Minnesota Senators Franken and Klobuchar vote to repeal DOMA
Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 1:36 pm
- 10 Comments
Minnesota Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar voted in a Senate committee hearing Thursday to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
Both testified that DOMA hurts same-sex couples who are legally married in several states. Franken told his colleagues that repealing the law would have not consequences for heterosexual couples, and that allowing same-sex marriage won’t make anyone gay.
The repeal effort passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 10-8. It still needs to pass a full vote on the Senate floor and faces opposition in the Republican-controlled House, although Minnesota Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum and Tim Walz are supporters of the House version.
Klobuchar said she was “struck” by the number of people who testified against DOMA in hearings last summer.
“They were discriminated against and unfairly harmed,” Klobuchar said. “They were denied protections like the ability to take off work to care for a dying partner and denied survivor benefits when a partner died.”
Klobuchar also said the issue wasn’t about religion.
“Whatever we vote on today and whatever happens today, the bill doesn’t require any church or mosque or synagogue to perform same-sex marriage. As the debate on this continues, we cannot lose sight of that,” she said.
Franken took issue with a statement by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who argued that marriage has always been defined as the union of one man and one woman. Franken argued that was false.
“In many cultures, men have been able to marry many women and young girls. For centuries, women have been treated as cattle in marriage. Further, if the religious purpose for marriage is procreation, why would we sanction marriage between an 89-year-old widower and an 80-year-old widow?” Franken said. “I just think we need to be accurate when we talk about the history of marriage, the history of man and woman, the history of our institutions.”
Franken spoke about couples in Minnesota who have been harmed by DOMA including a young couple who met in divinity school and married in Connecticut who have to lie on their federal tax forms and say they are single.
He talked about another Minnesota couple that married in Iowa, John and Jeff Westerfield. John was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
“Jeff won’t have the federal right to take a medical leave. If John passes, Jeff won’t see a dime from Social Security,” said Franken. “DOMA hurts people who love each other. DOMA hurts people who want to adopt kids and raise them and take care of them. DOMA hurts families.
“We need to pass this bill. Straight people aren’t suddenly going to become gay, Straight people aren’t going to stop getting married. We are going to be just fine. Really.”
The bill, dubbed the Respect for Marriage Act, passed the committee on a party-line vote.
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Comment posted November 10, 2011 @ 5:50 pm
Thank you to Minnesota’s senators. I can’t see the Respect for Marriage Act getting past a filibuster or even getting a hearing in the House, but one step at a time.
Comment posted November 10, 2011 @ 10:02 pm
I support Sen. Franken and Sen. Klobuchar for taking the position they have decided to support. As a new resident of Minn., I have seen my new legislators take the embarassing step to intentionally shut down the state government while they were trying to find an extra $5 billion in cuts or tax increases to correct the state budget deficit with particular attention paid to $1.8 billion in spending.
How did the state GOP spend its time while thousands of state employees were out of work? Trying to strong-arm a gay marriage bill through the legislature to place on the ’12 ballot while they had their new majority in office! Never mind that businesses couldn’t purchase beer through their distributors; visitors couldn’t spend their tourism dollars at campgrounds or state parks; couldn’t purchase fishing licenses, and residents couldn’t visit their DMV offices for three weeks; and road construction projects were also shut down.
I feel that the state GOP made a bad miscalculation by attacking the equality aspect of marriage and placing a priority on rushing the bill through at the expense of important revenue-generating (normal) activities. I might have been indifferent before they ran the government into the proverbial iceberg, but I will vote against their proposal next year, as well as the sitting GOP legislator in my district.
Comment posted November 12, 2011 @ 10:50 am
LGBT people do not have the same core value as interracial couples did when the government thankfully tossed laws against interracial marriages. If they did then HIV may not be such a huge problem for the gay community in Europe. Surveys indicate nearly half of gays approve of multiple partners even after marriage. Gay states get gay foster parents so SSM is NOT a private matter for those who believe children are worthy of an upbringing according to social norms. Vote against SSM every chance you get.
Comment posted November 12, 2011 @ 11:43 am
To quote Rachel Maddow, “The thing about rights is that you’re not supposed to vote on them. That’s why they’re called ‘rights.’”
Those who insist that children must be brought up to meet social norms are evil assholes. Gay kids are going to be gay whether you try to beat them until they stop being gay or not. Trans kids are going to be trans even if you hold a knife to their throats and threaten to slit if they dare embrace their truth. The physical, emotional and sexual abuse inflicted on GLBT kids by heterocentrist assholes trying to beat, frighten and scar the gay out of them is inhumane to the extreme.
The idea that a majority vote can be held on the rights of a minority is abhorrent.
Comment posted November 13, 2011 @ 12:58 am
> Surveys indicate nearly half of gays approve of multiple partners even after marriage.
Seems to me that given the 50% divorce rate, at least half the straights must approve of multiple partners even after marriage.
Comment posted November 13, 2011 @ 8:03 am
A lot of time, money and resources continue to be used pressuring Sen. Kolbuchar into leadership, representing our community and doing the right thing on topical GLBT issues. Her message is disjointed and stuck in the past. Typically silent and late to the issue she now supports the repeal of DOMA. She’s against marriage equality. She does support the stigma of civil unions that provide no benefits, protections, portability or recognition globally. We need another representative like Sen. Franken who leads, is clear and unequivocal in his support for equality – not someone still leading from behind suggesting line items of fairness – hospital visitation, sick leave…
Comment posted November 14, 2011 @ 2:42 pm
Dear John M.
Have you even read the language of the proposed amendment? It (the amendment) will NOT prohibit LGBT people or couples (married or not) from adopting kids. As for Core Values, see Lane’s comment above. It does NOT prohibit straight couples from getting divorced so kills the assumption that kids should/will be raised by a man and a woman. Basically it does NOTHING for or to support straight couples, but does great harm by making second class citizens of the states’ LGBT families.
Comment posted November 14, 2011 @ 3:23 pm
Dear John M.,
It scares me that people like you exist. It scares me even more that you have some notion that heterosexuals as so far above the LGBT community. We are all the same, good, bad, ignorant and knowleadgable. Sexual preferences do not make a person who they are nor does it make for a bad parent. I think you should take a very hard look at the statistics with heterosexual couples before you start throwing statistics out.
-Keira M. Rush
Comment posted November 16, 2011 @ 4:33 am
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Comment posted November 17, 2011 @ 7:27 am
S.968
This is the ugly bill you cosigned that would sell us out to the entertainment industry!
Don’t be fooled Senator. This draconian doesn’t mean what you think it means and has a nasty contents despite the word “protect IP” as a title. This won’t stop downloads, you can just have an ip address for that.
What it will stop is access to foreign and domestic sites from being accessed on what is supposed to be the most democratic media. Weather or not websites have copyright infringement won’t matter because of the vague wording and capacity to turn the internet in to a witch hunt. Even you and your YOUTUBE channel would be hypocritical on this law if you posted something about yourself that happened on a separate news channel.
So I beg you, please reconsider and vote AGAINST the protect IP act. Just as you said to the lawyers misinterpreting the study of “nuclear family” truly is this “doesn’t mean what you think it means”.
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