DOES HISTORY MATTER?: Marty McKeever

...Marriage is a lot more than child rearing though, however for all the things marriage is and can be, the interests of The State/The Culture/The People is overwhelmingly in the well-being of the children. If not for that simple fact, it is unlikely that the institution would have survived these many thousands of years. But in today's high-tech world, where procreation can take place in the laboratory, and children are too often pawns in the game of divorce, some may argue that this point is moot. And they may be right. But that is a topic for another day -- I am not quite ready to toss out 4,000 years of conventional wisdom in favor of the technological and philosophical progress of the past 50 years.

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posted by Eve at 3:10 PM | link 0 comments

MALE-MALE COUPLES AND COMMITMENT: David Benkof

A common question posed by SSM supporters is, "How does gay marriage hurt straight marriage?" Well, if male-male couplings tend to view commitment in very different ways than male-female couplings do, it seems to me SSM could water down the entire institution in an unhealthy way.

I've been reading David Nimmons' excellent The Soul Beneath the Skin: The Unseen Hearts and Habits of Gay Men (St. Martin's Press, 2002). The author is a gay man who drew together hundreds of social-science studies about gay men to draw some conclusions about the ways in which the gay male community is distinct--it's less violent, for example, and more caring.

Chapter 5 focuses on gay male attitudes toward sex, and it's striking how "commitment" for gay men appears to mean different things than it does for straights:

"Much evidence now demonstrates that non-monogamy is a robust and established cultural practice among us.... A stack of research confirms that about three-quarters of gay men in stable, long-term relationships are consensually non-monogamous, without it necessarily threatening the viability of the couple." (p. 84)

"The sheer numbers of happily open queer couples is a matter of epidemiological fact. But far more interesting are the cultural and ethical implications they pose. Most primarily, what is radical is how openly it is acknowledged.... woven throughout gay communal expectations and habits, we recognize openly that sexual compacts can be part of successful relationships when both participants so choose." (pp. 88-9)

(Note: "sexual compacts" are arrangements like "either partner can cheat, but no kissing" or "only when we're out of town" or "only if we're both there.")

"This amorous clan is consciously, collectively, culturally, and carefully redrafting the covenants we make with each other around fidelity, intimacy, and commitment. We are decoupling notions of shame and guilt, defusing the imperatives of deceit and betrayal which have traditionally welded the seams of committed coupledom." (p. 90)

Certainly there are some gay men who are totally faithful to each other. But does it matter that most are not? In deciding whether to change the definition of marriage, I think it does.
posted by Eve at 2:48 PM | link 0 comments

SAME-SEX PARENTING AND STUDIES: David Benkof

A friend from college who is gay recently wrote me, incensed that on the "Ricki Lake Show" I opposed SSM in part because of my belief that opposite-sex relationships provide the ideal environment for the raising of children. I was misinformed, he wrote, and clearly unaware of the research on the subject. He cited two studies: The 2002 Anderssen et. al. summary of studies comprising 615 children of lesbian mothers or gay fathers as compared to 387 children of heterosexual parents showing little difference on a number of measures; and the 1980s Steckel studies of heterosexual vs. lesbian couples showing high similarities in all but a few areas, including children of heterosexual parents being perceived as "more bossy and domineering."

My response to the Anderssen study was as follows:

"My concern is not with the sexual orientation of parents, but with the make-up of the families. Indeed, I'm [bisexual] myself and I plan to be a darned good father some day! But I'll only make a baby with a wife, because I think it's wrong to decide that a child won't get a mom because I put my wants before my child's needs. Too many kids don't get moms because of tragedies; I shouldn't add to those numbers.The studies you reference are about the sexual orientation of the parents -- not whether the kids get both a mother and a father.... Anderssen et. al. had adoption data for only about 70 percent of the included children, but of the cases where adoption data was available, only eight kids (2 percent) had been adopted. Anderssen, et. al. don't report which of the remaining 98 percent were turkey-baster babies versus which resulted from previous marriages. But I think it's reasonable to assume that a good number fit into each category -- which completly invalidates Anderssen's validity vis a vis the effect of family structure on children because many, many of the children they studied *do* have both a mother and a father."

And my response to the Steckel studies:

"It sounds like some of the differences in female-female as opposed to male-female parenting structures involve a lack of some characteristics typically associated with men (is it possible "bossy and domineering" is a man-hater's way of saying assertive and ambitious?) The point is we learn how to be men, how to be women, how to relate to men, how to relate to women, etc. from our mothers and our fathers. Yes, some people don't get one of each. But society has a strong interest in making sure as many children as possible do have one of each."

