Re: genoves(Post 3663805)
State's Top Court Backs Proposition 8.
Gay rights supporters rally in front of San Francisco City Hall on Tuesday.
SAN FRANCISCO -- California's Supreme Court upheld the state's gay-marriage ban in a ruling Tuesday that ignited protests and was likely to fuel new efforts by gay-rights activists to legalize same-sex weddings.
At the same time, the court validated the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California before Proposition 8 was passed. These marriages will continue to be recognized by other states that have legalized same-sex marriage. But if a legally wed gay couple from other states move to California, their marriage wouldn't be recognized, legal analysts say.
The court ruled 6 to 1 that it couldn't overturn the Proposition 8 initiative banning gay marriages -- approved by California voters in November -- because the measure didn't illegally revise the state's constitution, as opponents had charged. Instead, the court concluded the ballot measure amended the state constitution in a way permitted under California's initiative system, which gives voters broad powers.
California's Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban. On Sunday, thousands of Bay Area residents attended church service as they awaited the court's decision.
By preserving the married status of the 18,000 same-sex weddings without restoring the legality of gay marriages, the court left itself open to legal challenge, some analysts said. The court interpreted those marriages as legal because they were entered in good faith before California's constitution was amended, said Linda McClain, a law professor at Boston University. In addition, Proposition 8 didn't specify pre-existing gay marriages should be invalidated, she said.
The ruling is likely to have national implications. For gay-marriage opponents, it's a "shot in the arm," said Bruce Hausknecht, a judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, an arm of Colorado-based conservative group Focus on the Family. He said the boost comes at a critical time for the anti-gay-marriage movement, because several other states have legalized same-sex marriage recently, including Vermont, Maine and Connecticut.
Mr. Hausknecht said traditional-marriage advocates would use the California decision "to communicate to people all around the country that at the end of the day, citizens do still control how they're governed."
The decision also is a potential new rallying call by gay-marriage activists. Thousands of people are expected to meet Saturday in Fresno, Calif., to kick off efforts to put a new initiative on the ballot to overturn Proposition 8 and start work on having same-sex marriages recognized at the federal level.
"Now, the burden is back on us to reach out to our neighbors and the voters of California," said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, at a press conference Tuesday at San Francisco City Hall.
Several gay-rights groups said they would try to qualify a ballot measure supporting gay marriage for the 2010 general election.
Opponents of same-sex marriage who were at the courthouse cheered the decision. "It's not a 100% victory, but it's a significant step," said 26-year-old Vladimir Musorivschi, a college student in Sacramento.
Bush v. Gore lawyers take on gay marriage ban
Two lawyers who squared off in the legal battle over the 2000 U.S. presidential election teamed up on Wednesday to challenge California's gay marriage ban in a move that, if successful, would allow same-sex couples to wed anywhere in the United States. Skip related content
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of two same-sex California couples barred from marrying under the voter-approved ban known as Proposition 8, puts them at odds with gay rights advocates who see a federal court challenge as too risky and fear a loss in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies, who opposed each other in the Bush v. Gore U.S. Supreme Court case that put George W. Bush in the White House, said that gay people who cannot marry were turned into second-class citizens by Proposition 8 in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Olson represented Bush and Boies represented Vice President Al Gore in the case that settled the disputed 2000 election.
If this lawsuit prevails, it would establish the right of gay couples to marry as the law of the land, upending laws in many U.S. states that specifically prohibit same-sex marriage.
Five of the 50 U.S. states have legalized gay marriage. Opponents, including many religious conservatives, see gay marriage as a threat to the "traditional family."
California's Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Proposition 8, which defines marriage exclusively as between a man and a woman, as a valid amendment to the state's constitution.
The same court last May struck down a state law prohibiting same-sex marriage, opening the way for an estimated 18,000 gay couples to wed before the proposition was approved by California voters in November.
'FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT'
"This case is about equal rights guaranteed every American under the United States Constitution," Olson, who served as U.S. solicitor general under Bush, said in Los Angeles.
"For too long, gay men and lesbians who seek stable, committed, loving relationships within the institution of marriage have been denied that fundamental right that the rest of us freely enjoy."
The lawsuit was brought on Friday before the California high court ruling. On Wednesday, the lawyers filed a request for a federal court order to lift the ban and allow same-sex marriages to continue until the case is resolved.
Andrew Pugno, one of the lawyers who successfully defended Proposition 8 in state court, said the will of the voters was under attack. "This new federal lawsuit, brought by a pair of prominent but socially liberal lawyers, has very little chance of succeeding," he said.
Many conservatives oppose gay marriage while many liberals support it. Boies and Olson cast the debate in nonpartisan terms.
"We come from different parts of the political spectrum. But I think Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, all recognise the importance of equal rights guaranteed by the Constitution," Boies said. "This is a civil rights issue. A big one."
But gay rights activists are wary.
"A federal lawsuit at this time is terribly risky," said Jenny Pizer, one of the lawyers for Lambda Legal Marriage Project who argued against Prop 8 before the California court.
Her organisation, the American Civil Liberties Union and others said in a statement that "without more groundwork, the U.S. Supreme Court likely is not yet ready to rule that same-sex couples cannot be barred from marriage
Ted Olson, Solicitor General under Bush is taking this case?
Interesting! Note:
Former solicitor general and ultraconservative lawyer Ted Olson is a rock star of the US Supreme Court bar. He’s argued more than 50 cases before the high court during his career and won more than three-fourths of them. So on Wednesday, when he signed on to a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage, he looked like the great white hope for a cause that’s had only mixed success in the nation’s courts. If anyone could prevail in this case, Olson could. So gay rights groups must be thrilled that he’s thrown his significant legal weight and conservative bona fides behind their cause, right? But they’re not"not at all.
The country’s major legal groups defending gay rights, including the ACLU and the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, don’t think Olson is doing them much of a favor. They are upset about the lawsuit, in large part because they think it will fail. A loss could be a major setback not just to the gay marriage movement but to other established gay rights governing adoption and foster care, employment discrimination, and other matters. Pushing the case to the Supreme Court, they contend, could do serious harm.
Anyone that thinks that Ted Olson is taking the case on because he wants to destroy the custom that marriage is between a man and a woman, doesnt know who Ted Olson is and doesn't know his record.
Cyclops wrote:
Gays are most specifically not treated like everyone else, and once again, it's highly insulting that you would even claim that. Gays are not allowed to marry the people they are in love with. Surely you can agree with me that marriage is supposed to be a relationship based upon love, not on the base needs of biology.
***********************************************
I agree with Cyclops. The Roman Catholic Church agrees with Cyclops. If homosexuals do love each other and if, AS CYCLOPS SAYS, marriage is based on love, NOT ON THE BASE NEEDS OF BIOLOGY, the Catholic church says that there is absolutely nothing wrong with two homosexuals living together as LONG AS THEY ARE CELIBATE IN THEIR MARRIAGE AND REMAIN CELIBATE.
Cyclops said--based onlove and not the base needs of biology!!!
I think that Lightwizard is correct. We are Stalinists in this country. In the country where Freedom is the highest value, we meddle in the sexual practices of free peoples. I have been trying to impress people for years that what is called beastiality( that is a pejoritive, of course) is merely true love between a person and their pet.
No one who has seen the magnificent play, The Goat or Who is Sylvia( written by one of our greatest playwrites, Edward Albee) can fail to recognize that there are people whose sexual needs are unmet because of bigotry.
The story is simple. A man is completely in love with his pet goat. His wife, insanely jealous that he would prefer carnal love with a goat than with her, murders the goat and at the end of the play, drags the body into the living room. The poor husband's incredible anguish brought tears to my eyes.
