conclusion and ordered that the Obama administration Thursday to stop resisting his finding that the wife of a lesbian court employee was entitled to government insurance coverage. Equal protection under the law means just that - benefits are not restricted to some based on religious derived discrimination (including that of the president). When stripped of all other excuses, anti-gay discrimination is nothing less than religious discrimination against those in society who do not blindly cling to a few ancient passages in a book that has been so modified and edited over the centuries that we will never know what it really said when first written. And even if we did know, it was written in the absence of modern knowledge and cannot be taken for literal fact. Yet millions faced disparate treatment under the civil laws daily. It is a travesty and makes a mockery of the freedom of religion alleged to exist in the USA. Here are some highlights from the San Francisco Chronicle:

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The federal agency that oversees benefits for government employees "shall cease at once its interference with the jurisdiction of this tribunal," Judge Alex Kozinski said in response to the Office of Personnel Management's rejection of his earlier ruling in the case.
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He told the agency to let Karen Golinski, a staff attorney at the court's headquarters in San Francisco, enroll her wife, Amy Cunninghis, in the family health plan that already covers their 6-year-old son. He also ordered court officials to reimburse Golinski for the costs of buying insurance for Cunninghis since she applied for coverage in September 2008. That coverage now costs $429 a month, Golinski's lawyer said.
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It was the second order from a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge in two days rebuking the Office of Personnel Management for denying insurance coverage to the same-sex spouses of court-supervised employees. The agency, whose director was appointed by President Obama, intervened in both cases in February and invoked the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that bars federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples.
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On Wednesday, Judge Stephen Reinhardt told the federal public defender's office in Los Angeles to pay a gay lawyer for the cost of insurance coverage for his husband. Kozinski went further Thursday and ordered the nationwide personnel office to allow family coverage for Golinski's wife.
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Golinski said Thursday she is grateful to work for "a court that wants to treat all its employees fairly" and that she hopes Congress will repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
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Personally, I am so disgusted that one set of religious beliefs continue to be enshrined in the civil laws. Until this changes, it makes the entire U.S. legal system with allegedly constitutional rights a farce.