WASHINGTON, DC (AgapePress) - A pro-family leader says the mainstream media across the U.S. will likely express angst over the government's decision to deny death benefits to the "spouse" of the nation's first openly homosexual congressman.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has announced that the male partner of former Massachusetts Congressman Gerry Studds will not receive a pension or annuity. Studds, who died of a vascular illness Saturday at the age of 69, married Dean Hara in 2004 after same-sex "marriage" was legalized in Massachusetts.

Under the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), federal benefits passed along to surviving spouses are restricted to "a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife," hence the Office of Personnel Management's decision. The DOMA also trumps the current homosexual marriage law in Massachusetts. As a result, Hara is ineligible to receive any portion of Studds's estimated $114,337 annual pension.

Bob Knight is director of the newly established Culture & Media Institute at the Media Research Center in Washington, DC. He predicts that the media, in reaction to the government's announcement, will try to downplay the federal DOMA law as it stands, as well as the affair Studds had with a 17-year-old boy, whom the congressman allegedly got drunk and seduced into sex.

Bob Knight

The media will probably treat this denial of pension or annuity payments as "a gross injustice," Knight says, and will probably suggest "that somehow Gary Studds's partner deserves marital status and marital benefits." To that, the media analyst replies, "Nonsense."

"Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act overwhelmingly in both Houses with Republican and Democrat support," Knight points out. "Bill Clinton signed it," he says, "and since then, 45 states have moved to protect their marriage laws. Clearly, the American people want marriage to be the union of a man and a woman."

Nevertheless, the media will likely sympathize with Studds's partner and downplay the significance of the DOMA, the Culture & Media Institute director envisages. Meanwhile, he adds, "I haven't seen any comments from Representative Barney Frank, who himself was the subject of an investigation when it was found that a prostitution ring for male prostitutes was running out of his townhouse on Capitol Hill years ago."

That incident didn't seem to bother Frank's constituents, Knight observes. "And it didn't seem to bother much of the press either," he notes.

According to a Washington Post article, Office of Personnel Management spokesman Peter Graves affirmed that same-sex partners are not recognized as spouses for any marriage benefits. He also noted that Congressman Studds's case is the first of its kind known to the agency.

Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

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