Obama defends marriage gayL'amministrazione calls "unconstitutional" a law discriminates against gay couples
Yesterday the Administration announced that Obama will not defend the so-called more "Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996 with the aim of impeding the spread of homosexual marriages in the United States. Each year, in fact, many U.S. citizens sue the state claiming the unconstitutionality of that provision: Obama campaign had promised the abolition of that law and the separation of his administration is the first step to remove the discriminatory mechanism.
The law in the United States is called DOMA, which stands for Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996, complicated the presidential election, and voted on by Congress by an overwhelming majority: it was desired by both the Democrats and the Republicans. In those years, the first union were beginning to discuss the possibility to legalize marriage between same sex and given the constraint of reciprocity that links U.S. states, there was no reason why a gay marriage contract in Hawaii, for example, should not be valid in the rest of the union. The U.S. Constitution, in fact, stipulates that states have the reciprocal obligations: to recognize the diplomas, identification documents, court proceedings and legal status of citizens. If a heterosexual marriage concluded in Alaska is recognized in New York, with what this means in terms of access to welfare, it should not be the same for a same-sex marriage?
At the time, legislators feared that the legalization of gay marriage in one state would make them legal practice in the United States, and the DOMA was passed precisely to prevent that. The law, in fact, essentially establishes two things: that no state is obliged to recognize any document from any other state that considers legal marriages between persons the same sex. And that, in any Act of Congress and every award in the country, the word "marriage" will always alone, and only the union between a man and a woman. Hawaii is free to legalize gay marriage, then, but gay marriage contracts have value only to Hawaii in Hawaii. All rights that are descended from the marriage - for survivors, the ability to pay taxes on the basis of family income, joint custody of their children, etc. - are only valid in Hawaii and nowhere else.
The law appeared to have suffered a dubious constitutionality and years, while several U.S. states legalize gay marriage, many couples have sued the states that did not recognize their rights: the federal courts have sometimes accepted their requests, sometimes not, but the issue never came to the Supreme Court. In all such cases, however, the State Attorney has always defended the law in question. With Obama's decision marks the first step towards the abolition of the law, in fact at this point already defused: When will a gay couple sued the state demanding recognition of his union in the United States, the state will not oppose and even more will line up on the same side of the couple.
The decision was announced by the Obama in a letter to Congress by Attorney General Eric Holder. In the text, we read that according to Obama the law discriminates against a particular group of citizens based on their innate, immutable characteristic, as shown by several scientific studies, giving legitimacy to the stereotypes that would same-sex couples are unable to contribute to public life and society in the worst way by heterosexual couples. The gay rights groups and many Democrats have welcomed the decision with joy and relief, and by the way only a Feb. 13 unsigned editorial in The New York Times asked Obama to declare his DOMA unconstitutional. Republicans have had more mixed reactions: some libertarian favorable than who think that government should not pry of things possible and therefore not of marriage, some conservative contrast, many who argue that this is not the time to make such a decision.
http://www.ilpost.it/2011/02/24/obama-matrimoni-gay/
0 comments:
Post a Comment