Ron Wallen Testifies at Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Defense of Marriage Act

 

This blog post is third in a series written by our summer LGBT Project legal interns. The other posts are "LGBT Human Rights Gone Global", "The Roots of Homophobia" and "Changing the Culture of Bullying".

When my partner came out to her ninety-two-year old grandmother and announced her plan to marry me, the reaction wasn't great. Not because of a fire-and-brimstone lecture about immorality and the evils of lesbianism. She was worried that, on top of the gender wage gap, we'd be facing an uphill battle just to get the same legal and economic protections under the law as opposite-sex married couples. (If only every grandmother were as awesome as she!)

It was an unexpected conversation, but she had a point: even though my partner and I could legally get married in California (at the time), we would still be denied hundreds of benefits that federal law reserves for one-man-one-woman marriages. President Clinton made that a virtual certainty in 1996 when he signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), defining marriage as the union between one man and one woman under federal law. Fifteen years after DOMA went into effect, gay and lesbian couples—even those who are legally married—are still denied these rights. Although President Obama instructed the Department of Justice to stop defending DOMA against constitutional challenges in February 2011, the law is still on the books. But things are starting to look up.

On Tuesday, Obama announced his support for the Respect for Marriage Act (H.R. 3567), which would repeal DOMA and require the federal government to recognize marriage equality once and for all. Just Wednesday morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee held its first hearing on the Respect for Marriage Act. The hearing revealed that, while federal recognition of marriage equality would be great in and of itself, it means more than simply acknowledging the legitimacy of LGBT relationships. The numerous economic benefits available to married opposite-sex couples would finally extend to married same-sex couples, as well. For example, married same-sex couples are currently denied federal estate tax spousal exemption, which over the next two years will force survivors of same-sex spouses to pay over $4 million more (.pdf) in estate taxes than survivors of opposite-sex spouses. Also, the government currently taxes health benefits for same-sex spouses of private sector employees, but not for opposite-sex spouses. Because of this, employees with same-sex spouses are forced to pay, on average, over $1000 more per month than employees whose opposite-sex spouses receive the very same benefit. Should DOMA be repealed, same-sex couples would no longer be denied these—or countless other—benefits. Here at the ACLU of Southern California, we believe economic justice is inextricably intertwined with civil liberties, so leveling the financial playing field for LGBT families is a cause we can stand behind. The Respect for Marriage Act is a good start.

Kate Allen is a rising 2L at USC Law School and a summer legal intern at the LGBT Project of the ACLU of Southern California. This fall, Kate will join the staff of the Southern California Review of Law and Social Justice and serve on the board of OUTLaw, USC's LGBT law student organization.

In a letter sent today, the ACLU of Southern California is calling on Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley to stop the criminal prosecution of a Los Angeles County jail inmate whom two sheriff’s deputies brutally attacked in the Twin Towers Correctional Facility on January 24, 2011.

Both the Los Angeles Sheriff’s department and the FBI are conducting separate criminal investigations into the attack on James Parker, but have not yet completed their findings. While conducting a routine inspection of the jail, ACLU/SC Jails Project Coordinator Esther Lim witnessed deputies kicking and tasering Parker repeatedly. She witnessed the two deputies shouting “Stop resisting!” and “Stop fighting!” while he lay limp on the floor.

The ACLU/SC requests that the criminal proceedings stop until the investigations are finished, because Parker’s prosecution will both interfere with those investigations and undermine the appearance of impartiality that the criminal justice system requires.

“Racing to hold his trial before the investigations are complete creates the impression that District Attorney’s office is more interested in convicting Mr. Parker than it is in ensuring a fair trial,” said Peter Eliasberg, legal director for the ACLU/SC. “Furthermore, the DA is undermining the legal system by rushing forward with this trial, while criminal investigations of the deputies’ actions are ongoin

“A prosecution of the inmate, James Parker, will require the District Attorney's office to urge that the officers' account of events be believed,” said Professor Daniel Richman a former Assistant United States Attorney who teaches at Columbia University Law School. “Going forward with the trial of Mr. Parker while a criminal investigation of the deputies is ongoing will also allow the inmate to cross-examine the officers on their powerful motive to protect their jobs and avoid prosecutions themselves. Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand why the DA's office wants to pursue this case before it clarifies what happened during the entire encounter.”

Parker’s trial is scheduled for July 27, 2011.

This blog post is second in a series written by our summer LGBT Project legal interns. The other posts are "LGBT Human Rights Gone Global" "Calling It 'Marriage' Isn’t the End of the Story", and "Changing the Culture of Bullying".

As James Gilliam blogged last month, Tehachapi middle schooler Seth Walsh was the subject of severe bullying from the time he came out as gay in the sixth grade until his suicide two years later. The Departments of Justice and Education launched an investigation into the circumstances that led to Seth’s suicide, and part of my work as a summer law clerk at the ACLU/SC has been to analyze the results of that investigation.The DoJ and DoE found that his bullies targeted Seth due to his nonconformity to male gender stereotypes. Seth's bullies, who were predominately if not exclusively male, made fun of his female friendships and stereotypically feminine mannerisms, speech, and clothing. They routinely called him a "girl" and a "sissy." They would ask Seth, "do you sit down" to use the restroom, suggested that Seth should "get surgery" to become female, and referred to him as the "girlfriend" of other students. Significantly, Title IX of the Education Amendments of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination or harassment on the basis of sex or gender in public school programs and activities. Because his tormentors specifically used gendered slurs, Seth Walsh’s case fell under the purview of Title IX. The report concludes that,

"the Student suffered sexual and gender-based harassment by his peers, including harassment based on his nonconformity with gender stereotypes; that the harassment was sufficiently severe, pervasive, and persistent to interfere with his educational opportunities; and that despite having notice of the harassment, the District did not adequately investigate or otherwise respond to it."

If not for the gendered nature of insults like ‘girl’, ‘sissy’, ‘girlfriend’, the Departments of Justice and Education would not have been able to invoke Title IX. As Seth’s tormentors demonstrated, homophobia is frequently rooted in sexism. Homophobia and sexism both stem from the rigid gender hierarchy that exists in our culture. Society not only defines how males and females should behave, it also tells us that masculinity is better than femininity. Individuals who have an especially rigid adherence to gender roles frequently see LGBT folks as transgressors violating the tacit rules of the gender hierarchy. Prejudice against gay men reflects the fact that homophobia is often motivated by societal denigration of femininity. When bullies use terms such as "girl" or "sissy" to bully or harass another person, they are attempting to put the victim in their place as feminine and, therefore, lesser. To Seth’s tormentors, Seth’s adoption of stereotypically feminine behaviors was seen as a kind of betrayal, an upending of the idea that to be at the top of the hierarchy, one must be male, masculine, and heterosexual. Understanding and deconstructing the gender hierarchy is crucial to ending the type of verbal and physical bullying that Seth was forced to endure. Through Seth's heartbreaking experiences that we can begin to see the destructive effects of a gender hierarchy on gay people, women, and also on those individuals who feel so invested in the gender hierarchy that they must turn to harassment and violence to maintain order.

Jasmine Wetherell is a rising 3L at UCLA School of Law and a summer legal intern at the LGBT project of the ACLU of Southern California. This fall, Jasmine will serve as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Women’s Law Journal and Chief Articles Editor of the Journal of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law. Last summer, Jasmine worked as a legal intern at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.