But I went further than responding to the two specific studies. I gave my friend the following challenge:

"However, my stance wouldn't change even if 100 studies showed no differences in children of every family structure--because my beliefs are informed by a traditional Jewish worldview and its attitudes toward families and childrearing. But I want to ask you--would your stance change if 100 studies showed harmful effects in children raised without both a mother and a father?"

I don't think it would, which makes me wonder every time pro-same-sex-parenting people rave about various studies. At bottom, this debate is a clash of worldviews more than it is a clash of research.
posted by Eve at 2:40 PM | link 0 comments

AGE OF CONSENT: David Gillis replies to Philip Jenkins

[David Gillis is a tax attorney in New York City.]

In his piece regarding the age of consent, Philip Jenkins predicts that when the Goodridge decision becomes effective this spring, gays and lesbians in Massachusetts will be subject to the same age of consent laws as other intended brides and grooms, which (according to his post) allow entry into
marriage at age 18 or, with a parental consent or a judge's permission, at
age 14. Jenkins concludes, "So how does that constitutional amendment sound right now?"

For Jenkins' concluding remark to make sense, Jenkins must assume that readers of his post will be so shocked at the prospect of very young gay couples, or gay couples with significant age differences, falling in love and wanting to marry that the need for a constitutional amendment will be self-evident. I don't get it. Surely getting married at 18 is a bad idea for almost anyone, and the law wisely provides that those younger than 18 need parental permission or a judge's consent.

But what would suggest that the generally bad decision to marry at such a
young age would be worse for a gay person than a straight person? Jenkins offers no explanation, but instead relies entirely on coded message to fill in the essential gap in his argument: inviting the reader's presumed
revulsion at the very idea of young gays behaving no more impetuously than young straights. Jenkins' main objective seems to be to raise readers' ire at the specter of gay men preying on boys. He tries to inoculate himself
against the ugliness of this point by stating, "For decades, debates over homosexuality were bedeviled by the myth that gay men were pedophiles, an idea that is contradicted by all available evidence. Critics understandably
don't want to be attacked for recycling bigoted stereotypes." So if the
stereotypes are contradicted by "all the available evidence," what is the problem? Why would age differences among gay newlyweds be more troubling than age differences among straight newlyweds? Again, Jenkins' coded speech raises these questions without offering any answers at all, just an invitation to readers' visceral reactions.
posted by Eve at 2:38 PM | link 0 comments

MASS DELUSION IN MASSACHUSETTS?: Mark Barton replies to Ben Bateman

Ben Bateman: Did the state of Massachusetts suffer a wave of mass stupidity or self-deception in 1976?

Mark B.: Note that I don't suggest anything of the sort. I do think that the language is sufficiently blunt that it cannot be plausibly be read as "equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex except that men shall be disallowed from marrying men and likewise for women". And precisely because I think it would be stupid to read it that way, I trust that the people of Massachusetts didn't.

Rather, I presume they understood that it meant what it said, but that exceptions would be granted where the government could demonstrate a compelling state interest to the satisfaction of the MSJC. That is, I presume that they understood that they were renouncing power to micromanage such matters for themselves and the legislature and trusting to the MSJC to do the sensible thing in disputed cases. This after all would be the only sensible spirit in which to approach a self-restraint exercise. Moreover it would have been a reasonable expectation at the time that the court would of course make an exception for traditional marriage. After all, homosexuality had only just been delisted as a mental illness and a sodomy law was still on the books.

Now of course, I think the natural reading with respect to marriage is obvious, and a majority of the MSJC agrees with me. Moreover several other state high courts have interpreted similar language in the same way. However, even if we allow for the sake of argument that there's reasonable doubt about opposite-sex marriage in particular, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The language is so blunt that many traditional practices are clearly contrary to the letter of it, including many eminently sensible ones such as segregated public toilets and sex-specific medical treatment. The voters really would have been stupid if they didn't get the hint after all these additional examples.
posted by Eve at 2:27 PM | link 0 comments

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

Mark Tardiff: I do not see how civil marriage could have been considered a social construct before the philosophy of law disputes that occupied much of last century with discussions about the nature of law, its relation to morality and to natural law.

