ON MARRIAGE RITE, GAYS REFOCUS ON JUST UNIONS: USA Today

feature:

New Hampshire performed its first gay marriages this past week. New Jersey lawmakers vote on gay marriage today. Even so, advocates are shifting strategy to focus on having same-sex relationships legally recognized in other forms.

The reason: Despite those victories for gay rights, the end of 2009 saw momentum on the marriage issue stall.

Two states rejected same-sex marriage, reflecting the fact that most Americans do not support it, says John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron. No other state is actively considering legislation.

As a result, Green says, advocates will push for states to grant civil unions or domestic partnerships, which allow similar rights to those of married couples. Americans are more likely to support those relationships, he says.

An August survey by the Pew Research Center found that 53% of Americans oppose allowing gay men and lesbians to marry legally, but 57% favor allowing them to enter into civil unions, arrangements that give them many of the same rights.

"By picking away a little bit by little bit, advocates hope to create a trend and shift public opinion, as people see it's not as pernicious as they may have thought," Green says. "The ultimate goal is same-sex marriage."

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Labels: civil unions, culture, domestic partnership, gay marriage

posted by Eve at 2:53 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

DIVORCE WITHOUT VOWS: Jennifer Graham

in the Wall Street Journal:

Regardless of their politics, Americans owe Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins gratitude for this: that their 23-year relationship unraveled, and ended, far from the public eye.

The couple separated over the summer, and apparently no fire hydrants were harmed in the process, no emergency medical technicians were summoned. It was late December before word of the break-up trickled out to the tabloids, and two weeks later the actors are still not talking, except to confirm through a publicist that they split. ...

Capisce, we do. Ms. Sarandon, whose seemingly golden "domestic partnership" with Mr. Robbins was the stuff of Hollywood legend, is desirous of preserving marriages on screen, but not so much in real life. She famously declined to wed Mr. Robbins, the father of her two sons, because she worried such a stuffy and archaic ritual might harm their relationship.

"I won't marry because I am too afraid of taking him for granted, or him taking me for granted," she once said. "Maybe it will be a good excuse for a party when I am 80."

Of course, many married people have a good excuse for a party when they're about 80--they're called golden anniversaries, and they're great. A pinnacle of married life, the 50th-anniversary party is a joyous celebration of love, perseverance and forbearance, virtues no less noble because they are lightly enforced by the state. The marriage certificate, surrendered at a divorce hearing, does not guarantee a happy union, but neither does the absence of one, as Ms. Sarandon learned.

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Labels: culture, divorce, domestic partnership, Marriage

posted by Eve at 2:38 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

SOME GAYS SEEK A RENEWED FOCUS ON CIVIL UNIONS: Associated Press

reports:

Leland Traiman, who runs a sperm bank in California, worries about his lesbian clients in more conservative parts of the country when he hears fellow gay rights activists talk about winning the right to wed.

With 34 states lacking any legal recognition of same-sex relationships, Traiman wonders if all the emphasis on matrimony is misplaced.

"When I speak to women from Florida or Wisconsin or Minnesota, they are like, 'I don't care what it's called, I just want to be able to visit my wife in the hospital and cover my children with my health insurance,'" said Traiman, who helped pass the nation's first domestic partnership law a quarter-century ago in Berkeley. ...

Activists like Traiman point to the success of efforts to extend spousal rights and other civil rights protections to same-sex couples, even as the passage of gay marriage bans grab headlines.

On the same day that Maine rejected a gay marriage law approved by its Legislature, for example, voters in Washington state approved a law giving same-sex couples or straight older couples who register as domestic partners all the state rights and responsibilities of marriage. Washington's so-called "everything but marriage" law passed by the same margin as Maine's gay marriage rebuff, 53 percent to 48 percent. ...

This month, more than 150 Christian conservative leaders published a 4,700-word declaration, pledging to fight any legislative efforts to equate same-sex unions with traditional marriages. In theory, though, the Manhattan Declaration would not oppose extending legal protections to two people in a nonsexual relationship, such as two sisters or even a same-sex couple that abstained from sex, said Robert George, a Princeton law professor who serves as board chairman of the National Organization for Marriage.

"What you couldn't have is ... an explicit reference to partners in intimate relationships because 'intimate' is an euphemism for 'sexual,'" George said. "In that case, all a civil union scheme is a semantic substitute for marriage, or same-sex marriage by another name."

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Labels: civil unions, culture, domestic partnership, gay marriage

posted by Eve at 5:32 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

COLBERT HITS GAY MARRIAGE OPPONENTS: Raw Story

thinks Washington is voting on gay marriage, not domestic partnerships; but I'd imagine their quotes from the satirist who may be the most widely-respected Catholic in America are accurate:

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert slammed lampooned same sex marriage opponents in his "The Word" segment Monday night, turning the arguments against "outing" on its head by farcically arguing that the signers of an anti-gay marriage petition should be allowed to stay in the closet.

Opponents of gay marriage in Washington state are trying to keep the signers of an anti-gay marriage petition private. Protect Marriage Washington got enough signatories to mount a referendum against a provision allowing gay couples to enjoy the same benefits as straight couples, but refuses to disclose the names of the signers.

"God knows what would happen to our names if they end up in China," Colbert remarked. "If those names are released, we would all then know the signers. By which i mean their orientation about other people's sexual orientation. and that's a very personal thing.

"Some say 'too bad, they chose to sign this petition,'" Colbert continued. "But, folks, I don't believe it's a choice. I believe you're born thinking gays don't have the right to get married. Or even be joined in union."

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Labels: culture, domestic partnership, Washington (state)

posted by Eve at 9:10 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT