MORE ON THE WORD "MARRIAGE": The New York Times

...Gay rights advocates, and the majority in the 4-to-3 [Goodridge] decision, said words are symbols and symbols matter.

"The dissimilitude between the terms 'civil marriage' and 'civil union' is not innocuous," Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall wrote. "It is a considered choice of language that reflects a demonstrable assigning of same-sex, largely homosexual, couples to second-class status."

Lawyers for gay couples add that marriages are more likely to be recognized in other states than civil unions, though this argument is complicated by about 40 federal and state "defense of marriage" laws that say essentially the opposite. ...

Justice Sosman proposed renaming all unions.

"Rather than imbuing the word 'marriage' with constitutional significance, there is much to be said for the argument that the secular legal institution, which has gradually come to mean something very different from its original religious counterpart, be given a name that distinguishes it from the religious sacrament of 'marriage,' " she wrote. "The legislature could, rationally and permissibly, decide that the time has come to jettison the term."

The majority seemed to agree. A new name for all unions, Chief Justice Marshall wrote, "might well be rational and permissible."

Douglas W. Kmiec and Mark S. Scarberry, law professors at Pepperdine University, suggested in a recent column that Massachusetts could "temporarily get out of the new marriage business entirely." This would treat gay and straight couples equally, though heterosexuals could still be married in other states, and would not require the state to withdraw marriage licenses from gay couples in 2006 if a constitutional amendment took effect.

"Massachusetts needs some time for cooler heads to prevail," Mr. Kmiec said in an interview. "Legislators could say, 'We're going to close the civil marriage window in Massachusetts.' "

more
posted by Eve at 4:51 PM | link 0 comments

MASS. DRAMA: The Boston Globe

...After two very long, draining days of eloquent speeches and moving personal stories in the House Chamber, the debate over a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage produced only drama, legislative maneuvers, and nonstop yelling late last night.

more
posted by Eve at 4:48 PM | link 0 comments

NATIONALIZING SSM?: Stanley Kurtz

This is all very interesting, of course, but I think the outcome on an amendment [in Massachusetts] is a lot less important than the fact that in three months Massachusetts will begin to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples. No amendment to the Massachusetts state constitution can go before the voters for two and-a-half years. That's enough time for suits to be filed in all 49 states calling for recognition of gay marriage. It's also enough time for a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act to work it's way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. We could theoretically have gay marriage imposed on the nation by a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court before Massachusetts gets a chance to vote on an amendment to its state constitution.

So what counts is that Massachusetts has let loose the process of attempted nationalization. ...Either the U.S. Supreme Court is going to nationalize gay marriage, or we are going to pass some sort of Federal Marriage Amendment. In other words, the same race going on right now in Massachusetts (between the courts and the amendment process) is going to be replicated on a national scale.

more
posted by Eve at 4:24 PM | link 0 comments

REPORT FROM MASS. CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION: Slate.com

After two days of sniping, griping, and groping around in the Massachusetts legislature, only two things were clear: Legislators in the nation's most liberal state don't like gay marriage, and they can't agree on an alternative.

The state's two-day constitutional convention recessed Thursday with no consensus on whether to ban gay marriage, create civil unions, or let stand a state supreme court ruling allowing same-sex marriage. The stalemate ironically leaves same-sex marriage as the law in Massachusetts--at least for now--to the consternation of most of its legislators. ...

The Massachusetts amendment fell apart over the proposed inclusion of civil unions. Nineteen hours of debate produced a walkout, a filibuster, a couple of dirty tricks, and a deeply fractured legislature. The members came two votes short of banning gay marriage, then six votes short of establishing civil unions, and then degenerated into a morass of grandstanding, grimacing, and gavel-pounding. ...

A small but vocal minority of the legislature wants no constitutional amendment at all, keeping Massachusetts as the only state to endorse same-sex marriage. The majority wants a ban on gay marriage but is divided on whether to create civil unions. Senate President Robert E. Travaglini and his followers say yes to such unions. Finneran and his troops say maybe later (legislator-ese for "when pigs fly").

more
posted by Eve at 4:23 PM | link 0 comments

SSM AND CONFLICT OF LAWS: From the Washington Post

The news that gay and lesbian couples will be able to apply for marriage licenses and marry legally in Massachusetts starting May 17 pits the rights of states to formulate their own family law policies against their conflicting obligations to recognize legal relationships entered into in other states. Consider what will happen to two women who marry in Massachusetts and then return to, or later move to, another state that does not allow two women, or two men, to get a license. Does Massachusetts law fix their rights, or do their rights depend on the laws where they live?

The practical implications of this question are enormous. Can the lesbian couple get divorced in their new state if their relationship breaks up? If not, then by what legal process would they divide their property? What would it mean to the rights of any children involved if the marriage falls apart after the family settles in another state? If one spouse dies, does the other automatically inherit her property? Are they married or single for purposes of tax laws? In answering any of these questions, it may well matter whether the two were long-term residents of Massachusetts at the time of the marriage or whether they had gone to the Bay State with the sole intention of evading their own state's more restrictive law.

Even if Massachusetts goes ahead with a controversial state constitutional amendment that would end same-sex marriage there in 2006 or later, what will happen to couples who marry in the meantime? Whatever one thinks about the morality of the underlying issue, it hardly seems possible to announce retroactively that children born to or adopted by the couple have overnight become legally illegitimate. But then, that result is no worse than having children's status change back and forth between legitimate and illegitimate as their families drive across the country. And yet that is the direction in which we seem to be headed, given that 38 states have already stated that they don't intend to respect the legal validity of marriages entered into elsewhere.

These questions are new and largely unresolved, and yet their answers will depend on the application of a legal principle, known as "conflict of laws," that is as old as American law itself. Conflict of laws deals with the overlapping and sometimes conflicting rights and obligations created by the 50 states and by the federal government. It comes into play when a court decision or legislation announced in one state (or in a foreign country) must be recognized in other jurisdictions. ...

Almost since the beginning, the Supreme Court's interpretations of the [full faith and credit] clause have been peppered with exceptions to the generalized requirement of mutual respect.

more
posted by Eve at 4:20 PM | link 0 comments

SSM: THE END OF GAY LIBERATION? Rabble.ca

...But a funny thing happened on the way to City Hall. It turns out that queer communities themselves offer some of the most compelling and legitimate critiques of gay marriage. You'd just never know it from watching the evening news, because the debate has generally been portrayed as a civil-rights issue.