Mark B.: I think civil marriage can reasonably be called a social construct by virtue of the fact that every last feature of it, including its very existence, is at the discretion of a sovereign legislature consisting of people who represent society. Mark possibly has a quite different definition of social construct in mind, but I don't think it's profitable to spend time forging a consensus, because I suggest the considerations about sovereignty already settle the legal issue: there is no logical connection between civil marriage and any supposed natural marriage beyond the intent of the legislature to have one approximate the other.

Mark Tardiff: However, I still hold that the Massachusetts court overstepped its authority in its ruling. Specifically, as the dissenting justices point out, the court violated article 30 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.

Mark B.: They certainly invite that conclusion in the opening paragraph of the dissenting opinion on page 43. But this is just a rhetorical gambit to get the reader in the mood to cheer the conclusion they're working towards when they get around to presenting it. The dissenters clearly accept that the judicial powers referred to in Article XXX include the power to strike down unconstitutional laws, because they spend two whole sections dismissing various arguments that the marriage law is indeed unconstitutional. The majority did strike down the opposite-sex aspect of marriage as unconstitutional, they are the final arbiters in the matter, and this is in no way contrary to Article XXX.

Mark Tardiff: If so, then my civil rights are what the state says they are, and there are no grounds for charges of injustice.

Mark B.: No, your civil rights are what the state and federal constitutions say they are (subject to interpretation by the courts). In all other respects the legislature, being sovereign, is free to screw you over if it thinks it can get away with it at the ballot box. Mind you, I recognize additional moral rights beyond civil rights, and I wouldn't hesitate to invoke them in attempting to persuade legislators to vote in a particular manner, but I don't kid myself that they're legally enforceable.

Mark Tardiff: If not, then on what basis do civil rights remain tied to something beyond legislative enactments while civil marriage does not?

Mark B.: A number of civil rights are specified in detail in the Massachusetts constitution, whereas no feature of civil marriage is. On the contrary, Article V gives free reign to the governor and council until such time as the legislature determines differently.
posted by Eve at 2:25 PM | link 0 comments

CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRAINT: Mark Barton replies to Matt Taylor

Matt Taylor: The SJC, it seems, believes that unenumerated "natural, essential and unalienable rights" require use of their preferred vocabulary. This is the height of political correctness -- treating a good-faith use of certain terminology for one's social group as a terrible injury. I myself am gay, half of a same-sex couple of 9 years, and we couldn't care less whether our relationship is called "marriage," "civil union," or "chopped liver," so long as the substance of marriage is available to us under the law.

Mark B.: I would agree that as a political consideration, one should not be quick to reject a solution that provides all the substantive benefits of marriage (at least within the state of Massachusetts) and differs only in the name, especially if there's a risk of backlash. And I'd agree that as a consideration about personal karma, it's often good to rise above squabbles about terminology. I don't see, however, that it's any business of the MSJC to be political or magnanimous on my behalf (or that of the plantiffs).

Moreover, I'm afraid I can't accept that "civil union" is neutral terminology. It's been chosen very deliberately to be not only different from "marriage," but less prestigious. I accept that some of the more thoughtful and sympathetic anti-SSM advocates have settled on that terminology in a good-faith attempt to further certain perceived noble goals, while minimizing the cost to me, but that's very different from a good-faith attempt to offer me full equality with differentiated terminology just for clarity. When, for example, Elizabeth Marquardt goes on about marriage as a "norm" that she wants the government to endorse, that's inevitably an implicit condemnation and government disendorsement of my relationship. Why should I, or the MSJC, treat such an endorsement as empty symbolism when the most respectable of the people calling for it seem to think it has real-world potency that will actually change people's behaviour in some manner, pushing them towards marriage? Given that it's at least as easy to see how such an endorsement would perpetuate negative attitudes towards gay people and gay relationships as how it would encourage the raising of children by their biological parents, why should I be magnanimous? Why should I not be entitled to, and welcome, the same sort of rational basis review (or strict judicial scrutiny) by the MSJC on my behalf?
posted by Eve at 2:20 PM | link 0 comments

DOES HISTORY MATTER? Matt Taylor

Eve asks what we can conclude from the historical absence of SSM, in contrast to the historical ubiquity of (opposite-sex) marriage. In my opinion, these are two separate facts that each lead to different conclusions. The cross-cultural universality of marriage demonstrates that it is absolutely vital to human society; in evolutionary terms, we might say its contributes so much to a group's "fitness function" that those who abandon marriage quickly re-adopt it, or go extinct (e.g. the "Shaker" community of the 18th and 19th century U.S.)

