NOM promotes a new myth about gay rights

There are some ludicrous reactions to President Obama's strong, progressive inaugural address.   NAR's LaPierre was perhaps the least intelligible, so it's hard even to explain what he was saying . . . something about "absolutism."

Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage -- a juvenile-minded group that keeps nutty Maggie Gallagher in a top position -- decried the call for marriage equality and pushed the new myth about gay rights:

"Gay and lesbian people are already treated equally under the law.  They have the same civil rights as anyone else; they have the right to live as they wish and love whom they choose. What they don’t have is the right to redefine marriage for all of society."

In an interview on CNN, a representative of the Family Research Council agreed with Brown's position.

Let's demolish the argument of equal treatment under the law with one simple and very public example, the case of Windsor vs the United State now before the U. S. Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.

A lesbian couple, together for 40 years and legally married in Canada, now living in New York where marriage equality is also legal, were treated grossly unequally.   One of them died, and the surviving spouse had to pay $363,000 in estate taxes that would have been zero if her spouse had been a man.   That's because DOMA rules on federal matters (income and estate taxes) even when the state has marriage equality laws and recognizes the marriage as legal.

So much for the myth that we are already equal under the law.   If the right can't hear appeals to heart and humanity and reason, perhaps they can understand dollars.

Ralph