In fact, pro-marriage organizations like Egale have been careful to frame the issue in those terms. The typical pro-marriage perspective as set forward by Egale and others is succinctly expressed by B.C. litigant Jane Eaton Hamilton, who married Joy Masuhara last summer in a double ceremony with Tanya and Melinda Chambers Roy in Toronto: "Whatever one thinks about marriage, there is no question that it is a powerful and portable institution that tells a public story about love. Every citizen should be able to avail himself or herself of every civil right."

However, framing gay marriage only as a battle for civil rights excludes critiques that examine the issue in a broader social context -- critiques that are central to queer theory and queer politics, and are currently dividing queer communities over the issue. ...

On this point, Noble has the agreement of Jillian Sandell, assistant professor in the Department of Women's Studies at San Francisco State University and author of several papers on queer politics. Sandell explains: "There's a certain anxiety about a perceived decline of the so-called traditional family but really there isn't necessarily a decline. It's not that there ever was a traditional family of mom, dad and two kids -- the sort of idealized family that sometimes people associate with the 1950s."

As Sandell also points out, there have been all kinds of extended families and kinship relationships throughout the historical period and the nuclear family has never necessarily been predominant. It also seems relevant to note that currently even heterosexual couples may often choose to remain unmarried, since many people are now aware of divorce rates and our more secularized culture is slowly opening up to alternative arrangements. Sandell is also careful to point out that the traditional conception of family is tied heavily to capitalism. "Family is the site of social reproduction that supports the market economy," she says. Whether that family is heterosexual or homosexual, it serves the same function.

more
posted by Eve at 4:15 PM | link 0 comments

TAKE MARRIAGE BACK FROM THE STATE: Reason magazine

Goodridge v. Department of Public Health is looking more and more like the Roe v. Wade of the gay marriage movement. Not only did the ruling depend on shaky constitutional reasoning, but it energized the opposition by seeking to short-circuit a public debate that was still in its early stages. ...

Justice Martha Sosman, who dissented from the court's decision in Goodridge, noted that giving marriage licenses to gay couples was not the only way to satisfy the majority's objection. "Rather than imbuing the word 'marriage' with constitutional significance," she wrote in a footnote, "there is much to be said for the argument that the secular legal institution, which has gradually come to mean something very different from its original religious counterpart, be given a name that distinguishes it from the religious sacrament of 'marriage.'...The legislature could, rationally and permissibly, decide that the time has come to jettison the term."

Significantly, this solution seemed acceptable to the majority. Chief Justice Margaret Marshall said giving a new name--"civil union," say, or "household partnership"--to a legal arrangement available on an equal basis to homosexuals as well as heterosexuals "might well be rational and permissible."

Such a switch may seem like a word game, but it would reflect an important reality: Civil marriage is not synonymous with "the sacred institution of marriage," which existed long before the state started doling out marriage licenses.

A couple can be married under Jewish law, for example, without being married under civil law, and vice versa. Orthodox Jewish authorities will never recognize a union between two men or two women as a marriage, no matter what paperwork the state agrees to issue.

The state does not own marriage and therefore cannot change it to the liking of this or that interest group. It is astonishing that conservatives, of all people, are so quick to grant the government that kind of power over something they hold sacred.

more
posted by Eve at 4:11 PM | link 0 comments

CLONING AND SSM: The Christian Science Monitor

...At first, human cloning and same-sex marriage may not seem related. But both represent alternative ways to either have or raise children outside a traditional mother-father marriage. Both have the potential to profoundly shape a child's identity in ways that society could later regret or embrace.

In other words, both are big social experiments that need careful consideration through the broadest possible discussion and consensus about the proper path. That requires dispassionate debate and careful listening.

In particular, the same-sex marriage issue needs a change in the venue of the discourse. A 4-to-3 decision by the Massachusetts high court that the state allow such marriages by May 1 (which could open the way for such marriages nationwide) revealed a deeply divided court. The opposing judicial opinions were particularly scathing, showing a need to keep this issue in the more public realm of open debate through elected representatives.

How a society makes these decisions will be almost as important as the decisions themselves. And as slow and as stubborn as they are, legislatures--either Congress or at the state level--remain the best forum for tackling these difficult issues.

more
posted by Eve at 4:07 PM | link 0 comments

ONLINE CHATS WITH EVAN WOLFSON OF FREEDOM TO MARRY AND PETER SPRIGG OF THE FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: At the Washington Post site

Basically, readers write in with questions.

Sprigg

Wolfson
posted by Eve at 6:01 PM | link 0 comments

LIBERATION VS. EQUALITY? From the Christian Science Monitor

...But if they have created a united front to state lawmakers, the gay community itself is divided on whether marriage is the right priority.

Many gays and lesbians plan to wed. Many others will not. Some want to marry as a legal protection or as the only nondiscriminatory way to validate their love. But marriage is also seen as a flawed institution, as a conservative step backward, unwinding years of work to redefine notions of family.

"There is a difference between liberation and equality," says Joan Tronto, a professor of political science at Hunter College who was active in the women's liberation movement and has no intention of marrying her partner of 10 years. "Politically it is easier to say, 'Let us in. We're just like you.' But it takes away some of the radical edge."

The difference in attitudes often falls along generational lines. Charles Martel, a Boston psychotherapist whose clients include many gay couples, says marriage seems natural to younger couples, especially those with children. Meanwhile, older clients, many of whom fought to restructure the definition of family in the 60s and 70s, are more mistrustful. ...

Indeed, Ms. Tronto suspects she's one of a few "holdouts" left. ...

Kenneth Sherrill, a colleague of hers at Hunter College, was not much of an activist for same-sex marriage--until he got married himself in Canada this summer, to his partner of 36 years.

Initially the couple looked at it as a purely legal arrangement. "I thought it wouldn't be that different than going to a lawyer's office and signing a contract," he says. "But it had the most incredible emotional impact. ... I was fighting off tears during the ceremony."

more
posted by Eve at 4:56 PM | link 0 comments

QUOTES FROM THE BOSTON LEGISLATURE'S DEBATES: From the Boston Globe

State of the soundbites.
posted by Eve at 4:53 PM | link 0 comments

"ONLY MARRIAGE CAN BRING HIM HOME": Andrew Sullivan

As a child, I had no idea what homosexuality was. I grew up in a traditional home--Catholic, conservative, middle class. Life was relatively simple: education, work, family. I was raised to aim high in life, even though my parents hadn't gone to college. But one thing was instilled in me. What mattered was not how far you went in life, how much money you earned, how big a name you made for yourself. What really mattered was family and the love you had for one another. The most important day of your life was not graduation from college or your first day at work or a raise or even your first house. The most important day of your life was when you got married. It was on that day that all your friends and all your family got together to celebrate the most important thing in life: your happiness--your ability to make a new home, to form a new but connected family, to find love that put everything else into perspective.

But as I grew older, I found that this was somehow not available to me. I didn't feel the things for girls that my peers did. ...I came to know almost instinctively that I would never be a part of my family the way my siblings might one day be. The love I had inside me was unmentionable, anathema. I remember writing in my teenage journal one day, "I'm a professional human being. But what do I do in my private life?"

...When I looked toward the years ahead, I couldn't see a future. There was just a void. Was I going to be alone my whole life? Would I ever have a most important day in my life? It seemed impossible, a negation, an undoing. To be a full part of my family, I had to somehow not be me. So, like many other gay teens, I withdrew, became neurotic, depressed, at times close to suicidal. I shut myself in my room with my books night after night while my peers developed the skills needed to form real relationships and loves. In wounded pride, I even voiced a rejection of family and marriage. It was the only way I could explain my isolation.

It took years for me to realize that I was gay, years more to tell others and more time yet to form any kind of stable emotional bond with another man. Because my sexuality had emerged in solitude--and without any link to the idea of an actual relationship--it was hard later to reconnect sex to love and self-esteem. It still is. But I persevered, each relationship slowly growing longer than the last, learning in my 20s and 30s what my straight friends had found out in their teens. But even then my parents and friends never asked the question they would have asked automatically if I were straight: So, when are you going to get married? When will we be able to celebrate it and affirm it and support it? In fact, no one--no one--has yet asked me that question.

more
posted by Eve at 4:45 PM | link 0 comments

GAY MARRIAGE DEBATE GOES GLOBAL--SLOWLY: From the Washington Post

[Lots of links; very basic roundup.--ed.]

As gay marriage emerges as an issue in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Australia and Canada share America's preoccupation with the issue, according to leading online news sites. In both countries, the issue divides public opinion and influences party politics. But in much of the rest of the world, the issue of gay marriage is only just beginning to surface.

The debate in Australia most closely resembles the controversy in America. Like President Bush, Prime Minister John Howard, leader of a conservative coalition, strongly opposes gay marriage. Like the U.S. Democrats, the more liberal Labor party is divided. The party's new leader Mark Latham has made a name for himself with a campaign message out of Bill Clinton's political playbook that emphasizes values over rights. ...

In Canada, the public is divided, according to a poll cited earlier this month by CTV, the Canadian Television news site. The poll found 48 percent opposed gay marriage while 47 percent support it. Support for gay marriage was strongest among women, younger people, those with higher incomes and those with more education, according to the poll. ...

In Africa, opponents of gay marriage, and homosexuality in general, dominate public discussion. The issue is more religious than political, with leaders of the Anglican church voicing strong opposition to the U.S. Episcopal Church's support of same-sex unions. Those Anglicans who express toleration of homosexuality face ostracism from fellow Anglicans, according to African news sites, and there is little public discussion of extending legal recognition for same-sex couples. ...

There are signs that the debate over gay marriage is spreading to other countries. In northwestern Europe, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium extend legal protection to same-sex couples without much opposition. In Poland, columnist Bronislaw Wildstein warned in Rzeczpospolita (in Polish), a centrist daily in Warsaw, that the country's entry into the European Union will require acceptance of the EU constitution, including its prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation. ...

In India, the idea of gay marriage got a boost recently when a prominent fashion designer, Wendell Rodricks, held a very public "commitment ceremony" with his partner in the state of Goa. "Isn't it too early to be talking about gay marriages in a country where the law still criminalizes the act of homosexuality?" a reporter from Indian Express asked a group of gay and lesbian activists.

more
posted by Eve at 4:41 PM | link 0 comments

MASS.: TWO MARRIAGE AMENDMENTS FAIL, LEGISLATORS RECONVENE: From the Boston Globe

After more than six hours of emotional debate, the Massachusetts Legislature yesterday wound up divided over the future of gay marriage in the state and made plans to return at noon today to take up a proposal to
authorize civil unions for same sex couples.

Lawmakers, meeting in a constitutional convention, rejected two proposed amendments yesterday that would have asked voters to ban same-sex marriages in 2006. One of the proposals would have permitted the Legislature to consider authorizing civil unions in the future; the other would have mandated authorization of civil unions. ...

Last night House and Senate lawmakers defeated, on a 104-94 vote, a bipartisan Senate compromise that would have banned same-sex marriages, created civil unions, and reclassified as civil unions any gay marriages that occurred between May and 2006. Hours earlier, the lawmakers narrowly defeated a surprise proposal by Finneran, a strong opponent of gay marriage, that would have barred gay marriage, and permitted, but not required, authorization of civil unions.

The defeats mean that the House and Senate will return for a second day of their historic session, as the lawmakers try to undo the Supreme Judicial Court's decision that would make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to allow gay marriage. The ruling says that gay couples can get marriage licenses beginning May 17, but the lawmakers and Governor Mitt Romney are intent on turning them back. ...

Finneran and his leadership team are expected to try to rally support for a new amendment -- pushed by state Representative John Rogers, a Norwood Democrat and close ally of the speaker -- that surfaced last night. It is almost identical to the Senate proposal that was killed yesterday. Legislators will probably also consider an amendment sponsored by Representative Philip Travis, a Rehoboth Democrat, which would ban gay marriage and make no provisions for civil unions.

more
posted by Eve at 4:36 PM | link 0 comments

"THE BATTLE OVER GAY MARRIAGE": Time magazine

[Nice photo on page one, Time. --ed.]

...Marriage may or may not be dead, but democracy is doing fine. The court decision has intensified efforts to pass a U.S. constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. One version of the amendment already has more than 100 cosponsors in Congress. (Two-thirds of both houses will be required to pass the amendment, which will then have to be ratified by at least three-quarters--38--of the states.) Conservative activists will make sure that voters hear a lot about gay marriage between now and November since the likely Democratic nominee for President, Senator John Kerry, comes from Massachusetts. By unhappy coincidence, the Democrats will also hold their convention in Boston this summer. ...

