Blog for Equality Day

Today is and while I make a pretty concerted effort to maintain the constitutional separation of work and blog, I'll step out of my usual habit of posting recaps of my daily meals and pictures of my dogs to write a line about that nasty constitutional amendment (SB 1250, should you care to contact your Senator) to define marriage as between a man and a woman here in Pennsylvania.

If you know me, then you know that my day job is pretty centered around this issue on the federal level - and more specifically rallying support within organized labor for marriage equality. (Hooray for UNITE-HERE who just passed their resolution this past Tuesday!)

As far as these malicious amendments on the state level - let Michigan be a horrific warning. When the right wing was pushing the state constitutional amendment they swore up and down to the voters that this amendment was strictly about marriage and that they were not interested in going after domestic partner benefits. Of course, once the amendment passed it was used to question the legality of offering DP benefits and a bitter court battle has been raging ever since. Families may lose their benefits, collective bargaining contracts may be rendered void, and the country has seen just how severe the implications of these amendments can be.

Beyond the dollars and cents - which are certainly important, especially to working class folks - there are more reasons than just benefits and tax breaks that couples want to marry. It's really just wrong to deny two people who are in love the right to marry. To quote Evan Wolfson, the executive director of Freedom To Marry (and a Pittsburgh native!), “It's emotional as well as economic, practical as well as personal, tangible as well as intangible.”

You may now return to the regularly scheduled mundane details of my life.