Before I start - I know I stated in my last piece I would discuss more on the Duck Dynasty controversy; however, I just can't drag it out any more than what it has already been within the media and honestly it is just something I'm over with.
Equality. It is a word that has a different meaning for
everyone. There are many areas of equality: women’s equality, LGBT’s equality,
educational equality, income equality, voting equality, and many others.
Sometimes it is just simply equal representation for all citizens. It is interesting the ways how far equality
has come in the history of the United States. 2013 was a great year, and 2014
will be too; but there are a few speed bumps to overcome in order for 2014 to
be just as great. One such state is Utah.
The state of Utah passed a law
stating marriage to be recognized as between a man and women. A federal court
struck down the law as unconstitutional and said the state cannot discriminate
against those same-sex couples wishing to get married. As a result, Utah became the newest member of
the “Marriage Equality” club. The
victory was short-lived as the United States Supreme Court has halted the
federal court’s ruling. As a result, the
governor of Utah – Gary Herbert – has stated that the state will not recognize
the same-sex marriages that have been performed since the federal court ruling
(which is roughly over 1,300 within the state). From my understanding, the ACLU
chapter in Utah has already filed to challenge this action, and the halting
itself (not sure about that but I will get back to you all on that
matter). From what I’ve gathered, the
ACLU position isn’t as solid as many would like it to be and if that is indeed
true, the Supreme Court would rule against them. The thing that made Utah such a victory was
that it was a conservative state and also passed a law only recognizing
marriage as between one man and one woman.
There have been other laws or amendments in other states that are
strikingly similar – such as Amendment One in North Carolina. If marriage
equality could come to Utah, it could come to other states that deny LGBT
citizen’s basic rights. The Supreme
Court’s interference, while constitutional, is still disheartening given so
much they have already achieved with it comes to LGBT rights in the United
States (DOMA & Prop 8 court cases). Marriage is about love and if two
people love each other, then they should have the right to get married. A
loving home is a good thing for society…and it’s future generations.
Speaking about the society’s
future generations, it has been fifty years since the “War on Poverty” started
and while we have made strides to reduce poverty in the United States, we could
always do more. According to some
Republicans, like Florida Senator Marco Rubio – who many see as a potential
2016 Republican candidate – seems to think the best way to alleviate the issue
of poverty is to support marriage as it takes two paychecks to support a
family, two loving parents to raise children, etc. While the rhetoric seems like a good touch
for the potential candidate (which I really don’t think he will be the nominee
due to his bang-up job on immigration reform and the republicans still have a
Hispanic issue to contend with), it seems odd that the senator would be against
marriage equality. If he really wanted
to end poverty by supporting marriage, he would draft legislation to support
marriage equality. After all, two
paychecks are better than one, there have been studies that show children growing
up in same-sex parent households are no different (in fact better in some
studies) than those who grow up in different circumstances. I’d rather have a
child grow up in a house with parents in a committed same-sex marriage than a
one-parent household or an abusive household setting. It seems that the Senator, as well as other
Republicans, are playing the usual “election year politics” card…but Senator
Rubio has a little more to lose since he is continuing to groom himself to be
the GOP nominee by switching from one important topic (Immigration Reform) to
another one (Ending Poverty). It
probably is not the wisest thing to mention that the way to end poverty is to
throw more money at the states and cut the funding to many anti-poverty
programs that help many constituents in his state (and in the forty-nine other
states for that matter). Even
conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation have already begun criticizing
his remarks on poverty and his way to end them.
If Senator Rubio wants to be the GOP nominee in 2016, he still has a lot
to learn when juggling important issues and stick to the battles he can win –
deficit reduction, needs of the voters in his state of Florida, assistance with
immigration reform, etc. I just hope if
he breaks a sweat while playing politics he will have a bottle of water within
arm’s reach.