But it wasn't always about marriage. As recently as the early '90s, bringing marriage cases was considered foolish in gay legal circles. At least six court cases arguing that gays should have the right to marry were filed in the 1970s, and all had promptly failed. None were filed in the 1980s, and by the early 1990s only a few gay intellectuals, like Andrew Sullivan, then editor of the New Republic, a center-left magazine of policy and politics based in Washington, were arguing for marriage. In the rest of the gay community, there was division, uncertainty, even among the attorneys at Lambda Legal, the leading gay legal group. Gay radicals felt that marriage was a patriarchal, retro institution that gays should avoid altogether. Others felt that pressing for gay marriage was a strategic mistake--"too much, too soon," in the words of a gay lawyer familiar with the battles.

It was in this environment that Lambda declined to represent three couples who in 1991 sued Hawaii for the right to marry. By 1993 that case had quietly made its way to the state supreme court, and in May of that year the court startled the gay-rights movement -- and drew international attention -- when it ruled that barring gay people from getting married amounted to discrimination based on sex. (The court sent the case back to trial, but by 1998 the state constitutional amendment had passed, and no gay couples ever wed in the Aloha State.)

After the Hawaii ruling, Lambda reversed course. ...

As Wolfson was trying to promote same-sex marriage, Matt Daniels was becoming convinced that it would damage the institution of the family. Daniels, 40, runs the Alliance for Marriage, which wrote the Federal Marriage Amendment now before Congress. Daniels comes to the issues of marriage and family breakdown from a very personal place. ...

more
posted by Eve at 4:32 PM | link 0 comments

ACTUAL SSM DEVELOPMENT (as opposed to the item below this): CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IN CA: From the Associated Press

In a bold political and legal challenge to California law, city authorities officiated at the marriage of a lesbian couple Thursday and said they will issue more gay marriage licenses. ...

The act of civil disobedience in San Francisco was coordinated by Mayor Gavin Newsom and top city officials and was intended to beat a conservative group to the punch.

The group, Campaign for California Families, had planned to go to court on Friday to get an injunction preventing the city from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

Longtime lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, were hurriedly issued a license and were married just before noon by City Assessor Mabel Teng in a closed-door civil ceremony at City Hall, mayor's spokesman Peter Ragone said. The two have been a couple for 51 years.

Ragone said that beginning at noon, officials would begin issuing marriage licenses to any gay couples applying for one. One lesbian couple had already lined up outside City Hall, one of the women wearing a white wedding dress. ...

Thursday's marriage runs counter to a ballot measure California voters approved in 2000 that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. ...

In Massachusetts, leaders said they hoped to finally reach an agreement after two other versions of a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage were narrowly defeated during the much-anticipated convention's opening day Wednesday.

more
posted by Eve at 4:26 PM | link 0 comments

SHOCKING SSM DEVELOPMENT!

Just kidding. Zell Miller to endorse FMA:

Renegade Zell Miller (D-GA) has become the only Democrat in the Senate to support amending the US Constitution to bar same-sex marriage. Miller who already has raised the ire of the party by saying he will campaign for the reelection of President George Bush, is being labeled 'a 21srt century Dixiecrat'.

National Stonewall Democrats this week condemned Miller for his support of the amendment, which would not only prevent gay and lesbian couples from marrying but also prevent the federal government from giving them any of the benefits currently accorded married couples. It would also bar states from allowing civil union or providing domestic partner benefits. [Um, that last sentence is pretty hotly contested--ed.]

more
posted by Eve at 4:23 PM | link 0 comments

SF MAYOR MOVES TO GRANT MARRIAGE LICENSES TO GAY COUPLES: From the San Francisco Chronicle

Mayor Gavin Newsom told the county clerk Tuesday to investigate what San Francisco needs to do to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, an act that would contravene California law.

The newly elected Democrat said he wants all "forms and documents used to apply for and issue marriage licenses" to be revised by County Clerk Nancy Alfaro so they can be provided "on a nondiscriminatory basis, without regard to gender or sexual orientation." ...

If Newsom's request is honored and implemented within the short time he hopes, San Francisco would become, at least symbolically, the first place in the nation where gay and lesbian couples could wed. The Massachusetts Supreme Court has cleared the way for the state to start sanctioning marriages between same-sex couples as early as mid-May.

A spokesman for Newsom acknowledged that the mayor's request was an act of protest as well as public policy. State law explicitly defines marriage as an act between a man and a woman, a prerequisite Newsom considers "codified discrimination," said Peter Ragone, Newsom's spokesman. ...

At this point, however, it remains unclear whether the couples' marriage licenses would be worth the paper they're printed on, since marriage is a matter of state law.

more
posted by Eve at 2:35 AM | link 0 comments

SSM DISCUSSION ON "THE KNOT"--wedding discussion website

Interesting.
posted by Eve at 1:38 AM | link 0 comments

KERRY'S SSM RECORD ROUNDUP: From Yahoo News

Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry, who opposes gay marriage and hints he might support a limited ban, just two years ago signed a letter with other congressional colleagues urging the Massachusetts legislature to drop a constitutional amendment outlawing homosexual nuptials.

And when Kerry opposed federal legislation in 1996 that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, he compared the law to 1960s efforts in the South to criminalize interracial marriages and accused his supporters of engaging in the "politics of division." ...

Kerry's campaign said Wednesday he has consistently opposed gay marriage while also rejecting legislation, like the 2002 amendment, that he believed jeopardized the civil rights of gays.

"John Kerry's position has been crystal clear. He opposed a proposed constitutional amendment in Massachusetts in the summer of 2002 because a sweeping proposal would have threatened civil unions, health benefits, or inheritance rights for gay couples that represent equal protection under the law," spokesman David Wade said.

"John favors civil unions, not gay marriage. It's that simple," he said. ...

Kerry has left open the possibility he could support a Massachusetts ban on gay marriage if it recognized civil unions and other protections as an alternative. But in 2002, he joined his congressional colleagues in opposing Massachusetts' last effort to outlaw gay marriage.

The letter, organized by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., was sent on congressional stationery on July 12, 2002 as the Massachusetts legislature first considered a constitutional amendment that limited marriage to "only the union of one man and one woman." ...

Frank and most of the other congressmen who signed the 2002 letter sent a new letter last month again opposing the constitutional amendment, but this time neither Kerry nor Sen. Edward Kennedy signed.

Frank said Wednesday he didn't ask Kerry or Kennedy to sign this time "because I was in such a hurry," the openly gay congressman said. ...

