being from a family of republican conservatives as well as a bigot, I greatly favor gay marriage on personal economic grounds. If the block I live on had a few "gay couples" (stereotypes) the area would be better maintained/landscaped and just plain cuter which would, I assume, increase property values to my advantage. As a bonus, the christians next door would likely move away and stop leaving bible tracts at my front door.
Frank Apisa wrote:As I said, I'll agree to disagree with you on this.
That's fine, but there's certainly no reason to go and
assault me like that! :wink:
Angie - Care to share with me what the "thousands" of rights marriage carries at the federal level are? Thanks.
Oh, and while it may be about prejudice for some, it isn't about prejudice to me. For me it's about the law, about history, about guaranteeing the maximum liberty consistent with an orderly society, and about having government treat citizens equally and fairly. Oh, and some of that makes it very much about "semantics".
I suspect that for some the push to support same-gender unions but insist that they be called "marriages" is an effort to take an issue on which most Americans agree and push it into the realm of contention where it can be used as a political issue in an election year. If we want equal rights for everyone, lets work for that and to hell with what we call it. And if that isn't sufficient to you, then I would challenge you to consider whether equal rights is really what you are interested in.
The law calls me a "man" and you a "woman", but is still supposed to treat us equally. Why then is it hard for people to think that the law could call the union of a man and a woman a "marriage" and a same-gender union something else, and likewise strive to treat the two the same?
(Oh, and in case you haven't read all my comments on this, I am fine with calling same-gender unions "marriages". I just disagree with the notion that not doing so means the unions can not be equal to marriage under the law.)
My god...busy thread...I'll catch up later, but wanted to post this piece. Pardon its length (from today's Salon)
Quote:Countries worldwide address gay marriage
By Toby Sterling
March 4, 2004 | AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- Three years after Amsterdam's mayor officiated at the Netherlands' first gay wedding, the gay marriage rate is falling, the first divorces are being registered and the issue has disappeared from the political agenda.
While the United States is engaged in debate on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, Canadians are discussing a federal law to legalize it and many European countries are adopting civil unions for gay couples.
But in the Netherlands, nobody talks about the issue anymore.
"It's really become less of something that you need to explain," says Anne-Marie Thus, who in 2001 married Helene Faasen. "We're totally ordinary. We take our children to preschool every day. People know they don't have to be afraid of us."
Around the world, countries are coming to terms with how to treat homosexual couples -- and the trend in many is toward liberalizing laws.
In Denmark, civil unions with the same rights as marriage have been around since 1989, and other Nordic countries followed suit in the 1990s.
The Dutch were the first to eliminate any distinction between gay and straight, striking all references to gender in the marriage laws. Belgium soon did the same.
Canada jumped to the forefront of gay rights in North America in June when it announced plans to legalize same-sex marriages. Many same-sex couples streamed north to marry in Ottawa and British Columbia after courts in those provinces authorized weddings.
In most of Africa, homosexuality is illegal and gay marriage unthinkable. But in South Africa, gay rights were enshrined in the post-apartheid constitution and some groups are lobbying for the right to marry.
In Japan, homosexuality is no longer considered a mental illness, but many gays still feel pressure to go through a sham heterosexual marriage. Japan is more progressive than most of Asia.
Strongly Roman Catholic countries such as Spain and Italy refuse to recognize gay couples, following the Vatican's abhorrence of homosexuality.
But there are important exceptions.
In Portugal, and in Spain's Navarra and Basque regions, gay couples who live together long enough receive the same benefits as heterosexuals under common law unions. In Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, gay couples can register for a civil union.
France and Germany have civil union laws, and Britain is in the process of adopting them.
The Dutch have watched the hoopla in the United States with some bemusement. Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen, who married six couples at the stroke of midnight on April 1, 2001, when the Dutch law took effect, sent a note of support to Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco mayor who set off a rush to California when he officiated same-sex ceremonies.
In contrast to Amsterdam's boisterous gay clubs and the spring rite of the Gay Pride parade through its famed canals, Faasen and Thus, the Dutch lesbian couple, live a quiet middle-class life in a neat apartment on the city's outskirts. They hardly seem like revolutionaries, or even trendsetters.
Faasen is a notary and Thus works part time in a home for the elderly. The couple have a 3 1/2-year-old son, Nathan, and 2-year-old daughter, Myrthle. Faasen adopted the two, who are Thus' biological children.
Their reasons for marrying were prosaic.
"With marriage, you have a whole range of legal issues settled right in one go," Faasen says, scooping up Myrthle. "Child care, life insurance, health insurance, pension, inheritance. Otherwise you're left taking care of those things bit by bit, where it's possible."
