Moms On Issues
with Sara and Veronica
We're two moms with different backgrounds, jobs and points of view, writing about our opinions on the political and social issues affecting working moms. We'll also keep our eye on the media and the celebrity mom world to highlight issues that are relevant to your life.
Check out our personal blogs: Veronica's Blog and Sara's Blog
In 2004 or 2005 I was sitting in my optometrist’s waiting room with my, now 5-year-old, daughter. I want to say it was 2005 because I was trying to use a Newsweek to distract her. I picked up the issue and pointed to the man on the cover, “He’s going to be our next President.” She smiled and went on flipping through the magazine. Yes, that man was Barack Obama. Last night she stayed up until just past 10 pm Chicago time to witness history. She went with one of my best friends, her aunt by love, not blood, to vote after school. She was so happy!
I’m still on a high from this and I think all Obama supporters will be for quite some time. Yet what Obama is doing and what we need to be doing is planning for the future. But first, let’s see how the rest of the ballot shook out:
U.S. Senate – Democrats gained 5 seats for a total of 56 seats, not filibuster proof, but a good majority. (at press time a few seats are still up in the air)
U.S. House of Representatives – Democrats gained a lot of seats for a total of 251 seats!
Propositions that were very women or family-centric –
• Florida appears (too close to call at press time) to have voted a ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution.
• South Dakota, voters rejected an absolute ban on abortion except for cases of rape, incest and severe threat to the life of the mother. Voters in South Dakota rejected an even stricter proposal two years ago that did not include exceptions for rape and incest. [link]
• Colorado also failed in a far-reaching constitutional amendment that would have defined human life as beginning at conception. The adoption of this referendum would have made any abortion illegal and also extended human and property rights to foetuses. [link]
• California appears split on the two big propositions – No on abortion notification and yes on banning gay marriage (also too close to call at press time)
• Oregon rejects a proposition to limit ESL to two years for students.
• Arizona also passes a ban on gay marriage
• Arkansas passes a ban on same-sex couples from adopting.
• Michigan’s stem-cell measure is still up in the air, but looking like it will pass and allow for stem cell research.
• Nebraska has voted out affirmative action.
I look at our country, who and what it voted for and see a glaring area of social change that must be addressed – lesbian & gay rights. There is no denying that we need, as a country, have the conversation about how we want to deal with LGBT rights.
Same-sex marriage:: To me, it is plain and simply about love. Love between two people who want to be recognized by the state NOT by a house of worship, but the state, the government in order for them to use the thousands of benefits that come to married hetero-couples. From hospital visits to inheriting estate as a survivor, these benefits are crucial for us to have a society that treats all its citizens equally.
Allowing lesbians and gays to adopt:: This one still baffles me. Do we really think that having a child go from foster home to group home is better than settling into a loving family that just might be headed by two women or two men? Seriously? Sorry, I can’t think of much else to say about this because to me, children come first and if they don’t have a problem living with a same-sex couple, love them and want to be adopted I don’t see what the fuss is all about.
I know, I’ve heard all the stances on why we can’t have two women raise children…But most opposition to LGBT rights is based in religious texts and I respect that. What I don’t respect is others wanting all of us to live under those religious views. There is nothing about a lesbian marriage that puts my hetero marriage in danger or in need of any sort of protection.
President-elect Obama opposes marriage equality, yet marriage equality is part of the solution to many ills we suffer in this country. Marriage equality would allow for two men to be on each other’s health insurance. Obama isn’t planning on creating a national healthcare system, so we are going to need to make sure everyone can get on our partner’s insurance plan. It would alleviate a widow’s double whammy, allow her to collect survivor’s benefits and live a better life. Immigration is an issue as well. There are 1138 Federal rights afforded to married couples and not civil unions OR marriages allowed by states.
Obama espouses a message of unity and he can’t unite the country until he faces this question of inequality head on.
Please join me and other feminists tonight as we discuss what does indeed come next. The attack on LGBT rights will surely be front and center as well as the continued attack on women’s reproductive rights. What else will be on the agenda? Attend the town forum and propose an issue. That’s the problem with winning an election, you also win the problems that need to be solved. Despite being so tired, I have hope that we can do it.
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A couple of things.
With due respect to homosexuals etc., I don’t see why this is considered a “women’s issue.”
I also don’t understand why same-sex couples deserve financial benefits as a result of their lifestyle choices. I am OK with civil unions and certain rights that don’t involve a financial transfer to the couple from other groups. I think they ought to be able to have priority over the biological family in the hospital, to will all of their own money to their partner subject to the rights of any children they may have, stuff like that. But when it comes to health insurance and other financial benefits, that is a matter of redistributing wealth solely based on a lifestyle choice. This is also true in the case of heterosexual marriage, but there are justifications there that generally don’t apply in the case of homosexual unions.