Back in 1986, Kerry gave an impassioned 10-minute speech on the Senate floor against an earlier effort in Congress to define marriage only as a union between a man and a woman. He was one of just 14 senators to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act.

more
posted by Eve at 1:37 AM | link 0 comments

THE ONION ON SSM: "WHAT DO YOU THINK?"

Rough language, some fun stuff.
posted by Eve at 1:33 AM | link 0 comments

SOCIAL HISTORY AND SSM: Matt Taylor

George McAllister asks whether historic variation in family structure is relevant to the SSM debate.

I'm no expert on social history, but I do see a problem with any argument that advocates a particular family structure based on its historic success: we currently live at a time of exceptionally rapid change, almost a discontinuity when compared with the previous 5,000 years of human civilization. The early 21st century "first world" is qualititatively different than any society that has ever existed. Consider just a few factors: instantaneous worldwide communication, contraception, in-vitro fertilization, life expectancy over 80 years, the near disappearance of hereditary social class. These factors, and many others, cast serious doubt on any comparison with historic societies.

The problem is far more pronounced when we look forward in time as well as backward. As long as we're considering many-thousand-year time scales, just think for a minute what might happen even in the next 100 years. Any of these might have enormous implications for our view of family and marriage:
- extreme increase in life expectancy (could anyone stay married for 500
years?)
- gender change that creates functioning reproductive organs in the patient
- in vitro conception between parents of the same sex
- emergence of artifical life forms of sufficient intelligence to be deemed "people"

We don't have a crystal ball to know which, if any, of these scenarios may actually occur, and inevitably there will be changes which we did not foresee at all. Nevertheless, these possibilities are at least as relevant to our time as the family structures of centuries past. Perhaps more so, since we can actually influence family structure and social policy in the future, whereas the past is already a "done deal."
posted by Eve at 5:10 AM | link 0 comments

MARRIAGE RIGHTS, GENDER, AND JUDGING: Mark Barton replies to Mark Tardiff

Mark Tardiff: In this worldview [held by a hypothetical court of founders] gender is a natural reality.

Mark B.: Sure. But, provided one doesn't construe gender too broadly,
this is uncontroversial. In particular, no one as far as I can tell, least of all the MSJC, disputes that persons of the male gender produce small gametes called sperm whereas persons of the female gender produce large gametes called eggs, and when these are combined and allowed to gestate, a new person results. Of course, if, at the risk of being ridiculous, one construes gender to include the idea that persons of the male gender naturally undertake paid employment to support persons of the female gender that they have impregnated (or plan to impregnate), then it's not nearly so obvious.

Mark Tardiff: Men and women are different in significant ways that must be taken into account in the structure of society. The foundational place for this 'taking into account' is marriage, itself a natural institution for the union of the sexes and the propagation of the species. If Goodridge had come before judges sharing the founders' vision, the plaintiffs' case would have been dismissed without even the need for the state to justify its policies. If gender and marriage are natural realities, then SSM is not a right; it is an oxymoron.

Mark B.: First, note that this is irrelevant to the defence of the claim which was initially made and which I criticized. It's readily conceivable that marriage could be a social construct without gender also being one, so tacitly assuming the former (contra the hypothetical founders) does not amount to tacitly assuming the latter (as claimed).

Second, it's doubly irrelevant because, as the MSJC was careful to point
out, the issue they were called upon to decide concerned the specific concept "civil marriage". Subject to constitutional constraints, civil marriage is whatever the state says marriage is. (That is, as opposed to any other conception of marriage including but not limited to marriage as "natural reality".) The finding of the court was that the state had quite clearly said (through use of the traditional terms "husband" and "wife") that marriage was to be opposite-sex only, but that this did not satisfy the constitutional requirement for "equality before the law" without regard to sex.
posted by Eve at 5:08 AM | link 0 comments

IS THIS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY? Patrick Hart replies to Eve

I agree with Eve that our society does not "denigrate…ties to close family members," and I apologize if my post gave the impression that I believed otherwise. When I said that the anti-SSM view regarded gay relationships as part of a sphere of "other" relationships, I did not intend to imply that all these other relationships were ones that society looked down on (indeed, for the most part they aren't). My point was simply to ask why gay relationships were regarded as analogous to these relationships and not to heterosexual marriage. Case in point: Eve writes, "homosexual relationships could be treated as equal in cultural honor to…sisterhood, or a more accurate and exalted understanding of best-friendship." While I'm glad that Eve's addressing the "what is your policy toward gays" issue, I still think that, leaving aside all legal issues, gay relationships are culturally much more like opposite-sex married relationships than they are like sisterhood or friendship. Most adult sisters or best friends do not live together (though some do, of course), while most gay couples and straight married couples do. Even if you're anti-SSM, doesn't it at least seem that the feelings two gay partners have for each other are much more akin to the feelings of a husband and wife for each other than to the feelings of two best friends? As Mark Barton says in his reply to Eve, "the natural amount of honor to start with is the same as that for marriage."
posted by Eve at 5:03 AM | link 0 comments

SSM? CIVIL UNIONS? A GAY THEOLOGIAN THINKS THEY'RE ONLY THE BEGINNING: From the North County Times

...Why not legitimize threesomes and foursomes? What about bisexuals, who are attracted to both genders? And why not abolish marriage altogether?

Such eyebrow-raisers are posed by Marvin Ellison, the ethics professor at the United Church of Christ's Bangor (Maine) Theological Seminary, in "Same-Sex Marriage?: A Christian Ethical Analysis," published by the United Church's Pilgrim Press. ...

He wonders, "How exactly does the number of partners affect the moral quality of a relationship? ... Could it be that limiting intimate partnerships to only two people at a time is no guarantee of avoiding exploitation?"

Besides pondering marriage for bisexuals, he protests that the narrowly "bipolar" definition of marriage excludes "intersexuality, transgenderism, transsexuality and other sexualities."

Many of his fellow homosexuals doubt marriage is worth seeking or supporting, Ellison reports, because the institution has been so oppressive and so heterosexual. He, for one, has no intention of marrying his male partner if that becomes possible. ...

He is upset that "marriage has been privileged" by both the church and secular law, which denigrates such adult relationships as "domestic partnerships" and "long-term cohabitation."