The historical absence of SSM, however, says nothing about whether SSM is detrimental or beneficial to societies. One could argue that it is detrimental if there were examples of SSM's failure: societies that instituted SSM, then quickly abolished it or vanished. But we know of no such examples. It could just as well be that SSM has a neutral or even positive effect on a society's fitness function; its historic absence shows only that SSM has never been tried.
posted by Eve at 2:10 PM | link 0 comments

CIVIL UNIONS VS. MARRIAGE: Andrew Sullivan

It's still too early to see what the final outcome of the Massachusetts legislature's struggle to prevent or allow equal marriage rights in the Commonwealth. The amendment that passed the preliminary round is by far the least objectionable. It would enshrine a semantic difference between heterosexual and homosexual marriages by calling the former "marriage" and the latter "civil unions." But it would uphold the Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court's ruling that there should be complete substantive equality in terms of all protections and benefits. In other words: Vermont, but by constitutional amendment, not law. What bothers me about this is that it amounts to the constitutionalization of pure stigma. There's no possible reason to give gay couples something that walks, talks and squawks like a marriage but is called something else--except to maintain a purely semantic distinction, whose purpose is to reaffirm the inferiority of homosexual couples. Since many of these couples will get married in a religious ceremony as well, they may well describe themselves simply as married anyway. In time, common parlance will simply refer to all of the above as married. The only real difference may be that a civil union will be less transportable to other states. But that will also surely change, as some states will agree to recognize such civil unions, just as New York state has said it will agree to recognize Massachusetts' civil marriages. Of course, this process in Massachusetts is not, in many ways, a bad thing. It really has initiated an extraordinary public debate that has enriched many of us. The legislative and judicial processes in that state are signs that the system is working on a state level, and there is no need for clumsy federal intervention to pre-empt this state-by-state process and impose a premature "solution" on the entire country through the drastic option of a federal constitutional amendment. That also goes for California, where the judicial process should be allowed to continue unmolested by Washington.

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posted by Eve at 11:48 AM | link 0 comments

DIVIDED OVER GAY MARRIAGE: From the Los Angeles Times

[Very good, fair, basic piece.--Eve]

Not everyone who opposes gay marriage is a Bible-thumper, a conservative -- or even a heterosexual. As the California Supreme Court stepped into the feud Thursday by halting same-sex nuptials in San Francisco, other voices were already weighing in against the idea. ...

Some profess enthusiastic support for gay rights, including civil unions, but they draw the line at marriage. One reason is a belief that gay matrimony could open the door to legalizing polygamy and group marriage. ...

Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman recently wrote: "What's the difference between a polygamist and ... a casual philanderer? Twenty-five years in prison? ... The state is on shaky ground when it tries to criminalize sexual relations or the consensual living arrangements of adults."

Many gay leaders are quick to dismiss analogies between polygamy and homosexuality. "Polygamy is a choice; sexual orientation isn't," says writer Andrew Sullivan, an eloquent supporter of same-sex marriage. "Polygamy is also terrible for society. It abuses women, creates a class of unmarried males [by leaving a shortage of single females] and leaves children unclear about their parents."

Nevertheless, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, who backs gay marriage, says court decisions upholding same-sex matrimony could be interpreted to permit multiple spouses. He suggests even incest between consenting adults could end up decriminalized, despite the possibility of inbred children: "After all, we don't generally ban marriages between people who have serious genetic diseases, even if the odds of a defect in their children are much higher than for brother-sister marriages."

Some gay activists are already campaigning for such changes.

Paula Ettelbrick, a law professor who runs the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, recommends legalizing a wide variety of marriage alternatives, including polyamory, or group wedlock. An example could include a lesbian couple living with a sperm-donor father, or a network of men and women who share sexual relations.

One aim, she says, is to break the stranglehold that married heterosexual couples have on health benefits and legal rights. The other goal is to "push the parameters of sex, sexuality and family, and in the process transform the very fabric of society." ...

Meanwhile, because homosexuals are already becoming parents, conservative gay commentator Sullivan suggests it would be "far better for those kids to be protected in their families by legal marriage than to live with instability and possible custodial problems."

Blankenhorn disagrees, arguing that such a move would fundamentally alter the definition of parenthood by erasing the words "mother" and "father" from the law and replacing them with androgynous terminology. "Parental unit," perhaps? ...

