Mar 25, 2005  |  By: EARTHA MELZE  | COMMENTS     

A coalition lobbying for equal marriage rights for gay Americans gained a major ally last week, even as Congressman John Hostettler (R-Ind.) was reintroducing the Marriage Protection Act. The proposed measure is designed to prevent gay people from gaining the legal right to marry.

The AFL-CIO, the federation of U.S. labor unions that represents more than 13 million workers, passed a resolution earlier this month titled “Support for the Full Inclusion & Equal Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender People in the Workplace.”

The resolution noted that families are changing and all families deserve benefits, and that the Marriage Protection Act would deny rights to gay Americans, among others, and set a dangerous precedent if the Constitution were amended.

Jeremy Bishop, program director of Pride at Work, a gay and lesbian constituency group affiliated with the AFL-CIO, said the labor organization decided to take a stand on this issue after six of the largest international unions, including the Service Workers Employees International Union (SEIU) and the United Farm Workers Union, passed resolutions last summer in favor of equal marriage rights for gay Americans.

Bishop said many union members were jolted into action on the marriage issue when Michigan state government officials decided to strip domestic partner benefits from state workers’ contracts after lawmakers there passed a restrictive marriage amendment last November.

Michigan was one of 13 states to pass amendments to their state constitutions last year banning same-sex marriage and, in some cases, civil unions.

Bishop said many in labor are beginning to recognize that the rights of working people to negotiate contracts through collective bargaining could be hurt by marriage amendments to the Constitution.

Marriage Protection Act reintroduced in House
The House of Representatives passed the Marriage Protection Act last July by a 233-194 vote, but the measure failed to gain passage in the Senate.

The Marriage Protection Act would prevent federal courts from hearing cases challenging the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denies federal rights associated with marriage to gay couples and prevents one state from recognizing a same-sex marriage from another state.

“Recognizing that marriage is a divinely ordained institution — not a social experiment to be reinvented and redefined by a handful of [non-elected] ideologues of the federal judiciary — I am introducing legislation to limit the federal courts’ ability to set a national precedent that undermines marriage as we know it,” Hostettler said in a written statement.

The National Organization for Women, the largest organization of feminists in the United States, has announced its opposition to the MPA. NOW claims 550,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The organization has been working on lesbian rights issues since 1971.

“In 1995 we were the organization that called for equal marriage rights,” said Olga Vives, NOW vice president for action. “The issue of marriage is a human rights issue because same-sex couples are often denied benefits and denied recognition for their relationships.”

Vives said that last year NOW passed a resolution reaffirming support for marriage rights and kicked off a grassroots educational campaign about this issue that involved sending materials to all of its chapters and contacting legislators.

“We are at a civil rights moment when same-sex couples are on the verge of being able to be recognized,” she said.

The American Association of University Women, the Feminist Majority and the YWCA are among other women’s rights groups that have joined the Coalition Against Discrimination in the Constitution. The coalition is comprised of various organizations opposed to amending the Constitution to limit marriage rights.

“We are winning. We have marriage in this country — in Massachusetts — and in the court decision in California we see that no one is hurt by making equality a reality,” said Samiya Bashir, communications director at Freedom to Marry, a New York-based, nonprofit organization created three years ago to lobby for equal marriage rights for gay people.

Bashir said that recent polls show the majority of U.S. adults are in favor of marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples, though the majority support civil unions. Connecticut is working on passing related legislation without waiting for court decisions.

In addition, Bashir said, polls indicate young Americans, in particular in their teens and 20s, support marriage equality at greater percentages than do ...