DOMA doesn't protect family values

With the Presidential election approaching, both parties are singing the praises of "family values." Despite the fact that these values are poorly defined, there is also a large measure of hypocrisy involved in legislating them. I refer to the recent Defense of Marriage Act passed by the Senate last Tuesday in an overwhelming 84-14 vote. This bill, likely to be signed by Clinton, would allow the federal government and states to disregard same-sex marriages.

This law would prohibit little in the way of homosexual relations, as couples would just live together and raise families without the bond of marriage, love being stronger than law in most cases.

Also, according to Judith Stacey, who is a professor of sociology at UC-Davis, "I can attest that there is no consensus among social scientists on the superiority of the heterosexual nuclear family. Nearly three decades of research finds gay and lesbian parents to be at least as successful as heterosexuals. Ironically, some of the worst risks these children suffer stem from our failure to legally recognize the actual two-parent families in which many live. Utne Reader, Sept-Oct '96.

So, the question now becomes, whose family values is our government trying to protect? And when was the government given the power to legally define a family? Never, I believe.

Great hypocrisy is needed to boldly say that the state of the American family is in decline, and then pass legislation aimed at the prohibition of certain families. Furthermore, it seems that the government is taking liberties with its powers in determining that the "family" consists of one father, one mother, and a variable amount of children.

Examination of the bill's name, The Defense of Marriage Act, reveals another intriguing argument against it. Marriage has traditionally been a rite of religion. In fact, that's where the beginnings of the formal ceremony came from.

True, now there are many marriages (e.g., common-law) that are non-religious, but I would tend to think that trying to cast a net of legislation over all marriages would be an attempt to regulate religion, an act specifically forbidden by the First Amendment of our own Constitution.

Ignoring any arguments that the Defense of Marriage Act may be unconstitutional, the bill is nothing but hypocrisy in its purest form. In addition, the U.S. government has overstepped its bounds, both by implicitly terming "family" and by cast-net legislation. However, as the government can only "govern with the consent of the governed," it is up to those of us who disagree to show our discontent.

--Drew Faehnle, BK '00