A grandfather reflects on immigration, so-called "illegals," and human connection through a story inspired by a real encounter at a street-corner vigil.
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The Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 today that the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is unconstitutional.
DOMA is a federal law that restricting marriage benefits and required inter-state marriage recognition to opposite-sex marriages.
According to the SCOTUSblog the justices agreed (mostly), that “DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment. The opinion and its holding are confined to those lawful marriages.”
The New York Times reported this morning that this ruling is a sign of how rapidly the national debate over gay rights has shifted.
Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of FāVS.News, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Associate Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.
