I once came across a cartoon with the following dialogue:

Wife (watching the news): “Now the gays want the right to get married.”
Husband: “Haven’t they suffered enough?”

The Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) is reprehensible on multiple levels.  It ignores our nation’s principles of equality and fairness by denying basic human rights to an entire class of its citizens.  No matter how it tries to disguise itself with the demagoguery of family values, its core premise and driving force is pure, unadulterated bigotry. And, of course, it winks at the glaring truth that so many marriages end in shambles with absolutely no assistance from the gays.  From whom does it need defending?

DOMA’s “morality” and “natural order” arguments are the same ones that prohibited women from voting, pushed blacks to the back of the bus, kept races from intermarrying, and fought the integration of color and gender in our military. Vilifying “those people”—whoever they are—has been for countless generations an effective tactic, and one that, in hindsight, we now see for what it is: shameful oppression.

While our nation wrestles with another basic human right, healthcare, DOMA has additional insidious and life-threatening consequences.  At the federal and state levels, countless same-sex couples are denied health insurance, tax-, survivor-, and other benefits afforded married couples.  Where same-sex couples are fortunate enough to work for employers whose health insurance will cover the partner, this “imputed income” is federally taxable.  Of course, the majority of same-sex couples are still ineligible for coverage under their partner’s health insurance, placing the burden on them and, often, on society. 

About one-third of the 1.1 million HIV-positive Americans receive assistance, including core medical care, through the Ryan White Program.  This costs taxpayers $2 billion annually.  As a program of “last resort,” it assists individuals without other, adequate resources, including those who are uninsured or underinsured.  With 56,000 new HIV infections annually in the U.S. and hardly any additional funding, this program is in crisis.

The number of HIV-positive Ohioans on our Ryan White HIV/AIDS Drug Assistance Program (OHDAP) has doubled in the past four years, and 100 new applications per month keep rolling in. This, combined with the costs of treatment and our state and national economic woes, has been a recipe for disaster.  As a result, nearly 1,000 HIV-positive Ohioans are now being informed that they will no longer receive life-saving medications through OHDAP.  New program applicants will be put on a waiting list, during which time they, too, will receive no meds.

If you think being married is suffering, try being HIV-positive without access to healthcare.  It feels, nightmarishly, like 1980-something all over again.

If we’ve learned anything in the past 30 years, it’s that treatment is effective in saving lives and dramatically reducing further transmission of HIV.

Repealing DOMA would permit hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive Americans to access partner insurance, improve their care and their health, while reducing the taxpayer burden—all of which should satisfy pretty much anyone’s definition of morality.

Who wouldn’t want to defend that?