2014 State of the Union address: on Civil Rights

Mike Lee: Equality means giving citizens the right to define marriage

Gay marriage doesn't promote inequality. Lee says, among other things, that inequality "is denying citizens their right to define marriage in their states as traditionally or as broadly as their diverse values dictate." Inequality can be seen as preventing stable couples from marrying. In any event, the Defense of Marriage Act (which he and others supported) did not allow for states to self-define marriage as diversely as they saw fit; it limited that option by inflicting economic penalties on married gay couples (hence it was overturned).

Barack Obama: FactCheck: Gender wage gap is $0.19, not $0.23

Fact Check: There is clearly a wage gap, but differences in the life choices of men and women--such as women tending to leave the workforce when they have children--make it difficult to make simple comparisons.

Obama is using a figure (annual wages, from the Census Bureau) that makes the disparity appear the greatest. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, for instance, shows that the gap is 19 cents when looking at weekly wages.

In other words, since women in general work fewer hours than men in a year, the statistics used by the White House may be less reliable for examining the key focus of legislation pending in Congress--wage discrimination. The weekly wage is more of an apples-to-apples comparison, but it does not include as many income categories.