Final Story!!

Despite being stood up twice for interviews and being told by a certain Athens County government official that my story was a waste of time, I managed to crank out my final story which encompasses what I have covered the whole quarter on same-sex marriage. Enjoy!


In Athens, the word marriage is often taken for granted in the hearts of many students at Ohio University. While many single scholars are still trying to forge career paths for themselves, others are invested in spending an eternity with their spouses, basking in the joys of married life and reaping in the government ensured benefits of marriage. However, for some students in this bustling college town, these benefits are intangible, for now.
In Oct. 2009, just five months after OU enacted a policy allowing university employees’ domestic partners to be included in its benefits plan, Graduate Student Senate called for a similar policy for graduate students.
OU’s current benefits plan offers tuition waivers and stipends for spouses of graduate students, but does not apply to students’ domestic partners.
David Nichols, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Commissioner for Graduate Student Senate, was concerned about the current exclusive policy.
“Ohio University does have a strict non-discrimination policy based on sexual orientation,” he said. “We just want to ensure that the university is following the language it has adopted.”
The current plan states that a graduate student employee must present a marriage certificate to qualify his or her spouse for benefits. Because same-sex domestic partners cannot marry in Ohio, graduate students such as Nichols are questioning the policy’s equality.
“This is not just a gay issue. It is not just an LGBT issue. This affects anybody who does not fall into the confines of the traditional relationship with a marriage certificate,” Nichols said.
This fight for civil equality now joins a larger national trend of same-sex couples displeased with the amount of benefits they receive from the government.
In response to a June 2009 executive order signed by President Obama granting same-sex domestic partners some of the same benefits as married couples, government employees, such as Baltimore native Lisa Polyak, are less than thrilled with the outcome.
“I have to say, as a federal employee, I’m really disappointed,” Polyak said. “The benefits that the president is announcing are already available. This isn’t new. This isn’t different.”
Under Obama’s plan, same-sex partners of civil service employees can be added to the government’s long-term care program, employees can use their sick leave to take care of domestic partners and children and same-sex partners of Foreign Service employees will be included in medical evaluations and housing allocations.
In most cases, such as Obama’s plan, civil unions and domestic partnership laws only offer a fraction of the 1,049 benefits the federal government provides for couples in a heterosexual marriage.
Thought of as lackluster by some, the plan makes other LGBT activists concerned of the government’s role in ensuring equality for all citizens.
“They just gloss over these issues like there isn’t a human face behind it,” said Chris Uihlein, a junior journalism major at OU and LGBT affiliate. “To treat these issues like that completely disregards the peoples’ humanity,” he said.
Mickey Hart, Director of Ohio University’s LGBT Center agrees.
“The federal government is running away from its responsibility when it is clear this really is a constitutional issue,” he said.
Obama’s plan is the most recent disappointment to come out of a long string of same-sex marriage defeats in the United States, the most recent being in Hawaii.
On Jan. 29, Hawaiian legislators postponed a vote on H.B. 444, a measure that would allow same-sex civil unions to occur in the state.
“It’s frustrating when we have hope that these initiatives are close to being passed and it’s suddenly ripped away from us,” Uihlein said.
Conversely, people like Rev. R. William Carroll, head pastor at The Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, thinks these defeats are a sign of change to come.
“When I think of the amount of progress this movement has made since the Stonewall riots of 1969, these voting setbacks only show opposition groups like Christian conservatives as up in arms about an inevitable social change,” he said.
Since Stonewall, a series of riots in New York that sparked the beginning of the gay rights movement in the U.S., the amount of support for the LGBT community has grown.
According to an Aug. 2009 poll conducted by the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life, 57 percent of Americans favor same-sex civil unions that would give gays many of the same rights as married couples and 39 percent support same-sex marriage, up 12 and six percent respectively from Aug. 2003.
However, some Athens residents seem skeptical about the rise in support for same-sex marriage.
“I don’t agree with this,” said Keith Sluss, a junior journalism major at Ohio University, when asked about the survey results. “I think people have gotten caught up in popular culture in recent years but I do not think much has changed since 2004.”
Referring to the 2004 election in Ohio where voters approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, unlike Sluss, some feel it was a mistake.
“I think what we did in that constitutional amendment was that we wrote discrimination into our state,” said Evan Young, spiritual coordination of United Campus Ministries in Athens.
Aside from Athens County, the only county in Ohio which rejected the amendment, Young thinks that many moderate and conservative voters are afraid of change.
“I think a lot of it has to do with fear,” he said. “People perceive this redefinition of a traditional position as a threat to their morals without connecting it with the law, logically.”
He further stated he was unconvinced by the argument conservative voters have made against gay marriage or civil unions.
“No one has really adequately demonstrated to me how affirming the sanctity of a same-sex marriage detracts in any way from a heterosexual relationship,” he said. “I think conservatives need to do a better job in communicating their arguments to the general public.”
In Nov. 2009, the Ohio House of Representatives witnessed a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act by Rep. Tyrone Yates, a democrat from Cincinnati, who introduced a proposal that would eliminate Section 11, Article 15 of the Constitution.
“I would support this challenge,” Uihlein said. “I doubt the legislature will act on it because it is an election year, but it is a step in the right direction.”
However, Hart seems unsure of the challenge, doubting law makers on both the state and federal levels will act on such a controversial issue during an election year.
“It seems like their number one job is to get re-elected,” Hart said. “These types of issues are not the centerpieces of a legislator’s campaign.”
Uihlein agrees with Hart, stating that the Obama administration has done very little to further gay rights and benefits for domestic partners.
“I don’t think Obama has done very much for this cause because everyone knows health care reform is his primary issue,” he said. “Issues such as this always get pushed to the side because they (lawmakers) don’t want to deal with the backlash.”
In concurrence with the current debate over partnership benefits for graduate employees, some think the university will not concern itself with equality issues at this time.
“Although I believe the plan is unintentionally discriminatory, I think OU would rather focus on facing budget cuts and fiscal responsibility,” Young said. “I know the university has gone above the standard for a public school, but they should still right a blatant wrong.”



Outline

I. Introduction
a.) Graduate Student Senate calls for same domestic partnership benefits as faculty and employees
b.) “Ohio University does have a strict non-discrimination policy based on sexual orientation…we want to ensure the university is following the language it has adopted.”

II. Government Discrimination
a.) Obama plan which is claimed to not give any new rights to same-sex couples
b.) Civil unions only offer a fraction of the benefits married couples receive

III. Gay Marriage as a “Wedge Issue”
a.) Long string of marriage defeats in places like Hawaii
b.) Growing support for same-sex marriage
c.) Battle for same-sex marriage in Ohio
d.) Obama administrations lackluster support for the issue at federal level
IV. Conclusion