I've been using it as a short, but hopefully meaningful comment on the various same sex success stories that seem to be popping up every day on social media.
I have many gay friends and that they slowly but absolutely surely seem to be attaining the "equal status" to enjoy the full rights and privileges that my wife and I do.
EPUTL simply stands for equal protection under the law. Its from the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Its doesn't qualify those words with anything regarding sexual preference. It does qualify it to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States."
Rather than make some wordy, long-wind statement about why I agree with this direction of same sex treatment under our various State laws, I will just (usually) post a respectful "EPUTL" and enjoy the steady stream of good news on this matter.
My thoughts today are on the recent problem at the Research Medical Center, a hospital in Kansas City, Missouri where a duly designated same sex partner, Roger Gorley, was denied access to his loved one "Alan" due to other family members and a less than impressive performance by some hospital staff. You can read accounts and related articles on this story here, here, here and here.
I'll start out by saying that I don't downplay the fact that Roger Gorley may have behaved in a fashion that was inappropriate at the hospital. Getting loud, becoming "disruptive and belligerent" and ultimately arrested isn't good form almost anywhere. Exhibiting those qualities during a time where a problem needed to be resolved, not complicated or muddied with a distraction isn't good judgement ever. Most of us understand that when the shit's going down, you're much better served if you keep your cool, stay respectful and take the high road. Its a much more productive way to act.
If I'm in that situation, and the reasonable approach hadn't worked, would I have gotten upset, raised my voice, appeared agitated? Quite possibly, yes. Absolutely. What kind of spouse just walks away calm as a cucumber under those circumstances?
To try and understand what Mr. Gormley felt that day is so hard for me. Any time that my wife Patty and I have needed medical attention, small or otherwise, we've always been together. Husband and wife, devoted partners, etc. It's how want and expect it to always be. Perhaps we're both over dramatic but there's always those little thoughts in the back of your head like "what if something goes wrong today?", "what if the anesthesia causes a bad reaction?" "What if, what, what if?" We're probably not unique among couples that way. Its mostly well contained fears but we are both in our fifties and at some point in the next 15 years or so one of us is likely to get some bad news in one form or another. We don't take much for granted.
I struggle to even comprehend what my reaction would be if suddenly my ability and right to be at her side and participate in her health care decisions was not just challenged, but over-ridden by an outsider. Its incomprehensible to me. We've lived together as man and wife for over 20 years, and we do so much together. We coordinate our schedules, parenting strategies, shopping lists, dinner plans, who's picking up milk and dog food today and who's cleaning the bathroom this weekend. And a hundred other things.
We live a perfectly normal life just like thousands of other couples do across the country.
It appears Roger and Alan had everything set up as officially as Missouri law permits. They are set up as each other's Power of Attorney for all health care decisions. No where are Alan's other family member's, who have not been involved in his health care decisions for 20 years, granted any authorization to know, be informed, consult, let alone make any decisions about his health or any treatments. Alan, as we all do, under the HIPAA law, has the right to privacy and choice when it comes to his private medical matters. Roger and Allan were "married" five years ago and while Missouri doesn't recognize their marriage or even civil unions, Missouri does recognize state laws regarding power of attorney and the federal HIPAA regulations.
Clearly something went wrong that day. The timeline is laid out here by Mr. Gorley's daughter, Amanda in some detail. Why was Alan's brother and sister waiting for them at the house that day and why were the paramedics and police with them? Everything after that just seemed to spiral downward.
Here's a video with both Roger and Alan's brother Lee...
There's probably some things we don't know yet on this. But to step away from the details of this specific situation, let's focus on the larger, grander issue. Equal rights for same sex partners. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution I believe addresses this over-arching issue:
(The text of the amendment)
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
There is, before we even get into the meaning of words, something that needs to be addressed in terms of how to read or "interpret" this amendment. Some say we should take the words literally, while others suggest its best to consider the time and place that we apply these words as the Constitution to some is a "living and breathing" document.
I will defer to those 2nd Amendment advocates who suggest we needn't and shouldn't interpret what the words mean, just follow them.
There's no questions that Roger and Alan and countless of other LGBT people who wish to marry the loved one of their choice are citizens of the United States and therefor are entitled as their birthright to all the privileges and protections of the Constitution. This is covered in the first one and a half lines of the amendment. Now we get to the part where is forbids any State to deprive any person of life, liberty or property (then changed to read pursuit of happiness) without due process of law not deny anyone equal protection under the law.
I've read it a hundred times and "except gay people" just isn't there.
Its never going to be there, is it?
Nope...
One of the things that's admirable about how our country was constructed was that everyone has a fair shot and equal footing/treatment at least in some theoretical way. We know equality doesn't exist across our population. Blacks, women, immigrants, the old, the disabled, non Christians, etc. all can point to a dark time in their history as a sub-group and tell some horrific tales of discrimination. We are getting better. We're trying. We need to try harder.
