If you’re a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I have only one question for you: Do you love your spouse? If you do, you’ll get off your hands and fight to save your marriage. Do you think the Supreme Court won’t be able to affect you? Let’s look at the ways it does.
If the Supreme Court overrules our marriage rights — as some justices are attempting to do as stated by Justice Samuel A. Alito last week — you and your spouse will lose all those federal rights, including tax benefits, social security benefits, immigration rights, inheritance and about a thousand other rights. That’s only on the federal side. What about in various states?
Even if your state has a law banning discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, they may not discriminate against you individually, but they can discriminate against you as a married couple. How does that work? An employer could say, “While we don’t discriminate against individual LGBTQ+ people, we feel that people involved in a marriage might cause a disturbance in the workplace.” Translation: “You’re fired.”
Why are our friends at Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) worried? Of the current nine members of the Supreme Court, there are only three votes that seem to support marriage equality: Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have spoken up publicly about repealing marriage. Chief Justice John Roberts voted against marriage equality… which leaves us with the three Trump appointees Brett M. Kavanaugh, Neil M. Gorsuch, and then there’s Amy Coney Barrett, who was on the board of several organizations opposed to marriage equality.
I’ll ask the question again. Do you love your spouse? Then fight for your marriage. Join in the fight, become a member of groups who will protect your marriage before the court, such as Lambda Legal and HRC. Support those running for office who support marriage equality by volunteering, contributing to their campaigns, or making sure you vote. And when you vote, you’re voting to stay with the person you love, your spouse.