Think of Haiti

Two papers are calling my name on this gorgeous Friday in Virginia, but I have to mention Haiti. On Monday a classmate and I gave a joint presentation about the country in our Post-Conflict Justice/Rule of Law class. We each spent at least 10 or 12 hours researching the country, which is full of great stories — being the world's #1 sugar producer and home of the world's only successful slave rebellion — and failures, such as a history of overthrown leaders and an impoverished people with little hope for the future.

This week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Haiti. Now she's reminding the world that as the economic crisis hits us all, it hits the poor the hardest. Nowhere in the western hemisphere is there a place as poor as Haiti. They do not deserve the poverty, did not bring it on themselves. Their poverty is the result of a series of leaders, notably Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier, who have taken advantage of a largely illiterate public and embezzled millions at the people's expense. The country's institutions remain in shambles, more than two decades after Baby Doc was exiled.

As so many people continue to feel sorry for themselves here in the United States — some rightfully so, of course — we would still do well to look southward, at a nation, Haiti, that desperately needs our help.

Vermont becomes #4; Watch D.C. next

The Vermont Legislature legalized same-sex marriages today, overriding Gov. Jim Douglas's veto of the bill by the slimmest of margins in the Vermont House of Representatives, 100-49. The bill required 100 votes to pass; a key Democrat switched his vote after voting against the bill last week.

In 2000, Vermont became the first state to legalize civil unions (as the NY Times story notes, New Jersey and New Hampshire later did the same). Gay rights advocates in Maine and Rhode Island have pushed for the legalization of same-sex marriages, arguing that civil unions do not go far enough, and make gay couples appear unequal.

I agree. This post discusses the differences between civil unions and marriage, and there are many. Because the federal government does not recognize civil unions, such couples cannot file taxes jointly or enjoy benefits conferred to married couples. In a 1997 letter responding to a former Illinois representative, Henry Hyde, the General Accounting Office identified 1,049 federal laws "in which marital status is a factor." The office divided these into 13 categories:

1. Social Security and Related Programs, Housing, and Food Stamps
2. Veterans' Benefits
3. Taxation
4. Federal Civilian and Military Service Benefits
5. Employment Benefits and Related Laws
6. Immigration, Naturalization, and Aliens
7. Indians
8. Trade, Commerce, and Intellectual Property
9. Financial Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
10. Crimes and Family Violence
11. Loans, Guarantees, and Payments in Agriculture
12. Federal Natural Resources and Related Laws
13. Miscellaneous Laws

Numbers three (taxation) and four (federal and military benefits) contain 179 and 270 provisions, respectively. Benefits available to married couples include deductions of estate taxes, gifts of property, government-assisted relocations, as well as health benefits, life insurance benefits, and retirement annuities for surviving spouses. None of these benefits are available to couples in civil unions. Federal employees with a sick spouse are also entitled to unpaid leave, a benefit not conferred on single persons, or persons in a civil union.

Civil unions will not last. Within five or ten years, most of the blue states — and some red ones, too — will have legalized gay marriage either by legislative fiat (Vermont) or through the courts (Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa). This is a very good thing.

In what may become the most publicized battle for same-sex marriage, the District of Columbia City Council also voted today, 12–0, for a bill to allow recognition of gay marriages. Mayor Adrian Fenty supports gay marriage, but for the bill to become D.C. law, Congress must give its approval.

The California Supreme Court is still weighing its decision whether to uphold Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment which banned gay marriage in the nation's most populous state. Also watch Minnesota to see if it's the next state in the Midwest to legalize same-sex marriage.

What a difference Iowa court has made

A UCLA study says that Iowa's decision to legalize same-sex marriage will result in a net economic gain of $5.3 million, today's Des Moines Register reports:

- Income tax: $1,254,000
- Inheritance tax: -$1,391,000 (Iowa would lose money because of a marital deduction for state inheritance taxes)
- Sales tax: $2,668,000 (annually for the first three years)
- Public assistance savings: $2,786,000

TOTAL: $5,317,000 net gain

Source: The Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles

This morning I wrote this letter to my old newspaper, the West Branch Times, highlighting the difficulties that citizens have had in obtaining the rights granted to them by constitutions:

Oh, what a difference a court can make.

In January 1857, 21 Republicans and 15 Democrats met in Iowa City to draft a new constitution for the state of Iowa, focusing primarily on banking and the rights of African-American men. When Iowans ratified the document, they agreed to allow banking, but flatly denied the vote to black men. Iowa women would not get the full right to vote for another 63 years, with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Despite this obvious discrimination in the original Iowa Constitution, the drafters included an important provision as Article 1, Section 6: "All laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation; the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens." With the 1857 ratification, Iowa's version of the equal protection clause passed 11 years before the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted equal protection of the laws to all U.S. citizens — at least in theory.

But as so frequently happens, rights granted to people in the Constitution did not become reality until a court said so. Not until 1954 did the U.S. Supreme Court decide that the 14th Amendment meant that black schoolchildren could attend the same public schools as white schoolchildren. Only in 1967 did that same Court hold that equal protection meant blacks and whites could marry, striking down a heartless Virginia law. And not until 2009 did the magnificent Iowa Supreme Court recognize that same-sex couples could enjoy a right, marriage, that most certainly belongs equally to all citizens.

Because the Iowa Supreme Court can recognize rights in the Iowa Constitution that the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet found in the 14th Amendment, same-sex couples in 47 states now look to Iowa with envy. Since the decision last Friday, I have worn my black and gold wardrobe with pride. I come from a place that recognizes rights, "even when the rights have not yet been broadly accepted, were at one time unimagined, or challenge a deeply ingrained practice."

As is so often the case, today I am proud to be an Iowan.