I hope before I leave this life, we've agreed as a country and as a people to apply the laws and founding principles toward everyone regardless of color, faith, orientation, health etc. It, to me, seems like this shouldn't be so hard, so scary to get right.
1) Hillary Clinton is very likely to run for President in 2016. The Democratic field she'd have to conquer isn't a very impressive or deep one at this time and I suspect it would be a short primary season for her. Her biggest obstacle is Joe Biden, and unless some controversy arises with Mrs. Clinton, (Bhengazi?) that can't be managed, I don't see him getting in her way.
2) I get the problem for congressmen and women when it comes to equal rights. In many places, their constituents don't really want equal rights. Yes, often these are the same people yammering about the destruction of the Constitution under this President and his Administration, but too often when the rubber hits the road, people don't really want equal rights for everyone. Many strong religion voices in our country get upset at the (mostly imagined) idea of the war on Christians. Ask these folks how they feel about Islam being taught in our schools and you'll see what I mean.
3) Several politicians have stepped up and proudly announced, like President Obama did before the election, that after much personal reflection they now feel all Americans deserve a fully recognized and equal right to marry the person of their choice. I didn't get too misty-eyed when Obama finally got around to it and I'm not getting too excited now. The list of those whose "evolution" had come out in favor of same sex marriage grows by the day. Almost always its a matter of political expediency. The 14th Amendment doesn't leave out certain groups, it says no person shall be denied equal protection under the law. Period.
4) Who can miss the irony that so many pro-gun folks who can recite the 2nd Amendment by memory but poo-poo any attempt to "interpret" its meaning consider those who want to apply the same standard to the 14th as some clear cut sign of lunacy? Hypocrites.
5) I wish the pro gun-reform folks who like to post pictures referring to the Newtown, CT shooting would stop. While it does play on our emotions when you do that, its not going to help the reform effort at all. Realize this. Massacres like that are almost impossible to prevent. Crazy people do crazy things. Hopefully, we get better as a society at stopping them. Any serious gun policy won't aim (sorry) at the random, insane acts that happen infrequently. Rather, it would attempt to get a better grip on controlling the manufacturing (smaller clips/magazines), better regulating all sales and creating an improved background check system. We should control all the guns in the country at least as well as we control our cars and trucks.
6) We all should be asking ourselves why it took a string of senseless shootings of mostly white people to get (hopefully meaningful) gun reform on the table again. While the murder of 20 small kids turns anyone's stomach, the overall numbers are striking:
April 1999: Columbine shooting - 13 dead
April 2007: Virginia Tech shooting - 32 dead
April 2009: Binghamton, NY office shooting - 13 dead
November 2009: Ft. Hood shooting - 13 dead
January 2011: Tuscon shopping ctr. shooting - 6 dead
April 2012: Oikos University - 7 dead
July 2012: Aurora Theater - 12 dead
August 2012: Wisconsin Sikh shooting - 6 dead
December 2012: Newtown school shooting - 26 dead
...Nine gun related attacks resulting in 128 deaths and even more injuries. While there was some increase in the general discussion on the need to improve gun laws in this country, it wasn't until our President wept openly before cameras the afternoon of the Newtown shootings that we collectively sat up and took notice.
2011 Chicago gun related deaths: 433
2012 Chicago gun related deaths: 535
TWO YEAR TOTAL: 968 deaths...
I'm not suggesting this is apples and apples, but my point stands. We mostly stand by quietly on the urban area shootings day after day while the body count increases well into the hundreds, but finally dub it a call to action when 20 children are wiped out in under ten minutes in the suburbs. Maybe its the sheer number we saw in Newtown or Tuscon, Ft. Hood, etc. but numbers equal to those or higher occur on average every week in Chicago.
We as a country don't seem to especially care if a group of us get gunned down from time to time. If its a group of small school children, then yes, we'll emote for a while and perhaps pass some mild changes into law. If its 6-10 blacks or latino folks losing their lives to a bullet every week in our cities, we really, as proved by our collective actions, don't give a shit...
7) President Obama continues to have a tin ear when it comes to avoiding unnecessary wrong notes. While the Country is coping with the effects of the sequestration, a by product of the inability of both Congress and the White House to avoid its across the board spending cuts, the first family is taking flak for its vacations. Never mind that Mr. Obama has taken less time off than his predecessor did, never mind that the Obama's pay for everything out of their own pocket except for security above and beyond the allocated $50,000 given to them for "expenses" and the $100,000 provided for travel. While we can dismiss the asshats like Sean Hannity for his role in this, I again wonder why this administration continues to throw these softballs right down the middle for his opponents to smack out of the park? This is not a first family that spends lavishly or excessively as some would suggest, but the appearance is damning just the same. The President's announcement this week that he will give back 5% of his salary to stand with those who have been hurt by the sequestration is a cheap stunt. Mr. Obama has a net worth of over 11 Million dollars and a fortune beyond anything I can imagine waiting for him once he steps away from public service. He's not going to miss the 20K he'll give back. Its this sort of "out of touch-ness" that pisses people off.