Lightwizard is correct. My correspondence with the members of NAMBLA and the Animal Lovers reveal that bigotry against those who want NOTHING else but to LOVE, is still alive in America.
Spendius-- Your anecdote about your explanation in a pub regarding lesbians and what they do was quite good. I had a similar experience last year when we were talking about movies in the local tavern. One person mentioned that there was going to be a remake of "Bang the Drum Slowly" --a very sad movie about Baseball and the imminent death of one of the heroes--the pitcher. His best friend was the catcher.
We learned that the remake might use characters from the Academy Award Winning--Brokeback Mountian but we could not decide who would be the pitcher and who the catcher!
Arthur Salm: Prop 8 is brain dead
Public will soon pull the plug.
By Arthur Salm, SDNN
Monday, June 1, 2009
San Diego: salm72dpiGay marriage in California is a done deal. Yes, Proposition 8 was upheld - that is, it was ruled an amendment that the people of California could vote on. But Proposition 8 was just a battle in the much larger conflict that the tide of history has already decided. It’s as if British, not the Americans, had won the Battle of New Orleans, which took place - unbeknownst to the participants, of course - after the war was officially over. Congratulations, good fight, but guess what.
San Diego: sdnn-opinion5Part of the reason for the inevitability of gay marriage naturally has a lot to do with the growing acceptance of homosexuality. But more and more people have also realized that there’s a more basic question involved, one that goes to the core of the concept of liberty:
What’s it to you?
As in, What’s it to you if two people you don’t know want to get married? People you don’t know get married all the time. Every day, thousands of people you wouldn’t know if you passed them on the street get married. On paper - at least, on some paper given weight by some religious organizations - we do have an interest in the marriage of people whose marriage ceremonies we’ve been invited to, and we can, if we’re characters in a movie, stand up and do something about it when the minister asks if anyone wants to stand up and do something about it. But that’s about as far as our butt-in rights take us.
Thomas Jefferson, writing about freedom of religion, got to the heart of the matter. He put it a little more elegantly than “What’s it to you?” but the sentiment is identical: “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Written 227 years ago, but it couldn’t be clearer.
Be prepared. Learn about our water crisis
People are coming to understand that gay marriage neither picks their pockets nor breaks their legs.
Or maybe it does.
Let’s be fair, hear the other side out. The 18,000 same-sex marriages that were performed before the (temporary, I tell you) ban have been ruled legal - grandfathered in. (”Heather has two grandfathers!”) Now, that’s a lot of gay married couples, even for a state the size of California. Since opponents of gay marriage insist that it is an attack on the institution, that it is harmful to marriage itself, surely they must be able to present some evidence of the damage inflicted so far: a ding in a honeymoon here, a sideswiped 10th anniversary there, the occasional totaled marriage in the wrecking yard of divorce. That is, testimonials: “My marriage has suffered because there are gay people who are legally married. And here’s how it has suffered.”
The most vocal proponents of Prop 8 should step forward, lead the way. Tell us: Sex not so frequent? Not as good? Just can’t get the thought of … that out of your mind, and it’s interfering with performance? Really, we want to know. If you’re having difficulties, maybe you’ve got a point.
As for children being confused if gay marriage is legalized, well, by definition children are very young, which means they don’t know much. So we’ll explain to them - if they ask, if they haven’t noticed on their own - that people of the same sex can marry. Then they’ll go play a video game.
(Those who claim that the institution of marriage will be damaged if same-sex couples are allowed to participate remind me of people - and I suspect they are some of the very same people - who declare that “the gay lifestyle” is a choice, one that must be resisted. Ah, yes - the siren call of homosexuality; what straight person hasn’t heard it?, they seem to be saying. Well - sorry, gotta get a little personal here - I’m a straight man, and I have to tell you that I’ve never heard it. But you have, huh? And you’ve resisted. So far. Interesting … )
Turns out we’ve been running an experiment: 18K married gay couples turned loose on society. And the results are negative. Looks like it might be … safe.
