Does U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher hate Idaho families? If not, why won’t he protect them?
On Tuesday, the U.S. House passed the Respect for Marriage Act — aimed at preserving same-sex marriage rights in the event that the Republican supermajority U.S. Supreme Court overturns Obergefell v. Hodges — in a 267-157 vote. Forty-seven Republicans, including Rep. Mike Simpson, crossed party lines to back the bill.
Rep. Russ Fulcher, who on the campaign trail bragged about his support for family values, opposed the bill.
Same-sex marriage is a fundamental family values issue. No one made that clearer than Andrew Sullivan, a conservative. His case for same-sex marriage was precisely along family values lines.
“Legalizing gay marriage would offer homosexuals the same deal society now offers heterosexuals: general social approval and specific legal advantages in exchange for a deeper and harder-to-extract-yourself from commitment to another human being. Like straight marriage, it would foster social cohesion, emotional security, and economic prudence. Since there’s no reason gays should not be allowed to adopt or be foster parents, it could also help nurture children,” he wrote in The New Republic in 1989.
Sullivan’s predictions have been fulfilled since Obergefell. Thousands of Idaho same-sex couples have been married and started stable, loving families.
Today, these families have a rational basis for fear: The Republican supermajority Supreme Court, which seems bent on reversing longstanding precedents, and recently revoked the longstanding right to seek an abortion that was established along time same lines as the right to same-sex marriage. Justice Clarence Thomas signaled in his concurrence that he is open to changing many of these precedents — though notably, he made no mention of Loving v. Virginia, which protects his marriage.
The sudden revocation of the right to abortion has led to turmoil and suffering. Women in many states report that they can no longer get adequate miscarriage care because doctors are unsure whether they might be prosecuted or sued. Doctors in some places have been unsure whether they can treat ectopic pregnancies, resulting in life-threatening conditions for mothers.
The lesson is that the worst can happen. And the sudden revocation of the constitutional right to marriage would have a similarly terrible effect, one that is even more predictable because the pre-Obergefell world is not so far in the past.
In that world, people who had been in faithful relationships lasting many decades were denied the right to be with their partner while they were dying or to make decisions about end-of-life care. They often could not take time off of work to care for a partner dealing with a serious injury or illness. Death benefits were not paid. An Idaho woman was denied the right to be buried next to her veteran wife. Adoption was impeded, and in some cases, if one parent died the children might be removed from their remaining parent.
It was a cruel, heartless system built on bigotry — bigotry that Idaho enshrined in its Constitution in 2006, where it remains, hanging like the sword of Damocles, ready to again tear families apart.
But Fulcher sees no need to protect individual rights in this case — just states’ rights.
“H.R. 8404 unnecessarily inserts the heavy hand of the federal government where it is not needed, creating a scenario where Idaho may be forced to recognize an evolving definition of marriage according to other states,” Fulcher said in a news release.
And Fulcher simply did not have the guts to stick up for them. He ignored the most serious threat that thousands of Idaho families face.
So any time he talks about “family values” in the future, know his word is cheap.