I have supported this President and usually defend his actions. Perhaps he has decided he has no more elections to worry about, that no matter what he does or doesn't do he will be criticized by his detractors, etc. so damn the torpedoes, the Obama's will do what they want without regard to public perception. For all the offensive crap they've had to absorb as a family, perhaps he's entitled. But it comes at a cost.
As one of the giants in the social media world, when something happens socially of import in America, it usually finds its way to the pages of facebook. The events at the Supreme Court last week certainly effected changes of sorts to millions of facebook users, including yours truly, who changed their profile picture as a modest show of support.
Apparently, Facebook tracks this stuff and reports that last Tuesday, 2.7 Million people more than usual, changed their profile pic. That seems like a lot to me.
Here is a image that shows where the profile changes were geographically by county:
(Click on image to enlarge it....)
The darker areas represent a higher number of those people who changed. Lighter areas showed locations where there were fewer profile pictures changed.
Facebook also has information available on when the changes were noticed by the researchers at facebook, as well as the demographics involved. Generally speaking, most of those who changed their pic were 30-somethings, with a very slight higher percent of women rather than males making the change.
“The compelling
argument is on the side of homosexuals. That’s where the compelling argument
is. ‘We’re Americans. We just want to be treated like everybody else.’ That’s a
compelling argument, and to deny that, you have got to have a very strong
argument on the other side. The argument on the other side hasn’t been able to
do anything but thump the Bible.” - Bill O'Reilly on Fox News on Tuesday
First there was
immigration, but gay marriage may be the next trending issue to be embraced by
Republicans in their initial steps towards broadening
the party's appeal. In addition to O'Reilly's quote, there are other
signs.
There is this from the Republican
Party's recent "Growth & Opportunity Project" report:
"For the GOP to appeal to younger voters,
we do not have to agree on every issue, but we do need to make sure young
people do not see the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of
view. Already, there is a
generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and
the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the
Party is a place they want to be."
Then on Sunday,
there was Karl Rove saying that there "could" be a 2016 Republican
candidate who supports gay marriage.
And back in
February, "at least 75" Republicans signed a legal brief to the
Supreme Court arguing that gay marriage is not only a Constitutional right but
reinforces conservative principles: family stability, individual freedom, and
government non-intervention.
I could list more.
Granted, there is
still opposition to the issue. For one thing, the court brief's signers were a bit
short on currently elected officials. For another, in a recent survey the only
age group to show 50% or greater approval were those born after 1980. And support
of gay marriage would certainly alienate some of the GOP faithful, in
particular the religious right.
But the Republican
party can embrace - or at least tolerate - gay marriage using the same logic that the court brief uses -
it is consistent with conservative beliefs such as government non-intervention. They can also maintain respect for religious beliefs but within the context of church-state
separation, which has the Founding Fathers' seal of approval. None of this compromises GOP core principles of limited government, low taxes, and
opposition to entitlements. And,
in a point worth emphasizing in the Republican recovery plan, support of this
issue is consistent with the party's legacy of abolition and women's
suffrage.
This is one of the biggest weeks we've seen in a while at the Supreme Court. The Court will hear two potentially landmark cases which, no matter their final rulings, are sure to upset a substantial number of people across the United States.
The two subjects before the Court this week involve same sex marriage and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
SCOTUSBLOG, has (probably) the premier coverage of the Court and offers this preview:
What are the two cases?
One concerns the right to same-sex marriage itself while the second involves the federal benefits available to legally married gay couples.
The first centers on California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage in the state. The initiative effectively overturned a decision by the California Supreme Court, which had ruled five months earlier that the state’s constitution required recognition of same-sex nuptials. Two couples seeking to marry are challenging the law.
The second case concerns the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 federal law that defined marriage as a heterosexual union. Under the law, gay spouses can’t claim the federal benefits available to other married couples, including the rights to file a joint tax return and receive Social Security survivor benefits. DOMA, as the law is known, is being challenged by Edie Windsor, an 83-year-old New York resident fighting a $363,000 federal estate tax bill imposed after the 2009 death of her spouse.
I have no predictions, but a few thoughts to share...
As the United States continues to evolve as a nation, we forget sometimes that we're still a fairly young member of the world governments. Civilization is a process, it seems, and we're certainly not done learning how to live with more civility toward all. In general, we seem comfortable expanding rights for various segments (Blacks, Women, etc...) of our population not contracting them as we move through time. I hope this week continues this trend.
In my opinion, it is not the Federal nor State's right to determine which groups among us may enjoy the benefits of marriage and which may not. If we are all equal under the law, what is there to really discuss? Yes, that's a simplification of the two issues, but I say it really boils down to that basic premise. Are we all equal or not.
