But not for the made-up reasons the Religious Right likes to use as talking points. No, Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the legislation to repeal DOMA:
Senator Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, called DOMA an “immoral law.”
“Same sex couples pay $1,069 more in health coverage annually than opposite sex couples,” Franken said.
Another senator added: “We can’t judge Americans for who they love. I’m sick of kids growing up in a country where government tells them discrimination is ok. We have bigger problems in this country than denying rights to Americans.”
Leahy, co-sponsor of the legislation to repeal DOMA, grilled DOMA advocate Thomas Minnery, senior vice president for Public Policy Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“Are those children (of same sex couples) at a disadvantage under the current laws?” Leahy asked repeatedly.
After many minutes, Minnery simply said, “Yes.”
Perhaps the headline should be “Focus on the Family Spokesperson Tells Truth.” It’s always useful to remind people that when these “pro-family” types ramble on about how they’re trying to protect children from the imaginary calamities that come with marriage equality, that their very actions and beliefs hurt the children of same-sex couples. We know that 98% of the fundamentalist Christian worldview is based on a denial of reality; it’s one thing when they’re trying to tell you that Jesus jousted with dinosaurs or whatever it is they believe, but it’s another entirely when they lie by omission by suggesting that our children don’t exist and therefore aren’t worthy of equal protection.
In a first instance the public health studies being cited were not carried out for use to determine whether a discriminatory law should be maintained. They were carried out so public health officials, and others, could try to determine how to get health care services to those who need them. The thought that you are going to limit somebody’s freedom based on some vague alleged statistic of what is likely to happen if you don’t limit their freedom is unconstitutional and ridiculous.
[...] I mentioned a few minutes ago that Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family admitted in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on DOMA this morning that kids of same-sex couples are put at a disadvantage by laws that discriminate against their parents. This exchange led by Sen. Al Franken is must-see teevee, as Al calmly produces one of the studies that Focus has cited to support their belief that same-sex parents are inferior, explains that it doesn’t remotely say what Focus claims it says, and ends by asserting that based on such misrepresentations, Minnery’s entire testimony is suspect. This is what happens when the Religious Right goes under the microscrope, y’all! [...]
Good to hear him admit it. I love to see people like Minnery backed into a corner and made to admit that the discriminatory nature of crap like DOMA is disadvntageous to real families.
This automatically happens when these clowns have to answer questions with facts. When talking to their loving Christian, bigoted followers, sure, they get rousing agreement and applause, but make them get factual and their whole argument falls apart big time. It is bigotry and hatred that fuel this nonsense, not the Bible. God and the Bible are only their excuses for their detestable insistence in denying that we deserve anything like the legal protections they enjoy.