Justice Department will Extend More Rights to Married Same Sex Couples

In yet another move to bring married same sex couples to the same level in legal rights as heterosexual couples, Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that  the Department of Justice will be extending additional federal rights to married same sex couples.  The move is consistent with legal equality for all married couples but will not doubt further rankle the hate merchants of the Christofacists and trigger batshitery from their political whores in the Republican Party.  The Washington Blade looks at this development. Here are excerpts:

[T]he Justice Department will issue a memorandum on Monday to outline the changes, which will bring the department into compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision against the Defense of Marriage Act.

Holder . . . . [made] the announcement in the same speech in which he . . . .[reflected] on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“And yet, as all-important as the fight against racial discrimination was then, and remains today, know this: my commitment to confronting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity runs just as deep,”  . . . . “Just like during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the stakes involved in this generation’s struggle for LGBT equality could not be higher.”

Each of the changes is related to the way the Justice Department handles recognition of married same-sex couples. They range from rights in civil and criminal cases, rights as inmates and access to benefits programs:

• The Justice Department will recognize that same-sex spouses of individuals involved in civil and criminal cases have the same legal rights as straight married couples, including the right to decline to give testimony that might incriminate a spouse.
This new rule applies in non-marriage equality states. The government won’t object to couples in same-sex marriages invoking this right if they marry in another state, but their current jurisdiction doesn’t recognize their union.

• In bankruptcy cases, the U.S. Trustee Program will take the position that same-sex married couples should be treated in the same manner as opposite-sex married couples. Consequently, same-sex married couples will be eligible to file for bankruptcy jointly; certain debts to same-sex spouses or former spouses will be excepted from discharge; and domestic support obligations should include debts, including alimony, owed to a former same-sex spouse.

• Federal inmates in same-sex marriages will be entitled to the same rights and privileges as inmates in opposite-sex marriages. These rights include spousal visitation; inmate furloughs to be present during a crisis involving a spouse; escorted trips to attend a spouse’s funeral; correspondence with a spouse; and compassionate release or reduction in sentence if an inmate’s spouse is incapacitated.

• The Justice Department will recognize same-sex couples for the purposes of a number of benefits programs it administers, such as the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program and the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.

Also among these programs is the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program, which provides death benefits to surviving spouses of public safety officers, such as law enforcement officers and firefighters, who suffer catastrophic or fatal injuries while on duty.

The Justice Department has coordinated the effort across the Obama administration to ensure married same-sex couples have the same rights and benefits under federal law as opposite sex couples in the wake of the DOMA decision. The various departments and agencies announced changes in policies since that time.

The New York Times has coverage here.  The Christofascist goal to keep LGBT citizens inferior under the law is slowly but steadily being destroyed.  Its total destruction cannot come soon enough, especially in anti-gay states like Virginia.

HUD Introduces Sweeping LGBT Protections

In a move that will have Christianists and professional Christians shrieking and wailing, the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (pictured at left) has introduced sweeping new regulations that will afford LGBT citizens and families protections in housing related programs and insurance programs that receive federal funding. Among the areas impacted will be including Section 8 housing, emergency shelters, and other social services, as well as lending for FHA-insured mortgage financing. Such protections even if of limited application are welcomed inasmuch as currently in Virginia - and many other states - LGBT citizens have absolutely no non-discrimination protections. The move is long overdue. Now if only similar regulations would be implemented in the realm of employment non-discrimination. Here are highlights from Think Progress' coverage:

Speaking today [Saturday] at the National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change in Baltimore, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan introduced a broad and sweeping set of new nondiscrimination protections the department will be implementing. Under the new guidelines, any program that receives funding or insurance through HUD will be prohibited from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. . .

In addition, all such programs will now be required to recognize same-sex and otherwise LGBT families — regardless of their marital status or the adoption status of their children — to ensure they can stay together as a family unit when accessing HUD resources.

In his remarks, Donovan explained the significance of these changes:

DONOVAN: And so, first and foremost, this rule includes a new equal access provision that prohibits owners and operators of HUD-funded housing, or housing whose financing we insure, from inquiring about an applicant’s sexual orientation or gender identity or denying housing on that basis. If you are denying HUD housing to people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity—actual or perceived—you’re discriminating, you’re breaking the law – and you will be held accountable. That’s what equal access means – and that’s what this rule is going to do. . . . the rule also makes clear that sexual orientation and gender identity should not and cannot be part of any lending decision when it comes to getting a mortgage insured by the FHA – part of HUD.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has additional coverage. Here are highlights:

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a new HUD policy to fight discrimination against LGBT people in federally supported housing programs.

The new rules, to be published next week, will help LGBT people and their families across the country stay in their homes, get the loans they need to buy homes, and access life-saving federal assistance programs to help get low-income people and families back on their feet.

Donovan is the first sitting Cabinet secretary in history to speak at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, the country’s largest annual gathering of LGBT rights advocates. They have been meeting this week in Baltimore to strategize and mobilize in this critical election year.

“I’m here this afternoon because our president and his administration believe the LGBT community deserves a place at the table — and also a place to call home. Each of us here knows that rights most folks take for granted are routinely violated against LGBT people,” Donovan said.

