g5000
Diamond Member
- Nov 26, 2011
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- #41
This is one thing I agree with you on. I think couples who make a vow to each other should get tax breaks, the right to cover the other on their insurance and the spouse should receive benefits if one spouse dies. It seems pretty basic and fair. It is important to leave religion out of it because of the separation of church and state.
That said, the military is probably the worst place to conduct social experiments and force people to accept things that may go against their beliefs. DOMA worked well for years and hopefully nothing really changed since doing away with it. There will always be those who are intolerant and our troops are already put in enough dangerous situations without adding any other thing to deal with. You have to trust your fellow soldiers with your life and even if there is one guy who can't accept gays, it could be bad for everyone. I also worry about troops in the Arab countries because some of them kill gays.
I don't know the best way, but military has always had it's own rules and they do things that are best for safety and morale and maybe we shouldn't mess with any of it. We've come a long way and people accept things over a time as they learn to let go of their prejudices, but just don't know if you can speed that up. When people feel pushed to do something, they might resist more.
As far as a person's rights, we either all have rights or none of us have rights. Our constitution doesn't allow giving rights to some while denying the same to others.
DOMA is the Defense of Marriage Act which is a federal law passed during the Gingrich/Clinton era. It states that for purposes of the federal laws which award cash and prizes to married people, those cash and prizes are only for one man-one woman type marriages.
The appeals courts are saying that DOMA violates the "equal protection of the laws" part of the 14th amendment.
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