Chicago Free Press Editorial: Do we need Barney Frank for the Respect for Marriage Act?

Chicago Free Press Editorial: Do we need Barney Frank for the Respect for Marriage Act?
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
September 17, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/3896


Members of Congress Tuesday introduced legislation known as the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act legislation and put into place new rules ensuring federal recognition for all marriages, including same-sex ones.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Jerrold Nagler (D-N.Y.) has at least 90 sponsors in the House, among them Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.). Illinois legislators such as Luis Gutierrez, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Mike Quigley and Jan Schakowsky are among the original sponsors as well.

At a press conference Tuesday, Nagler said that the bill would allow all married couples access to the rights and benefits of marriage. It would also ensure that same-sex marriages would be recognized across state lines; a couple married in Massachusetts, for example, would be recognized as spouses in Missouri.

Conspicuously absent from the list of sponsors was Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

Frank told the Washington Blade last week that the Respect for Marriage Act was essentially a waste of political capital.

“It’s not anything that’s achievable in the near term,” Frank told the Blade. “I think getting [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act], a repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and full domestic partner benefits for federal employees will take up all of what we can do and maybe more in this Congress.”

Rep. Frank’s reluctance to take up the cause of RMA is, perhaps, understandable. He has long backed these other issues and likely does not want to get caught up in whatever political firestorms the new legislation stirs up. An important lesson here is that gay politicians sometimes think like politicians first.

But at the same time, we’ve grown weary of politicians who’ve written off potentially substantial legislation because the timing was inconvenient. Likewise, we question the longterm benefits of such strategizing in the name of political expediency; a few years back, ENDA legislation was stripped of its rules protecting transgender persons to make it more palatable to homophobic legislators. Ultimately that did nothing to help the ENDA cause.

GLBT politics seems to be an interminable waiting game, and we are pleased that 90 members of the House chose to do the right thing and work toward repealing DOMA. The 1996 legislation was of course a desecration of marriage; did “defending marriage” these last 13 years do anything to decrease the divorce rate amongst heterosexual couples?

Hopefully activists and politicians—especially President Obama—will look past Frank’s lack of support. The mainstream and gay press has reported on Rep. Frank as if he is vital to the Respect for Marriage Act’s survival. Let’s prove them wrong.