Will We Be Ruled Equal?

Well, the US Supreme Court be ruling on our rights again. I am deeply tired of worrying about my legal status in this country. I know that if I, or my partner of 14 years, should die unexpectedly we would be considered nothing more than strangers under the law. Huge taxes would be levied on the surviving partner, taxes from which married couples are exempt. Her family, from which she is estranged, could try to sweep in and grab up all her assets.

Not to formally become partners is our own decision but it is also the result of oppression. Opting for this "domestic partners" contract is a poor substitute for the protections marriage offers.It comes with a  sock-it-to-you bill tax preparers receive for making up two separate returns: one for the federal government and the other for the state. This unjust financial burden has not been one we have wanted to shoulder. My partner and I do not live together either so, although it's no problem for Bill and Hillary, domestic partners must share the same address.

It seems like a no-brainer to me, and to most LGBT folks, that, as citizens we are entitled to equal protection under the law. But what tune will the Supremes sing? They are also going to be issuing a decision on DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) which has prevented the partners of federal employees from recieving medical benefits of their legally married spouses in the states where same-gender marriage is legal. The range of decisions the court could arrive at are not necessarily all or nothing. They are everywhere along a continuum where the worst-case scenario is that marriage is not a fundamental right for gays and uphold DOMA or they could declare that marriage bans are unconstitutional, marriage is a federal civil right and should be universally applied. In between, and most likely, are a million shades of gray, worth reading about but better left to the lawyers to itemize.

But whatever happens next, I do believe that time is on our side. We are finally seeing a bit of the bend in that long arc of the moral universe. Transgenders and people of indeterminate gender identity already help speed the struggle for equal rights because as people transition from one gender to another, it becomes harder to determine the composition of couples desiring marriage anyway. Confusion is a good thing in this case and, ultimately, gender is none of anyone else's business unless they are planning to engage in physical intimacy. In that situation, hopefully, it can be privately discussed.

Free Speech, Civil Rights and Transparency

It Seems Obvious to Me...

The day following the arrest of filmmaker Josh Fox for attempting to videotape a "public hearing" on the environmentally toxic practice of  hydraulic fracturing (fracking), combined with the arrest and detention of at least six credentialed journalists at the Occupy Oakland protest on January 28th, It is evident that our first amendment right to free speech is a relic of days gone by.

Another nail in its coffin was provided yesterday, February 2nd, when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a previous ruling to release the tapes of the Proposition 8 hearings of 2010, presided over by Justice Vaughn Walker.

It was unprecedented that the videos were held back from public view in the first place and the obscenity is only compounded by this decision. The whole affair begs the obvious question as to why the constitutional right to equal protection is being withheld from LGBTs in the first place. The long stalemate since the hearing a year and a half ago illustrates the reticence of the powers that be to grant full rights of citizenship to all of its citizens.

Although Proposition 8 a just a statewide, California issue, providing full and equal rights for all is a federal issue that must be addressed nationally. Instead we must wait for the lens of history to look back upon this era of open discrimination with shame. Perhaps hindsight is always 20/20, but our present vision is myopic as hell!

Alas, We're Not in Athens...

Recent Protest in Athens

According to witnesses, more than 40,000 people mobilized in Athens to protest austerity measures that raise taxes, cut salaries, slashed pensions and put health benefits out of reach. Their current unemployment rate is over 16%. Police hid behind steel barricades and used tear gas to try and disperse the angry citizenry.

Here, judges were at work on both sides of the struggle. Justice James Ware struck down the ridiculous and fallacious notion that he should have recused himself from the proposition 8 decision due solely  to the fact he is a gay man in a long-term relationship. Ware is an African-American who immediately recognized the civil rights implications of this type of "reasoning."

However, in Wisconsin the state Supreme Court ruled that Judge Maryann Sumi overstepped her authority by throwing out the late night, Republicans only vote for governor Scott Walker's bill stripping workers of collective bargaining rights. As it now stands public workers, except for police and firefighters, will undergo pay cuts that average about 8% of their salaries. The unions are putting together a lawsuit based on the fact that the bill illegally discriminates between classes of employees for the soul purpose of political payback.

This war against workers is not only destructive to working people but to the entire American economy. Robert Reich's article "Why the Republican War on Workers Undermines the American Economy," lays it all out there. Keep up the good work R.R.!