Sep 05, 2003  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

A columnist and author who says polygamy is preferable to gay marriage and a gay Republican law professor were scheduled to be among the witnesses to testify before a Senate hearing Thursday on whether the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act can or should be invoked to ban gay marriage.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, said he called the hearing to examine what legal action, if any, is needed to “strengthen and protect” DOMA.

DOMA, which Congress passed in 1996, defines marriage under federal law as a union between a man and a woman and provides that states need not accept marriage certificates issued to gay couples by other states.

Gay activists said they were worried that Cornyn’s hearing would be stacked in favor of those opposing gay marriage. Although four witnesses selected by Cornyn were expected to testify against same-sex marriage, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), the ranking Democrat on the panel, disclosed on Wednesday that the two witnesses he selected would provide a far different perspective on the subject.

Among them is University of Minnesota law professor Dale Carpenter, a longtime Log Cabin Republican activist in Houston and San Francisco, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court calling for overturning state sodomy laws.

The decision by Feingold, a liberal Democrat, to invite a gay Republican witness to testify at the hearing was expected to please most gay activists, who view Carpenter as an astute advocate for gay civil rights from a conservative, libertarian perspective.

Feingold named Keith Brodkowski as his second witness. Brodkowski is a gay man from San Francisco whose domestic partner died in one of the jetliners that crashed into the World Trade Center during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Marriage ‘summit’ set for Sept. 8
Thursday’s hearing was scheduled to take place four days before gay rights leaders from throughout the country are set to meet in Washington to discuss ways to fend off a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The Sept. 8 meeting, which some have described as a gay marriage “summit,” was scheduled to be held in closed session at the offices of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political group.

The meeting, which follows a similar summit this summer in New York City, was called by Evan Wolfson, who participated in the successful Hawaii marriage suit when he was an attorney with Lambda Legal & Defense Fund. Wolfson now heads up the Freedom to Marry Project, which lobbies strictly on the marriage issue. The meeting is closed to the public and the media.

DOMA revisited
Cornyan has said DOMA, rather than the proposed constitutional amendment, was to be the focus of his hearing. But supporters and opponents of an anti-gay marriage amendment said they expected witnesses to address constitutional issues, including a constitutional amendment.

Congress passed DOMA after conservative lawmakers became fearful that a court ruling in Hawaii that was expected to legalize gay marriage there could force other states to recognize those marriages. The issue later became moot when opponents of gay marriage pushed through a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in Hawaii.

Gay rights opponents in Congress, saying gay marriage was likely to become an issue in other states, placed DOMA on the fast track in the middle of the 1996 presidential election. To the dismay of gay activists, President Clinton endorsed DOMA and signed the measure into law. Both Republicans and Democrats voted for the legislation by lopsided margins.

DOMA defines marriage for purposes of federal benefits and rights as a union only between a man and a woman. It also gives states the authority not to recognize same-sex marriages performed by other states.

Although it does not bar states from approving gay marriages, it would prevent same-sex couples that marry — in the event a state approved such marriages — from receiving any of the federal rights or benefits conferred upon heterosexual marriage, such as Social Security survivor benefits, joint income tax filings or inheritance rights.

Gay legal activists have long argued that this latter aspect of DOMA would not survive a constitutional challenge. The “Full Faith & Credit Clause” of the Constitution generally requires states to recognize legal status conferred by other states, but contains a “public policy” exception that was used in the 19th Century to block legal recognition of polygamous marriages from Utah.

Lawrence case prompted hearing
Cornyn said he called this week’s Senate hearing in response to concerns that a landmark ruling in June by the U.S. Supreme Court overturning ...