Respect for Marriage Act

The Senate Judiciary Committee is considering the Respect for Marriage Act this week.  This is a no brainer for me, and always has been.  This is a country of hypocrisy.  Songs celebrating how we are going to go to another country and kick some butt or declaring how free we are compared to others, when every day we by law treat specific groups of people as second-class citizens.  Several states in this country have risen above the nonsense and made laws allowing same sex couples to have the same right to marry as heterosexual couples.  Having read the federal constitution just a couple of times in the last few years, I am still struck that anyone thinks there is anything in it that provides legal standing for a federal law dictating which U.S. citizens can or cannot marry each other.  (When immigration comes to play, well, that spins things slightly differently.)  The right of privacy is held to be a fundamental right by the U.S. Supreme Court.  We have plenty of examples of case law where the court has written about the sanctity of marriage and this relationship within our society.

The other part of this I don't get is more pragmatic -- how does preventing same sex marriage benefit the state?  Weddings are big business and most of the states who have enacted freedom of marriage laws have reaped the benefits of this racket.  Married people often have children -- expensive little buggers, who consume all sorts of things -- food, water, clothing, entertainment, healthcare, etc.  This causes couples to need more space, which in turn forces them to move, buy homes and so forth.  Add to this family vacations, trips to visit grandma & grandpa, photo sessions, birthday parties and on and on.  The Respect for Marriage Act might just provide the best jobs plan we've seen yet!  And I haven't even gotten to the lucrative business of divorce.

Support the Respect for Marriage Act.  Why?  Because it's the right thing to do.