In typical Dutch fashion, the marriage law was debated for years before it was finally enacted without fanfare. Government statistics show 2,400 same-sex marriages took place in its first nine months, compared with 1,500 last year.
Marten van Mourik, a law professor at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, says the declining rate of same-sex unions vindicated his opposition to the change in the law and shows it was unnecessary since civil unions were already legal.
"You don't change an institution with such a long history from one day to the next just to satisfy the whim of one group of people," he says. "Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman intended to produce children. You can't get around that."
But he concedes there is no political support for reversing the law, even though the government is now led by the Christian Democrats, which had opposed the legislation.
Henk Krol, editor of the magazine Gay Krant, argues civil unions are an intermediate stage on the way to full marriage rights for gays, which he says are inevitable.
"A civil union is a second-rate marriage," he says. "People want a honeymoon. Not a trip to celebrate a registered partnership."
He says those who oppose gay marriage for religious reasons often soften their thinking when they realize they won't be forced to accept gay couples joining their church.
"It's an issue of separation of church and state," he says. "We don't have gay marriage here. We have civil marriage, and it's the same for everyone."
But Thus, who was raised Catholic, said the fact of her marriage itself has helped win over religious people.
"Especially for religious people, marriage makes a statement that 'this is someone I love and will grow old with'," she said.
"When you're just 'partners' or 'living together' they think ... you know, every day a
new lover'. With marriage, the commitment is real, and they believe it."
Quote:While the United States is engaged in debate on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, ...
The media--especially overseas--seems intent on misrepresenting this issue at every turn. To write that the amendment "bans gay marriage" is to misrepresent what it does and portray those who support it in an unfair light. The amendment does not ban gay unions, it bans calling them "marriages". Period.
Again, I don't think we need the amendment, and don't care whether civil unions are called "marriages" or "granfalloons".
The bigger issue here is that we need to figure out whose parents pay for the wedding when two men get hitched. :wink:
Gay couples working to wrest civil rights from reluctant nat
Posted on Fri, Mar. 05, 2004
Gay couples working to wrest civil rights from reluctant nation
By Stephen Henderson
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Months before marriage for gays and lesbians became the subject of sometimes intemperate debate in courtrooms, legislatures and at dinner tables across the country, P.J. Sedillo reached a turning point in his own struggle for equality - and was about to catch a break.
For a decade, Sedillo had been prodding his employer, the Albuquerque Public Schools system, to extend health benefits to his partner, an Army veteran whose insurance didn't include dental or vision coverage.
The answer was always no. The system didn't recognize domestic partnerships.
But last October, Sedillo and Tony Ross went to Ottawa and got married under new Canadian laws that permit same-sex unions.
Back home in New Mexico, Sedillo submitted a new request for benefits - this time for his legal spouse.
After some hesitation, the school system relented.
"They didn't make a big deal of it or anything," Sedillo said. "They just sent me a notice that said they'd cover Tony, and on the paperwork it said `spouse.' It was such a great moment. I'm married, and they couldn't really dispute it."
It was a quiet victory on a largely unseen front in the battle over gay marriage.
While same-sex marriage licenses roil communities from Oregon to New York, and a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage threatens a years-long battle over the issue, many gay couples are waging private struggles.
They're approaching their employers, insurers and even athletic clubs and seeking recognition of their Canadian marriages. Soon, they'll do the same with marriage licenses from Massachusetts, where same-sex couples will be able to marry starting this summer.
Like blacks who sat-in at segregated lunch counters or refused to take seats at the back of the bus, these couples are fighting for acceptance from employers, businesses and communities. By changing minds about gay marriage in corporate boardrooms, shareholder meetings and community centers, they hope to make much of the legal debate irrelevant.
"These struggles are about families that need the protections and the benefits that all families need, and they're realizing they don't always have to go to court to win those protections," said David Buckel, the director of the marriage project for the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, a gay advocacy group. "They'd rather work with their employers or their insurers to get what they need."
Getting employers and others to recognize gay marriages could influence the legal fight as well, particularly if the issue reaches the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices often have cited evolving social norms and cultural changes as part of the basis for rulings that expanded protections for women and racial minorities.
Buckel said no one had tracked the number of American gay couples who'd gotten Canadian marriage licenses, but since the Canadian court ruling last June, Toronto alone has issued more than 1,100 licenses to Americans. Buckel said his group was aware of some who'd used those Canadian licenses to obtain benefits, but that they weren't likely to publicize their victories.
"It's happening; it's just not very public right now," Buckel said.
That was the case for Sedillo and Ross.
Together for 10 years, they'd always struggled with medical coverage. Ross is self-employed and relied on his veterans benefits, which forced him to go to the emergency room for routine medical issues.
