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Tag: doma

  • Lily Tomlin Casually Announces Plans To Marry

    Lily Tomlin, who has been with her partner Jane Wagner for 42 years, said recently that the Supreme Court rulings on DOMA have made them think about getting married.

    The 74-year old actress and comedian says they don’t want anything traditional, but now that the doors have been opened up for them to make things official they want to take advantage of it.

    “We’re thinking maybe we’ll get married,” she told E! News. “You don’t really need to get married, but marriage is awfully nice. Everybody I know who got married, they say it really makes a difference. They feel very very happy about it.”

    Tomlin has said that Jane, who is also a comedy writer and has collaborated with her partner on several projects, has inspired her over the years.

    “Jane took me to another level because she’s truly a wonderful writer. I’d put things together in the past and struggled with them. And then I met Jane. I was doing my Edith Ann album in ’71 — the album came out in ’72. She’d done a thing on television called J.T. — it was about a kid in Harlem — and she won a Peabody for it. I later learned it was the first thing she’d ever written. It was written as an After School Special, but they played it in prime time — and they played it every year after that for about 25 years, or something. Anyway, I saw it and it was wonderful. It was poetic and sensitive and satiric and tender and funny and so many things compressed into this one hour. And I thought, ”Oh, God, this is exactly what I want in a monologue.” So I wrote Jane and asked her to help me do the Edith Ann album. I didn’t hear from her for a while. Then, suddenly, about a week before I was supposed to go in and record, she sent me a lot of material. I persuaded her to come to California and help me produce it. Frankly, I was pretty taken with her as soon as I saw her. We just sort of clicked. We became a couple right away,” she said.

    Tomlin spoke publicly about her sexuality for the first time in 2000, on a New York-based television show called Gay USA; however, she said that she has never kept her relationship with Jane a secret and has talked about her partner several times in interviews, only to see it glossed over later.

    “Everybody in the industry was certainly aware of my sexuality and of Jane,” she said. “In interviews I always reference Jane and talk about Jane, but they don’t always write about it.”

  • DOMA Ruling May Alter Campaign Finance Laws

    On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in the high-profile case U.S. v. Windsor, overturning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). While the long-term ramifications of this decision are still being sifted through, and will not likely become apparent until people start claiming benefits and other things they are now entitled to, one surprising effect has surfaced. The repeal of DOMA will have an effect on campaign finance.

    Earlier this year, members of one firm, Caplin & Drysdale’s Political Law Group, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the DOMA case for a bipartisan group of former Federal Election Commission officials. Trevor Potter, who leads the firm’s Political Law Group and signed the Amicus Brief as a former FEC Chair, remarked:

    “This is a landmark moment for the rights of all Americans, and we congratulate Edith Windsor and marriage-equality advocates on their Supreme Court victory. Presumably, the Federal Election Commission will now interpret the word ‘spouse’ to include all legally married couples where it appears in federal campaign finance law. This would end DOMA’s discriminatory impact in this area.”

    As the Amicus Brief filed by Caplin & Drysdale noted, DOMA legally barred married gays and lesbians from political expression and association opportunities afforded to other married citizens. Specifically, while still in effect, DOMA had two main effects on the rights of gay couples regarding campaign finance. One was that married gay and lesbian candidates who ran for federal office could not fund their campaigns using personal resources that were available to other married candidates. This was important to same-sex political candidates, since over 40% of the 3,061 congressional candidates during the 2012 election cycle relied on personal resources to fund their campaigns.

    But also, individuals in same-sex marriages could not attend certain political meetings or interact with certain political groups that were open to other married citizens, simply because they were not recognized legally as “married”.

    The repeal of DOMA changed that. We will see how that trickles down into an actual election cycle, and whether it has any noticeable effect, as the upcoming races draw nearer

  • Proposition 8 To Receive HBO Documentary

    Proposition 8 To Receive HBO Documentary

    For those unfamiliar with Proposition Eight (or, as it’s usually referred to, “Prop 8”), how is life underneath that giant rock? Sorry I haven’t dropped by for a visit yet, I’ve just been so busy lately and, well, you know how things can get.