Ellison suggests that civil law recognize that "the marital family is only one way to construct a family," arguing that "a variety of family models deserves the community's support" and that "non-married persons who bond together are quite successful at fulfilling family functions."

more
posted by Eve at 5:00 AM | link 0 comments

LETTER TO MINN. SENATORS ON FMA: Matt Taylor

Dear Senators Coleman and Dayton,
The recent controversy over same-sex marriage (SSM) has prompted calls for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. I am writing you to express serious reservations about the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), and to propose an alternative amendment that may offer a more permanent remedy for the "judicial activism" that many have cited in the SSM debate.

more
posted by Eve at 4:54 AM | link 0 comments

MARRIAGE RIGHTS, JUDGING, AND GENDER: Erik Nelson replies to Matt Taylor

[Erik Nelson is a research associate at Episcopal Action.]

Matt Taylor writes, "Empirical evidence refutes the radical feminist notion that gender is entirely cultural, but it also refutes the orthodox religious view that gender is an eternal, absolute dichotomy. Homosexuality, transgender identity, intersex and other variations on gender were not invented by a few university intellectuals; they are natural reality for real people."

This demonstrates a common misunderstanding of what religious orthodoxy means by "natural." I've seen the error often enough. When religiously
orthodox Christians say that heterosexual marriage is "natural" they mean
that it is part of the natural pre-Fall order created by God, expressed in
the physical makeup of man and woman. Christian orthodoxy believes
that mankind's fallenness results in a distorted understanding of human
nature and to misuse of our bodies. In other words, when Taylor writes that such behaviors are a "natural reality for real people" he has a very
different concept of nature than a religiously orhtodox person does. No
Christian would deny that such things feel natural for those people who feel
them, but they would also argue that they are still unnatural in the sense that they violate God's created, natural, pre-Fall ordering of human sexuality. Orthodox Christians would argue that empirical evidence only
demonstrates the existence of sin, and that such evidence is essentially incapable of refuting the point about the created natural order which is revealed truth untestable by the scientific method. Of course, this means the argument is likely one that cannot be resolved.
posted by Eve at 4:51 AM | link 0 comments

FMA: Andrew Sullivan replies to Ramesh Ponnuru

...If the FMA merely bars the name "marriage" from substantively identical cvil unions, why wouldn't the first simple sentence restricting the word 'marriage' to heterosexuals, be enough? The FMA, to recap, stipulates that courts may not construe either a state constitution or any state law to confer marital "incidents". Notice the state "law." So take California's civil unions -- passed as a law. As soon as this FMA is passed, say there's a fight somewhere over whether a spouse has a right to visit his husband in hospital. Anti-gay or simply hostile parents sue to bar access for the spouse. A court adjudicates. Under the FMA, the court is bound not to construe the civil union law as giving any "incidents of marriage" to the civil union spouse, as it would to a married spouse. Game over. Civil union gutted. Ramesh, who seems like a decent fellow, may simply be unable to credit the motives of his anti-gay allies. But they are very clear. They want to ban gay marriage and any civil recognition of gay couples under any name. These "Christian" activists are lying about their amendment. And the press, so far, is swallowing their lie.

more
posted by Eve at 4:14 AM | link 0 comments

FMA: Stephen Bainbridge

. . . I would like to see Bush turn the debate fully to the "who decides" question. Instead of talking about the sanctity of marriage (which heterosexuals like Britney Spears are doing a pretty good job of destroying without help), Bush should focus the debate on judicial activism. How to do this? Revise the FMA so as to leave the definition of marriage to the state legislatures, while not requiring other states (or the federal government) to accept another state's definition. Then let the chips fall where they may.

more
posted by Eve at 4:10 AM | link 0 comments

POLITICS OF SSM: Richard Goldstein

When the Massachusetts high court ruled last week that gay couples must be granted full marriage rights, it lobbed a grenade into John Kerry's lap. Here he is, struggling to define himself as a hog-riding, puck-slamming populist, when the patrician tradition of New England liberalism bites him in the butt. ...

Considering how little would change if people of the same sex could marry, you have to wonder why this issue has such power. It's got nothing to do with wages or war. It's not about the deficit or the distribution of wealth. It doesn't involve the question of when life begins. In short, there's no material reason why gay marriage should be such a megillah. But like so much else in American politics today, this is not a matter of substance. It's the symbolism, stupid.

Stigma is a social hormone. It stimulates the creation of order. Without stigma, hierarchy would be impossible to maintain. No one would accept an assigned place in society, and it would be hard to discriminate among moral values.

This chaotic situation is pretty much the state of American society. The history of this country is an ongoing battle between stigmatized groups and their oppressors, and every gain has produced a ferocious backlash. The abolition of slavery was just the start. The modern civil rights movement sparked major political changes, from white flight to the rise of the New Right. Feminism has had a similar, if subtler impact. The Republicans wouldn't hold the commanding position they do if it weren't for the migration of pissed-off white guys to the GOP.

Gay liberation should cause far less disruption than other social movements because it doesn't threaten paychecks or require a revision of power relations between men and women. But sexual stigma has a lot to do with how groups are organized--especially male groups. Everything from sports teams to the bastions of patriarchy must be renegotiated when the status of faggots rises. This is much trickier than it might seem. When you talk about patriarchal structures you're dealing with things like religion and the military. That's why issues like gay marriage and the rights of homosexual soldiers are much thornier than discrimination and hate crimes.

more
posted by Eve at 4:08 AM | link 0 comments

POLITICS OF SSM: Stanley Kurtz

...Swing voters generally oppose gay marriage, yet favor more limited benefits for same-sex couples. The version of the Federal Marriage Amendment the president seems ready to endorse would define marriage as the union of a man and woman, and would ban the judicial imposition of gay marriage. But the version of the FMA likely to be endorsed by the president would also leave decisions on civil unions or more limited partnership benefits to the states. This is exactly the position of most swing voters. And while these voters would much rather avoid amending the federal constitution if at all possible, the continuous conflict set off the Massachusetts decision is slowly but surely going to create a conviction that, in the absence of a federal amendment, gay marriage is sure to be nationalized by the courts. ...

John Kerry, on the other hand, is greatly endangered by the gay-marriage issue. And the problem goes well beyond the powerful association soon to be set up in the public mind between gay marriage, Massachusetts liberalism, activist judges, the Democratic party, and John Kerry.

For starters, John Kerry was one of only 14 senators who voted against the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Although Senator Kerry now claims to be against gay marriage, he is going to have a very tough time explaining that vote. In effect, a vote against DOMA is a vote to nationalize gay marriage. Kerry refused to take even the most minimal steps to prevent four activist Massachusetts judges from imposing gay marriage on the country. That is going to hurt him.