Sedillo, a teacher, spent years sitting on committees and filing complaints to urge Albuquerque's school system to extend domestic-partner benefits. State government and Albuquerque city government offer coverage for domestic partners and have nondiscrimination policies, but because the school system is separate, it could choose to deny those benefits.
Sedillo said that was why allowing gays to marry made such a difference.
"They couldn't treat my Canadian marriage license any differently than any other Canadian marriage license," Sedillo said.
New Mexico is one of 12 states that don't have versions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which might have permitted the school system to disregard Sedillo and Ross' Canadian marriage license.
Sedillo is thankful that the change in Canadian law has made a difference for him, but he's somewhat resentful that he had to go to a foreign country to get official recognition for a relationship that's already outlasted many American marriages and is not only recognized but also celebrated by the community where he and Ross live.
They're longtime activists in Albuquerque, having coordinated many charity events and human rights campaigns, Sedillo said. After they married last year, they had a reception in Albuquerque that drew 500 people and inspired the mayor, Martin Chavez, to issue a proclamation declaring it "P.J. and Tony Day." It noted not only their individual contributions to the community, but also that "as a team, their talents are complemented."
"But our commitment to each other and to this community didn't matter to the law until last October," Sedillo said. "We couldn't get the protections that other couples take for granted."
Cindy Meneghin and Maureen Kilian can relate. The Butler, N. J., couple has been together for 30 years, through two children, a house and a cancer scare. Their relationship is no secret in their small town of about 8,000; they say that even the clerk who denied them a marriage license knew them well enough to wonder aloud why she couldn't grant them one.
"But as long as we don't have one, our insurance won't give us a two-car discount, and if one of us were to die, the other wouldn't get Social Security and would have to pay inheritance tax on the house we bought together," Meneghin said. "Heck, we can't even get a family membership at the local YMCA."
Meneghin said that when they decided to start a family and Kilian was pregnant with their first child, they wanted to have one parent stay home with the baby. That, too, was a challenge, because the working parent's insurance wouldn't cover the one who stayed home.
They worked it out with a patchwork of childcare and part-time jobs, just to keep the benefits flowing. If they'd been married, their license would have allowed them to create the home environment they wanted.
"And don't most people think it's ideal to have a parent stay home with young children?" Meneghin asked.
Meneghin and Kilian are part of a New Jersey lawsuit that mirrors the one in Massachusetts that led that state's supreme court to legalize gay marriage last year. If they're successful in New Jersey, they say, the marriage license would be a key to their equality - and that's all it will be.
"It's a $28 license that won't change our love or our commitment," Meneghin said. "It will change our security, and the protections of our family, which doesn't hurt anybody. But it could save us."
Fred Phelps and his fellow "Christians" will be at the Colorado State Capitol this month.
Hate is a Christian Family Value!
Quote:DENVER
Kansas clergyman plans to picket court
A Kansas pastor will picket Denver District Court this month to protest a court ruling banning a mother from teaching her daughter to hate homosexuals.
Last April, Denver District Judge John Coughlin ordered a Christian convert who adopted a daughter with a former lesbian partner not to teach the child to hate gays - including her former partner.
The Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kan., will picket the court March 25.
The Family Council is blatant prejudice and circular logic. For one thing, which type of marriage is sacred? There are many versions of marriage around the planet.
In our country alone, marriage has transformed in a significant way at least three times since the colonial period. The state requires a liscence, so a marriage is a civil insitution, in violation of the 14th Amendment in fact. Religion is the excuse too, so it violates the 1st Amendment as well.
Any new law saying marriage can only be between a man and a woman is just a modern Jim Crow law.
Who stands to lose the most if every last two Americans in this country got married? Not like it would happen...but still, theoretically, who stands to lose the most?
Yes, it is ironic that gays are at least in part gay because they didn't want to get married...not to mention the many straight couples that don't want to get married either. Then you have the gay guys who get married anyway and cheat on their wives with other men. That's cute. Who's getting hurt with that one?
I am gay, and have had a handful of relationships over the years, a few of them long term, with two for all intents and purposes marriages.
I'm single now and likely to stay that way, unless he's hot and rich and flipping out over wanting me. It could happen still. I may be 42, but I look 32, and what you see isn't all that bad, coming or going...
The gay lifestyle has more freedoms, that is true. No kids, no one to support, both partners usually working with extra cash to go on vacation, etc. But there is a dark side to it as well. Lack of fidelity, cheating on an ongoing basis with any number of partners, rest areas, bath houses, abuse and disdain, abandonment, fickleness, just like the straight world.
Gay marriage would go far to help normalize the gay lifestyle and breed some responsibility and commitment, which I think everyone can agree in general that that is a good thing.
