Can Obama and the Congressional Leadership Keep their word on Stupak

11/11/09-by Paula Brooks
I am not the daughter of the privileged… I am the daughter of a career military man, who is the son of a career military man, who was the son of a career military man… and I have an uncle who is a name on a black wall here in DC and a brother who is missing a leg because of his service in Iraq. I come from a family that has paid it dues to this country.

I am also a deaf lesbian widow and the working mother to twin three year olds… I don’t make a lot of money and what I do make goes to feeding, housing and clothing my little family. But I am fortunate to have a job that has healthcare coverage.

I have not been with out tragedy or struggle in my life … I lost my wife and soul mate Debbie due too breast cancer far to early and am now being denied her benefits for our children…. children we created together… Because of DOMA

My beautiful Debbie was a Navy pilot when we met… and she love to fly, but she was forced to choose… between her love for me and her first love of being a pilot.

I had to watch her get tears in her eyes every time a Navy jet flew over and her heart broke for 8 years… Because of DADT

But we went on to build a successful, tax paying, business together and created a wonderful family.

As she was dying, Debs spoke so much of her days in the Navy as one of the best things she ever did, but at her funeral… that had full military honors because of her honorable service to our country… a country Debs loved so very much and would have been willing to die for… I had to pitch a bitch just to get the officer in charge of her funeral detail to give me the flag off my wife’s coffin… Because of the current policies of my country…

I voted for President Obama… I sent him money and knocked on doors for him… because he promised to end all these policies. Policies that keep Debbie’s children from benefit entitled to them and disrespected her funeral.

But in the time since they have been in office, President Obama and the Democratic leadership have a pretty solid track record of saying one thing about LGBT rights then doing something entirely different.

Last month at an HRC fund raising dinner, on the eve of a march by 100,000 LGBT rights activists, President Obama promised to end that Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell policy and called on Congress to repeal the Defense Of Marriage Act. Yet not two week later, on the weekend before a major referendum on same-sex marriage in Maine, President Obama’s Justice Department filed a brief in a Federal Court defending that same Defense Of Marriage Act he vowed to repeal.

To make matters worse, when Stonewall Democrats in Maine asked the Democratic National Committee for financial help and logistic support in that referendum, they were refused, only to have that same Democratic National Committee turn around to send e-mails to Gay Democrats in Maine asking for their assistance in the re-election effort of Gov. Jon Corzine… in NEW JERSEY.

LGBTs in Maine lost the right to marry in that referendum and you can be sure that lost is going to be mentioned prominently in any future effort to repeal the Defense Of Marriage Act.

On Saturday, we entered the final stretch of a 100-year march toward extending health care coverage to the millions of Americans who currently live without.

The goal of overhauling the heath care system was supposed to be equality – to give every American access to comprehensive coverage and make it affordable.

But the Democratic leadership in the House did not have the votes to advance their version of the bill Saturday and were willing to trade away a woman right to chose what is best for her and her body by cutting a Faustian Bargain with anti-choice Democrats and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to get those votes by allowing passage of the Stupak-Pitts amendment.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment will prohibit federal funds from being used for abortion services in any health exchange, public or private and prevents private insurance companies from receiving government subsidies if they cover abortions and will require that women who want such coverage purchase a separate abortion rider.

What this amendment does is tell woman that if their current insurance company is covering reproductive services in a policy that they are currently paying for that company will not be allowed to offer those paid for services if they are participating in any way in the new Health Care legislation.

The Stupak amendment will disrupt the very equality that healthcare reform was supposed to accomplish and does exactly the opposite of what this whole exercise in health care reform was supposed to do. It says only women who can afford a special insurance rider deserve access to reproductive health care and marks an unprecedented restriction on people who pay for their own insurance.

It directly and unfairly attacks the rights of lower and middle class women. It directly and unfairly attacks my rights.

President Obama and the Democratic leadership have been busy saying they will get the Stupak language stripped out of any final bill, so we can have healthcare reform without having to sell our souls to some old men in Rome to get it.

As a working widowed mom who is not getting Social Security Survivor Benefits for her kids, I fervently hope they do, because I, like most working single moms, really need some help with the cost of my healthcare. I’m all for moving forward on health care reform, but I hope that the president and congress understand that progress on healthcare will not come at the expense of the rights of the more than 150 million women in America.

However, as an fairly well abused by the system lesbian, who has watched President Obama and the Democrats say one thing, then do another and play politics in the area of LGBT rights, my trust level of these folks is pretty low, so I can’t say I’m that confident President Obama and the Democratic Leadership will try not sell out the rights of American Women to get their win on healthcare….

That is if we let them do that…. And we as American Women cannot let them do that.