Happy Valentine’s Day….It’s Time to Dump the Defense of Marriage Act

The New York Times editorial runs it down:

The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act is indefensible — officially sanctioned discrimination against one group of Americans imposed during an election year. President Obama seems to know that, or at least he has called on Congress to repeal it. So why do his government’s lawyers continue to defend the act in court?

Good question.

The law, signed by President Bill Clinton, denies married same-sex couples the federal benefits granted to other married couples, including Social Security survivor payments and the right to file joint tax returns. When December’s repeal of the noxious “don’t ask, don’t tell” law goes into effect, gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans will be able to serve openly in the military but may not be entitled to on-base housing or a spouse’s burial in a national cemetery.

As the NY Times editorial concludes….

By now, such blatant discrimination should be presumed to be unconstitutional, and the Justice Department should finally say so. If conservatives in Congress want to enter the case to argue otherwise, so be it.

What they said.

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AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT OF LOVE……ARE WE TOO CHEAP TO KEEP KIDS SAFE?

In this Huff Post story, foster care expert, Daniel Heimpel, director of Fostering Media Connections, looks at the hard realities behind the fact that more black kids than whites are being removed from their abusive families and put into foster care—and what we should be doing to address the underlying causes of familial abuse.

Of course, it’s not likely such humane causes will get much traction in this budget year in which rational discussions about the cost/benefit ratios of social programs seem to be increasingly impossible to have.