That Is Not True of My Partner

Representative Gerry Studds

July 11, 1996

Mr. Speaker, first if I may make a legal observation, then a much more personal one. This bill has two brief sections: one purports to give states the rights to decline to recognize marriages in other states, and the other denies federal benefits to any state that makes such a decision. As has been said before, the first part is absolutely meaningless. Either under the Constitution states already have that right, in which case we do nothing, or they do not, in which case we cannot do anything because of the constitutional provisions; so much for the first part. We are then left with a federal provision that denies federal benefits for such a state that chooses to sanction a certain kind of marriage.

Mr. Speaker, I have served this House for twenty-four years; I have been elected twelve times, the last six times as an openly gay man. For the last six years, as many of the members of this House know, I have been in a relationship as loving, as caring, as committed, as nurtured and celebrated and sustained by our extended families as that of any member of this House. My partner Dean, whom a great many of you know and I think a great many of you love, is in a situation which no spouse of any member of this House is in. The same is true for my other openly gay colleagues. This is something that I don’t think most people realize. The spouse of every member of this House is entitled to that member’s health insurance even after that member dies, if he or she should predecease his or her spouse.

That is not true of my partner. The spouse of every member of this House knows that if he or she predeceases—is predeceased by their spouse, a member—that for the rest of their lives they have a pension long after, if they live after the death of a member of Congress. I have paid every single penny as much as any member of this House has for that pension, but my partner, should he survive me, is not entitled to one penny. I don’t think that’s fair, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think most Americans think that is fair and that is really what the second section of this bill is about—to make sure that we continue that unfairness.

Did you know, for example, that if my partner Dean were terribly ill, that in a hospital, perhaps on death’s door, that I could be refused the right to visit him in the hospital if a doctor did not approve of our relationship? Do you think that’s fair? I don’t think most Americans think that’s fair. He can be fired solely because of his sexual orientation. He can be evicted from his home solely because of his sexual orientation. I don’t think most Americans think that’s fair. Mr. Speaker, not so long ago in this very country, women were denied the right to own property, and people of color, Mr. Speaker, were property. Not so very long ago, people of two races were not allowed to marry in many of the states of this country. Things change, Mr. Speaker, and they are changing now. We can embrace that change or we can resist that change, but thank God Almighty, as Dr. King would have said, we do not have the power to stop it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.