I live in a house with two other women. We’re not homosexual, but what difference does that make as far as my health insurance needs? Each of us has to figure out our own health insurance and pay premiums based on being “single,” which is more than half of the “married” rates on every plan I’ve ever seen. Now if our next-door neighbors had exactly the same living arrangement but were homosexual, I don’t believe there is any justification for them to pay less than I. If many homosexual couples took advantage of such a benefit, this would result in higher premiums for people like me, and I don’t see why I should have a higher financial burden just because I am heterosexual.
I am not part of the LGBT movement, but if I were, I’d be advising them to break down the issues and take it a step at a time. I’d start with the things that seem least controversial and build on those. Better to make some incremental progress than to demand too much and end up with zero or negative movement.
SKL | November 5th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Marriage is very much a financiall partnership isn’t it?
I know it’s too little, too late but NO on prop 8!
What are the justifications that merit the transfer of outside groups money (health care and benefits) in hetero couples?
This is about not having one’s union with another human being relegated to a lower level, as much as it is about money I think.
Lindsay | November 6th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Lindsay, the justifications you ask about are that society benefits from having couples who may or do procreate raise children in a stable family. Financial incentives to marry promote the benefits of a stable family for kids. So most single people don’t mind paying a little more, just like we don’t mind paying school taxes even if we don’t have children. This may have been a much stronger argument 30 years ago than today (given high divorce rates and such), but it’s still more applicable to heterosexual couples than homosexual couples. I realize that some people are going to respond with “but there are gay couples with kids.” Yes, but (a) not very many compared to gay couples without kids and (b) lots of folks still believe that it’s not a great thing for gay people to raise kids (not my opinion) and hence see no justification for a financial incentive.
I would consider it more fair to charge heterosexual couples more for insurance than to charge homosexuals less.
SKL | November 6th, 2008 at 10:14 am
This post really highlighted for me why I do not consider myself part of the contemporary feminist movement — the issues the current feminist leaders are focused on are not the issues that I am passionate about.
The feminist leaders seem to be concentrating on abortion rights and gay rights to the exclusion of everything else.
What about identifying and and addressing the needs of women who choose to have children? Think maternity leave, child care standards, and social security rules.
What about promoting corporate culture change that helps the 99% of working women who aren’t aiming to be CEO? We need to remove barriers to part-time work, temporary mommy tracks, and child-rearing sabbaticals with on-ramps.
There also seems to be this assumption that feminist equals Democrat. Some of us believe in both Republican ideals of less taxation AND equal opportunity for women.
SoftwareMom | November 7th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Thanks for the comments…I wanted to give myself a few days to take them in, recover from Tuesday and give y’all a good response.
First, I want to reaffirm that I’m a feminist who votes Democrat, but I have voted for republicans a few times. I don’t do the party dance, which is why you’ll never see me in elected office. That said, I vote D because when I line up what I believe in, the Ds are usually representing.
As for focusing on LGBT rights…this week, I am. Why? Because that was the BIG failure of the change movement. By voting in 3 states to ban same-sex marriage and 1 to ban unmarried people from adopting, we set ourselves back.
Marriage bestows a lot of financial reward. If we are serious about protecting it, we need to have stricter control on who marries. I know a few married women who are married for the finances…and I’m not talking gold diggers, I’m talking straight up the need for health insurance. Another reason why I support nationalized health care…remove it from work and marriage as a benefit.
I also don’t believe in Feminism with a big F. We are working on a wide variety of issues. The media and our opposition like to focus on abortion and LGBT rights…that’s what gets people out to the polls.
Obama’s platform and his agenda includes fair pay and I hope one day he’ll take on social security rules for SAH-caregivers.
So Software Mom, don’t give up hope. I was taking a morning after look at the election and saw so many gains, but this one huge black eye on this movement of change. Monday’s column will take a more positive look at the many gains women as elected officials and women as citizens made on Tuesday.
As for SKL…Lesbians are women and thus deserve every right that us hetero-women get. Just because they love another woman does not make them any less a woman or a human being. Plain and simple. I won’t debate every point because my stance is really that simple. Love who you want, be good to each other, and let’s work together to make this world a better place for all.
Veronica | November 7th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Veronica, I am a heterosexual woman who doesn’t have the rights Lesbian women (and gay men) are seeking, so I guess we are not on the same page.
Marriage benefits make sense because of the children; maybe it would be more fair to make all the financial marriage incentives contingent on having children, and then extend them to all adult couples where both partners are legal parents (including adoptive parents).
Thing is, people should remember that different kinds of “rights” demands require different analyses. A non-financial right generally doesn’t take anything away from an uninvolved party. A financial right often does. No matter how emotional the topic, a transfer of wealth isn’t automatically justified just because some group demands it. There has to be some logic as to why a single mom like me needs to pay more to provide a benefit for the childless lesbian down the street.
SKL | November 7th, 2008 at 2:04 pm