    Now, all joking aside…. For those unfamiliar with Prop 8, the nitty gritty of the situation is that during the 2008 California state elections, same-sex marriage opponents placed a ballot proposition on the voting tickets, asking voters to check “yes” or “no” on allowing same-sex marriages to take place in their state. Following lawsuits and a long, winding road of legal battles and red tape, Prop 8 was officially declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of The United States (SCOTUS) on June 26, 2013. This is the most basic summation of events; for more detailed information, readers should look here and here.

    The rulings against Prop 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) were cause for celebration amoung many LBTQAI+ individuals and their allies, with big names including Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama, and even Brad Pitt voicing both their disapproval of the law and their joy at it’s unconstitutional ruling. With June being Pride month, parades and celebrations became even more joyful and festive in light of the tremendous victory for human rights.

    Many hope that the rulings against Prop 8 and DOMA will lead to marriage equality across the country, and the writer definitely shares in their sentiments.

    The long, historical battle over Prop 8 is now set to become an HBO documentary. The Hollywood Reporter says that directors Ben Cotner and Ryan White have had “exclusive” access over the past five years with many of the major parties involved in the case, including the four plaintiffs and the legal team headed by conservative Ted Olson and liberal David Boies.

    Director Ryan White says, “We are excited to share that experience with the world.”

    The writer is sure that many are just as eager to partake in said experience, though there is no word yet on when the documentary will debut.

  • Feeling Pride Following DOMA Ruling? Facebook Lets You Show It with a Rainbow

    On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court made an historic ruling, striking down the nearly two-decade old Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. The act, which defined marriage as strictly between a man and a woman in the eyes of the federal government, was enacted back in 1996. With the ruling, state-sanctioned gay marriages will now be recognized as valid by the federal government – bringing all the benefits of that status with it.

    And Facebook is giving users a colorful way to show their pride.

    Users can now display a rainbow emoticon in their statuses when they says that they’re “feeling pride.” It’ll look like this:

    Facebook first unveiled emoticons in statuses back in April, alongside a bunch of other “acton-based” status options like “Feeling,” “Eating,” “Watching,” “Reading,” and more.

    Although Facebook as a company didn’t publicly release a statement in support of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn DOMA, it’s clear that the company, who urged the SCOTUS to do so in an amicus brief, is happy about the ruling.

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he was “proud that our country is moving in the right direction” and that he was “happy for so many of my friends and their families” in an update.

    According to Facebook, mentions of things related to the DOMA ruling topped 4 million yesterday afternoon.

  • DOMA Talk on Facebook Hit 4 Million Mentions, Zuck Issues Personal Statement

    According to Facebook, chatter on the social network concerning the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn parts of the Defense of Marriage Act reached a fever pitch by early afternoon on Wednesday. And from the hours of 9 am EST to 4 pm EST, Facebook counted 4 million related mentions.

    As you might expect, “DOMA” was the most popular terms yesterday, with “unconstitutional” coming in second. The latter saw a spike in mentions of almost 60,000%.

    And for the first time with a major national event, Facebook was able to track uses of their “action-based” statuses – you know, the “feeling excited” tags complete with emoticons that we’ve been seeing since April.

    Here’s what the map for people who said they were “feeling wonderful” following the decisions. As you might expect, California is the darkest yellow for the mood – the SCOTUS’ actions also made way for the dismissal of the state’s Prop 8 gay marriage ban.

    Facebook as a company didn’t make a statement on the ruling, but there’s not much doubt as to where they stand on the issue. Facebook was part of the amicus brief that dozens of tech companies sent the U.S. Supreme Court before they heard the DOMA and Prop 8 cases – and in that brief they urged the SCOTUS to overturn DOMA.

    Plus, Facebook is one of the most outspoken companies in the U.S. when it comes to protecting LGBT rights and fighting for LGBT causes.

    CEO Mark Zuckerberg did make a personal statement on the rulings:

    “I’m proud that our country is moving in the right direction, and I’m happy for so many of my friends and their families. #PrideConnectsUs — feeling proud,” he said.