The deeper problem for Kerry is that the gay-marriage issue could turn into a kind of tipping point on public perceptions of his record. Right now, Kerry's hope is to use his war exploits to neutralize Republican attacks on his extraordinarily liberal voting record. But once gay marriage becomes a major focus of the campaign, Kerry's vote against DOMA is going to become a huge problem. In the contest between the image of Kerry the war hero, and the image of a dovish, tax-loving, Massachusetts liberal, Kerry's DOMA vote is going to push attention back onto his votes. Three big issues on which Kerry's votes are well to the left of the country constitute a trend.

Kerry understands that the gay-marriage issue is a serious problem for him. Noam Scheiber reports that Kerry is at least considering supporting an amendment to the Massachusetts state constitution defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Of course, endorsing a state marriage amendment would get Kerry into terrible trouble with his Democratic base -- and permanently mark him out as an unprincipled flip-flopper. How can a man who condemned DOMA as anti-gay turn around and support a state marriage amendment? And if Kerry does support a Massachusetts marriage amendment, it would be very difficult for him to credibly oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment.

more (with one correction here)
posted by Eve at 3:59 AM | link 0 comments

RALLY AGAINST SSM IN CT: From the Hartford Courant

With cheers, applause and shouts of "Amen," thousands of people converged on the lawn of the state Capitol Sunday afternoon to express their opposition to gay marriage. In a church just a few miles away, gay and lesbian couples and their supporters expressed their hope that same-sex unions soon would be legally sanctioned.

Both sides agree on one point: The deeply polarizing debate over gay marriage has become a defining public policy question. "We have captured the attention of the people of our state," state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature's judiciary committee and one of the most visible advocates of same-sex marriage, told a gathering of more than 800 at Immanuel Congregational Church in Hartford. "This is not about changing laws. ... This battle in the end is about changing public opinion."

At the Capitol, Brian Brown, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, looked down at the diverse crowd standing before him and told them they were making history. "We're at a turning point," Brown said. "We come from different faiths, different races, different classes. ... Today we stand as one to defend marriage."

Sunday's dueling gatherings, along with a third rally in Bushnell Park organized by a gay civil rights group, took place amid a growing state
and national discourse on the issue. Connecticut's General Assembly has wrestled with the question for several years now. In November, a Massachusetts court ruled that gay couples had the right to marry, a ruling that was affirmed last week. Gay rights activists in Connecticut won a measure of legal recognition two years ago, when same-sex couples were granted a limited bundle of rights. Now, led by the coalition Love Makes a Family, they are lobbying for a change in the state's marriage laws. Lawlor predicted that Connecticut will become the first state legislature to approve gay marriage without a court order.

more
posted by Eve at 3:53 AM | link 0 comments

RALLY AGAINST SSM IN CA: From 365Gay.com

Conservatives crowded onto the steps of the California Capitol Monday to condemn legislation that would permit same-sex couples to get marriage licenses.

"We are here to stand up and say this is not right," Assemblyman Bill Maze (R-Visalia) said. "We have many, many who are very much Bible believing individuals and they believe that what is spoken in there was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

The bill, sponsored by Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) is expected to be introduced in the Assembly this week. "This is a civil rights bill, pure and simple," Leno said. "There are no constitutional and legal grounds on which to deny the issuance of marriage licenses to loving, same sex couples."

But conservatives disagree pointing to Proposition 22, passed in 2000, that says only marriage between a man and a woman is recognized in California.
Leno, however, said the proposition only deals with state recognition of out-of-state marriages, and his bill will only focus on marriage licenses issued in California.

more
posted by Eve at 3:51 AM | link 0 comments

KUNG FU FMA FIGHTING: Eugene Volokh vs. Ramesh Ponnuru

...As I've argued earlier, imagine that the New York legislature or the California voters decide to create a "civil union" statute, under which gays can enter into such a union. The statute then requires all state and local government officials to treat civil unions as tantamount to marriages, for purposes of child custody, divorce, intestate succession, wrongful death litigation, and so on. ...

This is a creative argument, but I don't think it's quite right. First, if this argument is accurate, then the FMA probably wouldn't even block judicially created civil unions, the very thing that Ponnuru says it would do, since Ponnuru's argument likely applies equally to judicially and legislatively created civil unions. After all, if a court says "Under our state Constitution's equal protection clause, discrimination against gay couples is not allowed; therefore, committed gay couples must get the same benefits and burdens as married straight couples," then it's likewise simply eliminating any "incidents" of marriage under state law, except for the label of "marriage." These benefits and burdens have "cease[d] to be an incident of marriage," and can thus be awarded to gay couples. (This isn't an open-and-shut argument; maybe courts can come up with some way of distinguishing judicially created civil unions and legislatively created civil unions for purposes of the second sentence of the FMA. But I think that such a distinction would be hard to support.)

Second, "the legal incidents of marriage" is an ambiguous phrase. It could be interpreted the way that Ponnuru and the scholars he cites suggest, as "those things that state law provides only to married couples." Or it could be interpreted as "those things that law has traditionally provided only to married couples," or even "those things that married couples generally do." See, e.g., Collins v. Guggenheim, 631 N.E.2d 1016 (Mass. 1994) (saying that "We have not permitted the incidents of the marital relationship to attach to an arrangement of cohabitation without marriage," which suggests that applying some such incidents to cohabitation would be "permitt[ing] the incidents of the marital relationship to attach to [a nonmarital one]," rather than that it would somehow destroy the incidents' status as incidents of marriage); McGruder v. Frank, 825 F.Supp. 1300 (S.D.Ohio 1992) ("Unfortunately in our society domestic violence is probably the most prevalent form of interpersonal violence, including violence between persons not legally married but involved in relationships which have some of the same incidents of marriage."); Cook v. Cook, 798 S.W.2d 955 (Ky. 1990) (Lambert, J., dissenting) ("By its decision, the majority has encouraged spouses receiving maintenance to refrain from marriage, safe in the knowledge that they may establish relationships which have all of the incidents of marriage if only they maintain the fiction of separate places of dwelling."). In all these cases, the courts were treating "incidents of marriage" as something that even unmarried couples may possess -- and when that happens, the right or behavior does not "cease[] to be an incident of marriage"; it remains an incident of marriage, though one that unmarried couples possess together with married ones.