In truth, many gays are ambivalent about the idea of same-sex nuptials, and, until recently, a number of activists adamantly opposed the concept.

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posted by Eve at 11:42 AM | link 0 comments

TEXT OF THE CA SUPREME COURT ORDER can be found toward the bottom of this page.
posted by Eve at 11:32 AM | link 0 comments

COURT HALTS GAY VOWS: From the San Francisco Chronicle

The California Supreme Court ordered an immediate halt Thursday to same-sex weddings in San Francisco and said it would decide within months whether the city had the authority to issue marriage licenses in defiance of state law.

The justices' unanimous orders at least temporarily froze ceremonies that have brought thousands of jubilant couples to City Hall in the last month, emboldened local officials in far-away cities and towns to challenge their states' marriage laws and sparked a political furor that has become an issue in the presidential race. ...

The state's high court hasn't taken up a case directly, bypassing lower court review, in more than four years. Historically it has done so only in rare cases that it considers urgent enough to demand a speedy statewide resolution.

The court sidestepped the issue of whether state law, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, is constitutional. Instead, the court will review only the narrower question -- pressed by state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and organizations opposing same-sex marriage -- of whether San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom can ignore the state law if he considers it unconstitutional.

The stay doesn't affect the more than 4,000 weddings performed under Newsom's decree since Feb. 12. But those marriages would be nullified, if the court rules that Newsom lacked the authority to defy the law on constitutional grounds.

That depends on whether the city is covered by a 1978 state constitutional provision requiring administrative agencies to follow the law as written until an appellate court declares it unconstitutional. The city contends the constitutional restriction applies only to state agencies -- a position that looks shaky after Thursday's order, according to some veteran court observers. ...

...Within hours, Herrera filed a new suit on the city's behalf, seeking a Superior Court ruling that the marriage law violated the rights of same-sex couples.

Similar suits are likely from some of the couples themselves, if the state Supreme Court invalidates their marriages. The issue has also been raised by opponents of same-sex marriage in two Superior Court suits, which were put on hold by the high court Thursday but would be revived if the court ruled that Newsom was acting within his authority.

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posted by Eve at 11:31 AM | link 0 comments

THE FIGHT IS IN THE STATES: From the San Francisco Chronicle

Washington may be getting the attention in the political battle over a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but the real fight is in the states, where events are moving rapidly with enormous consequences for both sides.

The outcomes of these state battles -- about 30 -- will be much more immediate than any federal amendment, which faces formidable barriers to enactment. Proponents and opponents of same-sex marriage are pouring energy and money into ferocious state lobbying campaigns. Both sides believe these fights, primarily over proposed state constitutional amendments or laws to ban same-sex marriage, will lay the groundwork for an eventual U.S. Supreme Court ruling. ...

Just last Friday, Wisconsin's state Assembly cleared a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

In the past two weeks, three state legislatures -- in Maine, Indiana and Georgia -- narrowly defeated attempts to amend their state constitutions to ban same-sex marriage. Georgia's measure failed by just three votes, Maine's by just one. On March 3, Utah's legislature sent to its voters a November ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. On Feb. 18, Wyoming's legislature defeated an amendment to deny recognition of same-sex marriages from other states. The Massachusetts Legislature convenes today for a second time a constitutional convention aimed at banning same-sex marriage.

To date, four states -- Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada and Nebraska -- have amended their constitutions to ban same-sex marriage. Nebraska's amendment is being challenged in court by Lambda Legal Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union. The state's attorney general, Jon Bruning, told a Senate committee last week that a federal judge as much as said that Nebraska will lose the case and predicted it will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"State constitutional amendments are not secure," Bruning said. "In Nebraska, ours is to be struck down ... and I think state statutes face the same risks," he said. He predicted that the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act will soon come under assault in the courts as well. The key for gay rights advocates is keeping constitutional amendments away from voters. No ban on same-sex marriage -- even in liberal, Democratic- leaning states such as California and Hawaii -- has ever lost at the ballot box.

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posted by Eve at 11:25 AM | link 0 comments

BUSH TELLS EVANGELICALS HE WILL FIGHT GAY MARRIAGE: From Reuters

President Bush on Thursday sought to solidify his standing with evangelical Christians by restating support for a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage as part of his championship of conservative causes.

"I will defend the sanctity of marriage against activist courts and local officials who want to redefine marriage. The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution,'' Bush, himself a born-again Christian, told the National Association of Evangelicals Convention in Colorado via satellite from the White House.

