The Human Rights Campaign expressed profound disappointment
in remarks made by President Bush during a press conference on July 30th in
which he said he supported codifying marriage in the United States as
being between one man and one woman.
"We are very disappointed that the president is trying to further
codify discrimination into law. The deeply discriminatory 1996 Defense
of Marriage Act already denies gay and lesbian Americans basic rights
like the ability to take time off work to care for a sick partner. We
ask the President to explain to the American people why DOMA does not
already meet the objective he set this morning," said HRC Political
Director Winnie Stachelberg.
Answering a question on the morality of homosexuality, the president
said, "I think it's very important for our society to respect each
individual, to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming
country. On the other hand, that does not mean that somebody like me
needs to compromise on an issue such as marriage. And that's really
where the issue is headed here in Washington, and that is the definition
of marriage. I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage
is between a man and a woman. And I think we ought to codify that one
way or the other. And we've got lawyers looking at the best way to do
that."
The president's remarks today are in contrast with remarks by Vice
President Dick Cheney's statements during a vice presidential debate
prior to the 2000 election.
"People should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want
to enter into. It's really no one else's business, in terms of trying to
regulate or–or prohibit behavior in that regard," said Cheney. "I
think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and
that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal
policy in this area…I think we ought to do everything we can to–to
tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to
enter into."
A recent study of the 2000 Census by the Urban Institute showed that gay
and lesbian Americans live in 99.3 percent of the counties in this
country. The study also showed the average American same-sex couple is,
statistically speaking, a mirror image of the average married American
couple. For example, the average same-sex couple with children in Ohio
is raising 1.79 children, while the average heterosexual couple is
raising 1.93 children. Also in Ohio, 75.1 percent of same-sex couples
own their homes, and 82.2 percent of other couples own their homes,
which have the same median value of $112,500.
In January, 2002, the president signed a Washington, D.C. appropriations
bill that grants domestic partners of city employees access to health
benefits. In June 2002, the President also signed the Mychal Judge Act,
which provides a federal payment to the beneficiaries of public safety
officers killed in the line of duty, including same-sex or opposite-sex
domestic partners.
"On the one hand, we have seen the president act with compassion and
tolerance by signing important bills like the Mychal Judge Act into law.
At the same time, he also seems to be working to strengthen laws that
deny more than 1,000 federal rights, benefits and protections to lay
abiding, tax paying gay and lesbian Americans who are now being faced
with new forms of codified discrimination. That is just wrong," said
Stachelberg.
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