In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Defending Marriage

Jill

And by “marriage,” we actually mean “the right to beat the shit out of your partner.”

When a raft of state defense of marriage amendments (DOMAs) passed in 2004, observers (including yours truly) warned that such amendments would not just ban gay marriage but also imperil domestic partnership agreements, next-of-kin arrangements and domestic violence protections for unmarried people. Right-wing backers dismissed such concerns as left-liberal paranoia. Well, I normally love to say “I told you so,” but in this case it brings me no pleasure. Nonetheless, I told you so.

Ohio was one of 11 states to pass DOMAs in 2004, and pundits alleged then that “State Issue No. 1,” as it was called on the ballot, played a major role in John Kerry’s defeat. Whatever the case may be (and let’s hope the ballots are still around to see), one immediate fallout is clear: domestic violence protections for unmarried women.

In late August, Ohio’s Citizens for Community Values (CCV), a right-wing organization devoted to promoting “Judeo-Christian moral values,” filed an amicus brief on behalf of an alleged domestic abuser. For the past 25 years, Ohio’s domestic violence law has covered married couples as well as unmarried and divorced individuals. According to CCV, such protections run afoul of Ohio’s DOMA, which bars the state from recognizing any legal status for unmarried people that “intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage.” If CCV has their way, “persons living as a spouse” (i.e. unmarried, live-in partners) would no longer be protected under Ohio’s domestic violence statute. Apparently, it’s more important for CCV to preserve the distinction between married and unmarried couples (and pre-empt gay marriage) than it is to prosecute domestic abusers. So much for Judeo-Christian values…

Is anyone actually surprised?

10 thoughts on Defending Marriage

  3. I have always had the impression that if you tap a stranger on the arm in the street, you can be prosecuted for “assault”, and convicted. If you are MARRIED to a man, however, he can beat the shit out of you and law enforcement does nothing. If unmarried couples aren’t recognized under domestic violence laws, can they move the arena to assault by a stranger?

  4. Pingback: the oh zone » chalk one up for domestic violence: a blog that hurts

  5. Ohio’s new motto: “With God, All Things Are Possible … Including Corrupt Criminals’ Bigotry Leading to More Crime.”

  7. Under this law, a domestic partner (straight or gay) could be prosecuted for assault, just not the higher charge of domestic violence. Ohio’s DOMA does not recognize any relationship besides a marriage between a man and a woman as a legal relationship; hence, violence outside such a relationship is still violence – assault/battery – but is not domestic violence. The county courts have come down different ways, from what I understand, in Ohio, and will eventaully be heard by the Supreme Court there. The two laws are incompatible, at least as far as Cuyahoga County is concerned, which means one of them will have to be invalidated.

  8. I think a charge of assault for tapping a stranger on the street violates the “reasonable person” standard in tort law.

    The whole idea of there being a more serious penalty for domestic violence over assault (making a person fearful of an unwanted touching) and battery (the actual unwanted touching) is what’s under fire, by refusing to acknowledge that adults of opposite sexes who live together have just as much right to be free of unwanted touching or the fear of an unwanted touching as people of opposite sexes who live together and are married to each other.

  9. Pingback: LuminousVoid » Right Wing Anti-Gay Amendments Actually Against All People

  10. The amusing side to all this (yes, there is one) is that Strickland and Blackwell (the Dem and GOP candidates for governer, respectively) are both claiming they know how to keep Ohio college grads from packing up and leaving Ohio. Cleveland’s census just showed it to be the poorest city in the nation, with one of the highest rates of exodus of young educated professionals. There’s all this whining and gnashing of teeth: “Why are they le-e-e-a-a-a-aving?”
    Couldn’t have anything to do with stories like this, could it? Oh, no. Totally unrelated.

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