While I'd prefer to see these non-discrimination protections afforded by statute, the regulations are hopefully a beginning. While likely motivated by Obama's re-election effort, the regulations are yet another blow against the special rights given to anti-Christians for far too long.

Republicans Against Laws that Save Lives and the Environment

From my perspective as a former Republican from a family that largely voted Republican, the descent of the Party into something fairly vile is disturbing to watch. Yes, there is still the mantra of smaller government and fiscal constraint - not that either actually occurred under Chimperator Bush - but more and more the true agenda seems to be about cutting away restraints that hold back the baser prejudices and callousness of businesses and individuals. Particularly restraints on racism and religious based discrimination. The New York Times has an interesting editorial that looks at the GOP agenda in the context of the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court and the GOP fixation on defeating federal controls that protect citizens from rapacious corporations and religious demagogues. One focus to the GOP is to defeat federal regulations under the Commerce Clause. Yes, health care reform is one target, but the Commerce Clause also provides a basis for passage of laws such as ENDA (if and when that ever happens). Here are some column highlights:
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Listen carefully as the votes on Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court are taken beginning this week. Most court nominations are about judicial philosophy or social issues, but Ms. Kagan’s has become a flashpoint for a much larger debate about the fundamental role of American government.
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[D]ozens of Senate Republicans are ready to vote against her, and many are citing her interpretation of the commerce clause of the Constitution, the one that says Congress has the power to regulate commerce among the states.
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The clause was the legal basis for any number of statutes of enormous benefit to society. It is why we have the Clean Air Act. The Clean Water Act. The Endangered Species Act. The Fair Labor Standards Act, setting a minimum wage and limiting child labor. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing segregation in the workplace and in public accommodations. In cases like these, the Supreme Court has said Congress can regulate activities that have a “substantial effect” on interstate commerce, even if they are not directly business-related.
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[T]he most urgent current test of government power is now slowly making its way through the legal system to the Supreme Court. Twenty states have joined lawsuits saying the national health care law is unconstitutional, particularly the provision requiring health insurance. Lawmakers, anticipating the challenge, explicitly inserted a line in the law that the insurance mandate “substantially affects interstate commerce.” They also say it is based on the government’s fundamental power to tax. It is hard to see how the current court will disagree.
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That is not stopping Senate Republicans from raising a huge ideological fuss, sending a message not only to Ms. Kagan but to the court as a whole. It is why Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma asked Ms. Kagan a seemingly silly hypothetical about the constitutionality of a law requiring Americans to eat three vegetables and fruits a day. Would that violate the commerce clause, he asked?
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Make no mistake that such a vote is simply about her, or about President Obama. A vote against the commerce clause is a vote against some of the best things that government has done for the better part of a century, and some of the best things that lie ahead.

Massachusetts Challenges Federal DOMA

As the Boston Globe and a number of blogs are reporting, the state of Massachusetts, acting through state Attorney General Martha Coakley (pictured at left) has filed suit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act ("DOMA") for its discriminatory impact against against legally married citizens of Massachusetts. As Massachusetts rightly argues, the U. S. Constitution grants equality to all citizens and DOMA amounts to unconstitutional discrimination. I'd go even further and also state that DOMA is an unconstitutional act of discrimination based on religion as well. In fact, in the final analysis when all the other disingenuous arguments are stripped away, ALL of the anti-gay statutes and state constitutional amendments should be struck down as unconstitutional religious based discrimination. Here are highlights from the Boston Globe article:

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Massachusetts, the first state in the nation to legalize gay marriage, has become the first to challenge the constitutionality of a federal law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, saying Congress intruded into a matter that should be left to individual states.

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"Our familes, our communities, and even our economy have seen the many important benefits that have come from recognizing equal marriage rights and, frankly, no downside," Attorney General Martha Coakley said this afternoon at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. "However, we have also seen how many of our married residents and their families are being hurt by a discriminatory, unprecedented, and, we believe, unconstitutional law."

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The suit filed in US District Court in Boston claims that the Congress, in enacting the DOMA, "overstepped its authority, undermined states' efforts to recognize marriages between same-sex couples, and codified an animus towards gay and lesbian people."

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The lawsuit argues that the DOMA, which was enacted in 1996, precludes same-sex spouses in Massachusetts from a wide range of protections, including federal income tax credits, employment and retirement benefits, health insurance coverage, and Social Security payments. The defendants named in the lawsuit include the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and the United States itself.

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The lawsuit questions the constitutionality of Section 3 of the law, which defines the word "marriage" for the purpose of federal law as "a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife." . . . The suit alleges that the law violates the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves to the states all powers except those granted to the federal government. It also alleges that the law violates Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which limits the power of Congress to attach conditions to the receipt of federal funds.

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Coakley noted that the suit is focused on the impact of Section 3 of the DOMA in Massachusetts. Coakley also noted she backs the repeal of the DOMA. "I think everybody would agree that times have changed since 1996," she said.

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Hopefully, the courts will see the merits of the lawsuit and strike down DOMA. I can already hear the disingenuous whining, shrieking and dishonest blathering of the Christianists should Massachusetts be successful in its lawsuit.