To honor Senator Kennedy, repeal DOMA

Today, Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York is expected to introduce a bill repealing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. If Democrats truly want to honor the memory of Sen. Edward Kennedy, this would be a good place to start.

Reading the obituaries for Kennedy, who died last month of brain cancer at age 77, I was struck by the fact that he was one of only 14 senators to vote against DOMA.

I looked up the Senate roll call on the act, which bars the federal government from recognizing gay unions, and I could not believe some of the people who voted for it, including many Jewish members of Congress.

I don't understand how Jews, especially, could vote for a bill whose sole purpose is to target a minority group that continues to face discrimination. Only one word describes it: shanda. We're supposed to be on the side of protecting civil rights, not taking them away.

I know some of Nadler's colleagues, including Rep. Barney Frank, think introducing a bill to repeal DOMA at this time is a bad idea. And even Nadler's staff acknowledges that there's little chance of the matter coming to a vote anytime soon.

Frank's argument is that there are other, more achievable goals, like repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and passing legislation that would prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Of course those things are important and Democrats in Congress should get to work on them. There was an editorial Sunday in The New York Times that noted in 29 states, it's still legal to fire a worker for being gay. That's un-American and unacceptable and disgraceful. It's just as wrong as someone losing their job because of the color of their skin.

But it's also unacceptable that thousands of legally married gay and lesbian couples, many of them with children, are denied their rights under federal law.

Ted Kennedy had an unwavering commitment to equality and often called civil rights "still the unfinished business of America." In 2007, he made this statement regarding the Employment Nondiscrimination Act:

“America stands for justice for all. Congress must make clear that when we say 'all' we mean all. America will never be America until we do.”

I can't think of a better tribute to the Massachusetts senator than making sure that work gets finished.

Democrats, Denver and history

I'm on the couch, in front of the tv, my feet up on the coffee table, watching CNN, ready for the Democratic National Convention, live from Denver. It's going to be an exciting four days of political theatre.

Whatever your views, this is truly a historic week in American history. Consider that in 1961, the year Barack Obama was born, black Americans living across a large swath of the southern United States were not permitted to vote. Now, a major political party is preparing to nominate an African-American candidate for president. It's something that no one could ever have contemplated when Obama was born.

Sometimes it's easy to throw up your hands and feel that one person can't make a difference. But in the 1960s, ordinary Americans, surmounting fear and acting with tremendous courage - black and white, college students and housewives - put aside their own personal safety to secure civil rights for black Americans. In the process, some of them were jailed, beaten and even killed. They were not afraid and they helped make this country better - for all Americans.

It was the sight of peaceful marchers being attacked by the police while walking from from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In a bit of incredible coincidence, ABC was showing Judgment at Nuremberg, a film about Nazi racism, that night in March 1965, and broke into the movie to broadcast the bloody images that horrified a nation.

A week after the violence, President Lyndon Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress and urged passage of the Voting Rights Act. (The picture is of Johnson signing the act into law, on Aug. 6, 1965.) It's a remarkable speech and a great example of using the office of the presidency as a bully pulpit. You can listen to the speech here.

In his speech, Johnson made the struggle for equal rights for black Americans a struggle for all Americans, invoking the words of the civil-rights anthem by saying, "We shall overcome." In the decades since the act was passed, the number of black elected officials has climbed from 300 to more than 9,100. Including, of course, the junior senator from Illinois.

If you want to read a compelling novel about the struggle, I recommend Freshwater Road, by Denise Nicholas. The protagonist is a young African-American woman from Michigan who ventures south during Freedom Summer, which brought hundreds of young, mostly white and Northern, volunteers to Mississippi in 1964 to try and register black voters.

Okay, enjoy the convention. I'm looking forward to Michelle Obama's speech tonight and an appearance by Sen. Edward Kennedy, who's undergoing treatment for a brain tumor. Obviously, that will be an incredibly emotional moment.

Update 9:38 p.m. Teddy just finished speaking. It was a poignant moment and he sounds like he's got plenty of fight left. His comment that "this November the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans" really got to me and I'm a little teary right now. Plus, he's absolutely right about health care for all Americans - it's a right, not a privilege. Here's a transcript of his speech.

Update 10:58 p.m. I thought Michelle Obama's speech was pretty good. It softened her, showed where she came from and served as a good introduction to her husband. She was passionate without sounding strident. She's not a forceful, stand-and-deliver type of speaker, her voice reaching a crescendo as she gets to an applause point. The fact that she seemed a bit nervous, that she didn't quite know what to do with her hands at times, was kind of endearing.

I think the part that will resonate with a lot of voters was at the end, when Barack Obama appeared by video hookup from Kansas City. Watching him interact with his wife and two young daughters was terrific. They seem like a close, loving family, people you'd want to have for your friends or neighbors. In a country where too many white people don't have friends or coworkers who are African-American, that may be the most important thing her speech accomplished. There'll be plenty of time for policy talk later. You can read her remarks here.

A tireless champion

I was so saddened to read yesterday that Sen. Edward Kennedy has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Elected to the Senate in 1962, the Massachusetts Democrat has been tireless champion on issues that all Americans should care about regardless of their political leanings - health care, the minimum wage, education, civil rights.

I've only seen Ted Kennedy in person twice. In 1980, he spoke at Northeastern University in Boston when I was a student there. But four years earlier, during my first trip to Washington, D.C., I saw him on the floor of the Senate. I'll always remember it, because he was sporting a bright green tie in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

I went to Washington in 1976, when I was a junior in high school, under a Close Up Foundation program. Close-Up is a terrific nonprofit organization that promotes civic education. Under its auspices, thousands of students come to Washington every year for a week of sightseeing, a sense of how government works, and the role that they can play in it.

From my first view of the Capitol dome in the distance as our bus pulled into the city, I was hooked. This was before I went to college in Boston, before I'd done any traveling, and it was the first city I ever loved. I always wanted to live in Washington, but I never had the chance. I guess it'll always be one of my great unfulfilled ambitions. At least as an adult, I've had plenty of friends to visit there.

Washington is the best place in the world for someone who loves politics and history. I remember we met our congressmen and various government officials, toured the monuments and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (the beginning of my lifelong love affair with that museum). We even saw a show at Ford's Theatre, the gospel-themed musical Your Arm's Too Short to Box with God. (I don't recall anything else about it except the title).

At our hotel one morning, I saw a very tall, imposing-looking Muhammad Ali. One night, I peeked inside a banquet room where a dinner was taking place for Congress' Joint Economic Committee and had a chance to meet, among others, Alan Greenspan, (before he was Federal Reserve chairman) Coretta Scott King and Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey. The former vice president was so gracious. He must have spotted my nametag because he called me by my first name, and introduced me to his wife, Muriel, who was standing next to him.

It was memorable week in many ways, including that glimpse of Senator Kennedy. While the outlook is grim, he's still with us, and I wish him the best.