The Defense of Marriage Act Will be Seen as the Dred Scott Decision of Our Time

categories: Defense of Marriage Act, Marriage Equality

Published August 13, 2009 @ 08:11AM PT

Dred Scott Talk about a powerful comparison. Several of us at change.org are at Netroots Nation this week for the annual progressive/bloggers conference. This morning's opening session featured a panel with some of the leading LGBT bloggers, organizations and allies, focused on fighting for marriage equality and LGBT rights across America. Pretty broad topic, but pretty solid conclusions reached by the panelists.

One of the panelists, Michael Wilson from Americans for Democratic Action, put it pretty bluntly when talking about marriage equality, and specifically the Defense of Marriage Act, which currently prevents the federal government from recognizing any of the same-sex marriages on the books in states like Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire or Vermont. Oh, Mr. Wilson:

LGBT people can't win the battle for marriage equality alone. You'll need allies. Americans for Democratic Action will be taking up marriage equality. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will be seen as the Dred Scott decision of our time.

Dred Scott, of course, was the legendary (and unjust) Supreme Court decision that essentially said that slaves were the property of their masters, even if they traveled to a state where slavery was illegal. Comparisons to marriage equality? Sure seems that way, given that a married couple in Iowa can't travel to neighboring Minnesota and be treated as two husbands or two wives.

Wilson's assessment was just one piece of an otherwise substantive panel that dealt with whether California should wait until 2010 or 2012 to try and repeal Prop 8, and what was being done on the ground in Maine to make sure marriage equality stays on the books despite a conservative ballot initiative up this November that could take away the civil rights of gays and lesbians to get married in the state.

More on Maine will come tomorrow, after a luncheon event. But suffice it to say, everyone here thinks that Maine is ground zero for marriage equality. As Monique Hoeflinger, a consultant working on efforts to defeat Maine's anti-LGBT ballot measure, said, "As Maine goes (on marriage equality), so goes the nation. Maine will be the turning point among the public at large."

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Comments (7)

The U.S. Supreme kourt has the final say in the matter, and the kourt is closed-minded, narrow-minded, and small-minded so gay marriage has the same chances of survival as a snowball does in hell. Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, et. al. aren't going to let it fly as a civil rights matter. The majority are like slave owner chief "justice" Roger Taney and his fellow slave-owning U.S. Supreme kourt "justices" were in the Dred Scott case--dreadfully wrong, unethical, and arrogant as well as intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt. Instead of preventing a civil war like they "reasoned", it guaranteed it.

Posted by Jeffrey Hill on 08/13/2009 @ 02:35PM PT
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The Americans for Democratic Action and organizations which support LGBT rights, especially same-sex marriage, are doing the correct thing by joining together to advance the LGBT rights movement. The intolerant DOMA must be repealed in order for the federal government to recognize the very important right of same-sex marriage. A referendum must be tried every two years until same-sex marriage is recognized in California.

Posted by Edwin Bonilla on 08/13/2009 @ 02:54PM PT
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We will win...We will win.

Posted by Reverend Boony on 08/13/2009 @ 07:50PM PT
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Thomas are you doing your part and educating people on LGBT equality? Wishful thinking only helps perpetuate ones own self esteem. The pit falls and heartbreaks of Prop 8 will happen again unless we perpetuate and educate others in the equality of our kind.

We can no longer rely on these organizations to do the work for us. HRC did wonders alongside EQCA and Courage Campaign... What was the outcome of that marriage? It seems when organizations get involved those we try to get support from withdraw. But despite that all these organizations say one very important thing.

"Gays and lesbians need to hold conversations with those they are close too, because people who know LGBT will vote in their favor."

If we dont educate and just "wish" or "hope" for things to happen nothing will. There is no Luck, there is no faith, there is no divine, that can give us our rights. Only by striking up difficult conversations with others can we achieve our rights. Especially when they are put to a vote. (which under the federal constitution is unconstitutional and unjust.)

Posted by Chris Marshall on 08/14/2009 @ 08:41AM PT
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Comparing lack of federal recognition of marriage to slavery seems unhelpful and insensitive.

Posted by Greg Goldgof on 08/14/2009 @ 03:12AM PT
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It wasn't so much a comparison to slavery that Michael Wilson made. My apologies if I didn't make that clear up above. He was more comparing the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott to the decision of lawmakers to pass the Defense of Marriage Act. Both were results of either a Supreme Court or a Congress steeped in a very discriminatory worldview.

And both, at least from what I could tell from the speaker, were decisions that history will eventually see as some of the worst that have come out of either the Supreme Court or Congress.

Posted by Michael Jones on 08/14/2009 @ 04:59AM PT
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I think the analogy is appropriate as it has that probable historical impact, a decision that will be studied for years to come.

Winning, of course, would be ideal.

Posted by S B on 08/16/2009 @ 08:10AM PT
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Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He is the former Communications Director for the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School, as well as the former Director of Communications for Pax Christi USA, a national Catholic peace and justice organization. Mike is a graduate of Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and he is also a proud sketch comedy writer.