And more and more people know it. More and more people are coming around to seeing it as another case of ‘What’s it to you?‘ Unless it involves friends of theirs. Or family. Then maybe it’s something special.
Game over.
Arthur Salm is an SDNN columnist.
@Lightwizard,
Nevada Moves To Overturn Bill Against Domestic Partnerships
June 1, 2009
Nevada (ChattahBox) " In the next tentative step towards gay rights, the Nevada Senate has overridden a bill passed by Gov. Jim Gibbons that would ban rights from any domestic partnership, same or opposite gendered, CNN reports.
The veto was made by a majority of 28-14, which means that, while same-sex marriage is still not legalized in the state of Nevada, the rights of domestic partnerships are.
It is a further example of the way the country’s attitude is changing, albeit slowly, on the issue of gay marriage. It follows after a week of protests over Proposition 8 in California, and the decision by four states to legalize same sex marriage, with a fifth following in September.
New Hampshire state House and Senate negotiators on Friday agreed to add one sentence and change one word in a bill that will determine whether the state allows gay marriage.
Both chambers have approved bills to legalize same-sex marriage, but Gov. John Lynch later demanded additional language to make it clear that churches and religious groups would not be forced to officiate at gay marriages or to provide services, facilities and goods of any kind to participants.
The Senate passed legislation to satisfy Lynch, but the House narrowly rejected it last week. The compromise reached Friday barely changes it.
@Lightwizard,
Quote:“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Written 227 years ago, but it couldn’t be clearer.
Yes--but the neighbor who says there is no God has no reason to not pick your pocket, or break your leg if it suits him, other than fear of the law.
Fearing God is eminently justifiable but fearing the law is a bit soft. So one is much more disposed to allow a God fearing person into one's house than just a law fearing person.
The troll is building a nonsensical bullshit tower to the moon.
And guess who has just said gay marriage is all right: the uberconservative Dick Cheney. Principles get a little more tolerant when your dayghter is gay, I guess.
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-politics/20090601/US.Cheney/
@Lightwizard,
Quote:The troll is building a nonsensical bullshit tower to the moon.
I'll decode that for young newcomers to this site.
It means LW has no answer to the post he is pretending to make a grown up response to. He probably wears short pants a lot which I have noticed on US golf coverage look remarkably like skirts from a distance.
@MontereyJack,
Jack-- if you knew what an intellectual would say about your post I really do think you would have been a trifle more discreet.
@MontereyJack,
Well okay. I admire your nerve.
@MontereyJack,
That's what is changing the polls and will change the voter's minds as well as legislators and courts -- it suddenly becomes very close to home when a close relative is gay, or purposefully by ignorance and intolerance that is now becoming increasingly transitory, people have started realizing they've had gay people around them for years either as friends, relatives, co-workers, et al, who they happen to like or love. They're realizing that the stereotypical feminine acting male or masculine acting female is a minority in the gay world (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Pretty dumb to consistently step forward to identify oneself as the troll in question, or does everyone just step backwards like when Laurel and Hardy volunteered in the French Foreign Legion?
@Lightwizard,
"Acting" eh?
Do you mean a pose? Or an affectation?
Like wearing luminous yellow trousers at funerals. That's legal.
Everybody must have the right to wear luminous yellow trousers at funerals under the constitution surely?
@Lightwizard,
Laurel and Hardy was for English viewers LW. I hardly think Americans understood it or even wished to.
That would explain why Laurel and Hardy movies outsell every other vintage comedy in DVD and downloads on Amazon in the US and in also from the US box office, the Hal Roach studios made more money from their movies than any others stars under contract. What's there to understand? The long staircase in their best comedy "The Music Box," was right next door to where I lived while going to grammar school, across from Elysian Park. I managed to play "move the piano" with my school friends without breaking a leg.