And if courts do treat the ambiguous phrase "incidents of marriage" as referring to the benefits, burdens, and practices that have traditionally accompanied marriage, then legislative civil union statutes may well become unconstitutional or at least unenforceable: As I said before, government officials would be prohibited from construing the statute according to its literal text, as providing some of the traditional benefits of marriage to unmarried couples. And if someone goes to court to challenge the official's refusal to provide such benefits, then the court court would likewise be forbidden from construing the statute according to its literal text.

more
posted by Eve at 3:43 AM | link 0 comments

INCEST, POLYGAMY, SSM: Gabriel Rosenberg

SSM supporter Gabriel Rosenberg has a two-part series on distinguishing the cases for legalizing incestuous marriage, polygamy, and SSM.

Part one; part two. Summary: "In the last post I examined how arguments for subjecting prohibitions on same-sex marriage to stricter scrutiny may or may not result in subjecting incest and polygamy prohibitions to higher scrutiny as well. It depended on which arguments were made and how those rights were viewed. Ultimately though, no matter what standard is used, the prohibitons against polygamy, incestuous marriage, and same-sex marriage must all be justified. I will demonstrate here that the first two marital prohibitions may be justified and those reasons do not imply the latter prohibition is justified. That is same-sex marriage does not necessitate incestuous or polygamous marriage. Furthermore, I will note that the same-sex marriage prohibition may well have been justified in the past. This exhibits the logical flaw in claiming it's impossible for there to be no rational basis for prohibiting same-sex marriage because the prohibition has existed for thousands of years."
posted by Eve at 7:14 PM | link 0 comments

THE END OF MARRIAGE IN SCANDINAVIA? Gabriel Rosenberg replies to Stanley Kurtz

Part one: In his latest column at NRO Kurtz replies to two of the key criticisms of his recent Weekly Standard article on the effect of gay marriage in Scandinavian countries. The first criticism was that he used Scandinavian "registered partnerships" to make the case against same-sex marriage. This was especially disturbing in that he claims his article destroyed the case for SSM as put forth independently by Andrew Sullivan and William Eskridge, Jr. Those two, though, have argued that "marriage-lite" arrangements could have a harmful influence on marriage and that traditionalists should actually favor "marriage" over other imitations. I noted that this was especially true in the case of Eskridge who explicitly compared Vermont civil unions to Scandinavian registered partnerships and said such laws would do more harm than SSM. ...

Part two: ...On the contrary one reason many SSM advocates, myself included, are so adamant about the rights of same-sex couples to marry is that in this country many same-sex couples are adopting and raising children. We feel marriage would help protect those families in the same way they help protect families headed by opposite-sex parents. It is the people that strive to deny these families the protection of marriage that are saying that marriage isn't important for parenting.

Even if same-sex couples never had children, though, Kurtz's causal chain would be seriously flawed. We can today, without SSM, point to marriages without kids. Those marriages do not establish that marriage is unnecessary for parenthood. They establish that parenthood is unnecessary for marriage. ...
posted by Eve at 7:11 PM | link 0 comments

KUNG FU FMA FIGHTING: Andrew Sullivan vs. Ramesh Ponnuru

Andrew Sullivan writes that the "Musgrave Amendment"--the version of the Federal Marriage Amendment supported by the Alliance for Marriage, among others--is the "most extreme" choice because it would "mak[e] civil unions void."

Ramesh Ponnuru replies: ...But the crux of the matter is this question: Does the Musgrave FMA prohibit legislatures from creating civil unions for homosexuals? ...

What the amendment does prohibit is a court's
extension of a benefit that the legislature has reserved to married couples to other groups.

more
posted by Eve at 6:59 PM | link 0 comments

OH DOMA PASSES: From the Washington Times, hence the quotemarks around "marriage"

Gov. Bob Taft approved one of the country's most far-reaching homosexual "marriage" bans yesterday, saying its adoption was urgent because the nation's first legally sanctioned same-sex weddings could take place as early as this spring in Massachusetts.

The bill, which Mr. Taft signed in private, also prohibits state employees from getting marital benefits for their unmarried partners, whether
homosexual or heterosexual.

Approving the bill became more pressing after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled 4-3 this week that denial of marriage to same-sex couples was unconstitutional, Mr. Taft said. ...

When the law takes effect in 90 days, Ohio will become the 38th state to adopt a "defense of marriage act" and the second to deny benefits to some employees' partners.

more
posted by Eve at 6:50 PM | link 0 comments

CONGRESSMAN SAYS BUSH IS OPEN TO STATES' BOLSTERING GAY RIGHTS (via contracts): From the New York Times

President Bush believes states can use contract law to ensure some of the rights that gay partners are seeking through marriage or civil union, a South Carolina congressman said Sunday.

The subject of contracts and gay marriage came up while the lawmaker, Representative Jim DeMint, was traveling with the president and the rest of the South Carolina Republican delegation on Air Force One last week. He described the conversation, first reported in the new issue of Time magazine, as politicians "shooting the breeze" rather than an in-depth policy discussion.

Paraphrasing the president's remarks, Mr. DeMint said: "He said he was not going to condemn anyone, that the need to have various types of agreement does not mean we need to redefine marriage. 'If people want to have contracts on hospital visitation and benefits, that's O.K.'"

Responding to questions on Sunday about the Time article, Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said: "States, through their contract law, have the ability to address some of the issues that advocates of gay marriage are raising, such as hospital visitation rights and insurance benefits and the ability to pass on one's estates to another. What the president has said is that he strongly believes in the sanctity of marriage, so that's what he is saying." Ms. Buchan noted that civil contracts were available to heterosexual couples as well.

more
posted by Eve at 6:48 PM | link 0 comments

NY CARDINAL RIPS GAY MARRIAGE: From the New York Daily News

Edward Cardinal Egan railed yesterday against gay-marriage supporters, Hollywood honchos and even Britney Spears for "desecrating" marriage and destroying "something sacred and holy."

Pulling no punches, Egan said the specter of legal gay marriage would have a devastating effect on traditional values already eroded by an R-rated pop culture that includes sleazy reality TV shows. ...

The cardinal said traditional marriage should be preserved and protected at all costs.

"It has to do with a man and a woman committing to one another a life-long fidelity, a life until the end," Egan said.

The leader of more than 2 million New York Catholics told the faithful he was amazed that judges and lawmakers have opened the door to gay marriage. ...

Other Catholic leaders also attacked the decision from the pulpit yesterday. Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley said gay marriage would have an "enormously negative impact on our society," as his state prepares for a divisive battle over the court ruling. ...

Egan, known for his conservative views, also lashed out at pop culture. He called the media "enemies of marriage" for promoting promiscuity on reality shows.

more
posted by Eve at 6:17 PM | link 0 comments