I guess honor and integrity are for straights only, as it most surely doesn't apply to the White House. The cries to strengthen marriage have been ongoing for some time, and when people start listening, oh no, stop everything! What a farce.
Straight marriages are the ones putting out the gays in the first place. Now they seek to ban and exile their own children from the life they enjoy themselves.
We deserve bombs blowing up on our street and in our restauarants. To be so blatantly evil and prejudiced does not guarantee we will survive as a great country. Everytime civil rights expanded, it was a huge boon to the country. And I always thought people preferred boons to bombs, but apparently not in this day and age either.
Scrat: That's easy. Like striaght relationships, gay relationships tend to fall into the same pattern of male/boss/breadwinner linked to female/nurterer/housemanager. This happens with two men or two women. It's a natural relationship that has very little to do with sex and everything to do with mutual support and gratification. Of course, I am talking in general terms here, and of course, there are exceptions, but this arrangement goes all the way back to the stone age. It isn't going to change any time soon.
Even two straight guys who are roommates will fall into this division of duties without fully realizing it when they are sharing responsibilities equally for the apartment or house. It just makes sense. Some of us are more suited to going out there and bringing back the bacon, and others of us are more suited to converting bacon into a lifestyle.
I'm reading a lot of stereotypical stuff about gays on these sites lately, and it is amusing how misinformed people are about it all.
I can sum it up for you. While perhaps it may turn out to be much to tyour horror, the gay world and the straight world are pretty much made up of the same kind of people and the same kind of relationships. Gays even raise kids too, although they are banned from doing this for the most part. But if they could, they would be doing that too. Everyone wants someone young around to help out when they get old. And here's the clincher. The numbers that swing both ways on both sides of the fence would be appalling to most if they realized all the loving on the side going on...
So what about the bisexuals? Most of them are all ready married. But no problems with this? They aren't abominations, adulterers and liscentious sodomites? What bisexuals you say? If you are asking, the truth would shock the living daylights out of you.
Marriage is an institution that uses religion to discriminate despite required a liscence by the state.
Attacking gay marriage is attacking marriage itself, and that is a priceless bind for the prejudice.
Umbagog - You seem to be sorely misinformed as to my position on the issue of same-gender unions and on homosexuals in general. I am against neither, nor is anything you might share with me about homosexuals likely to fill me with horror. I have had close homosexual friends and have recommended openly gay persons for jobs at companies where I was employed. Not everyone who debates the details of this issue and gives it more thought than "gee, we shouldn't be so mean to so many nice people" is anti-gay, closed-minded or likely to be filled with "horror" at the notion that most people want the same basic things out of life regardless of their sexual orientation.
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Scrat: There has been endless debate in my state (MA) regarding the recent SJC ruling, and many speakers have referenced approximatelt 3500 federal rights granted to married couples. I will try to find a link that confirms this. (Anyone have a suggestion?)
I personally couldn't care less if the term "marriage" is used or not used. It's entirely about the civil rights. The thing is, if those rights are tied to the term "marriage", and that term is reserved for straight couples only, then when a gay couple in a civil union crosses the state border, none of the c.u. rights go with them.
I read a proposal from a local politician calling for civil unions for everyone, gay or straight, with all the same rights. Then, whoever desires a sacramental union can seek one out in a church willing to perform the service. I love that idea.
Gay people are not hung up on the word "marriage" . What they want is the legal equivalent what that word currently conveys.
.
I just found this
"Marriage/Union/Registration
In the United States, marriage is a restricted institution in which only one man and one woman may be joined. There are 1,049 federal statutes governing benefits, rights, and privileges for such legally married couples, and every state has up to 350 similar laws. Currently, none of these laws provides protection for same-sex couples in domestic partnerships. "
http://www.michiganinbrief.org/edition07/Chapter5/CivilRights.htm
Well, I guess it's not 3500. Still, 1,049 ..........
angie, I agree with you 100 percent.
hobitbob wrote:Fred Phelps and his fellow "Christians" will be at the Colorado State Capitol this month.
Every time that Fred Phelps bashes fags, an angel gets its wings.
This is one of those circumstances upon which i really am disgusted by organized religion. Phelps is usually referred to by the honorific "Reverend." Anyone who truly reveres such an individual must be just as sick and hateful as is Phelps.
As the citizen of a republic, and proud to be, i have always objected to the use of honorifics, which i feel are not consistent with genuine political equality. That being said, i'm not stupid enough to put myself needlessly at a disadvantage, and do address policemen and -women as "Officer," and gratify the petty vanity of officers of a court by using the term "your honor" (although i have no basis in almost every case to assert that the individual so address is honorable, or ought so to be considered). But the granting of honorifics to the peddlars of superstition, and especially of such a vicious and hateful species just frosts my gonads.
Alright, rant over, as you were.