"I support a constitutional amendment to protect marriage as the union of a man and a woman,'' Bush said. The president has largely steered clear of the thorny political issue since announcing his support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on Feb. 24.

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posted by Eve at 11:22 AM | link 0 comments

CA SUPREME COURT BLOCKS S.F. GAY MARRIAGES: From the Associated Press

The California Supreme Court ordered an immediate halt to gay marriages in San Francisco and said Thursday it would hear a case in May or June on the legality of such marriages.

The action by California's highest court came two weeks after state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and a conservative group asked the seven justices to immediately block the gay marriages, with more than 3,700 couples having wed at City Hall so far.

The dispute began Feb. 12, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered his administration to issue same-sex marriage licenses. A steady stream of gay and lesbians from two dozen states have traveled to be married at City Hall, just a block from where the Supreme Court sits. The seven justices ruled unanimously that Newsom must "refrain from issuing marriage licenses or certificates not authorized" by California's marriage codes.

California's top court did not immediately address whether Newsom had the legal power to authorize the marriages, which contravenes a state law and voter referendum that say marriage is a union between a man and a woman. The justices also did not address whether the California Constitution would permit a gay marriage, as Newsom claims. Instead, the justices moved to block any more marriages, at least for now, until they decide whether Newsom had the power to authorize such unions. Had the court declined to intervene, the legal battle over gay marriage in California would have taken years as gay marriage lawsuits traveled through the state's lower courts.

Newsom's defiance of California law prompted a host of other municipalities across the nation to follow suit, and President Bush last month said he would back a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages.

In statehouses nationwide, lawmakers are scrutinizing their constitutions to see if they could be construed to permit same-sex marriages, even in states where laws now bar them. ...

Newsom has also sued the state on grounds that California's marriage laws violate the state constitution's equal protection clause. Pressure on Lockyer, a Democrat and the state's top law enforcer, intensified when Republican Schwarzenegger directed him last month to "take immediate steps" to halt San Francisco's marriage march.

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posted by Eve at 11:21 AM | link 0 comments

MA "COMPROMISE" AMENDMENT PASSES PRELIMINARY TEST: From the Boston Globe

Massachusetts lawmakers gave preliminary approval Thursday to a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage but legalize civil unions as the state again took center stage in the national debate over the rights of same-sex couples to wed.

The amendment, which would strip gay couples of their court-granted marriage rights, must still weather several additional votes and anticipated legislative maneuvering by opponents, who said the vote was all part of their strategy to ultimately defeat a ban. The earliest a ban could end up on a statewide ballot is November 2006, more than two years after same-sex couples can start getting married in Massachusetts.

It was adopted 129-69 with the help of several known advocates of gay marriage, triggering speculation that they could withdraw their support on the critical final vote needed before this year's constitutional convention ends. ...

Due to the elaborate constitutional-amendment process, the ban must be approved by the Legislature at least three more times this year -- perhaps as soon as Thursday night -- and then again during the 2005-06 legislative session. Shortly after this initial vote, legislators broke for dinner and were planning reconvene at 6:45 p.m.

Under a landmark high court decision issued in November and reaffirmed in February, gay marriage will become legal in Massachusetts on May 17 -- two and a half years before any constitutional amendment could go on the ballot for popular approval.

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posted by Eve at 11:19 AM | link 0 comments

THE NEW MATH?

David Barnes notes: Eve, you might want to add an editorial comment on this article ("To youth, gay marriage isn't such a big deal"). If you look at the poll, it is totally incoherent. 54% "Favor laws allowing homosexuals to marry" yet 62% "Favor a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman." Something here is very wrong.

[You have to go here to see the 62% figure clearly. And it is weird.]
posted by Eve at 2:59 PM | link 0 comments

LOOKING STRAIGHT AT GAY PARENTS: From USA Today

When Kim Musheno, 39, gives birth to her second son next month, her lesbian partner will be in the birthing room.

If their current plan holds up, Victor Zaborsky, 38, the gay man who is the baby's biological father, will be there, too. And so will Joseph Price, 32, Zaborsky's gay partner. Price is the biological father of Musheno's first child, now 3. ...

As with most things in the debate over gay parenting, just how many gay families there are is hard to pin down. Gary Gates, a demographer with the Urban Institute, has analyzed 2000 Census data and estimates that there are 100,000 female same-sex couples and 67,000 male same-sex couples with at least one child under 18 in the home. In his book due in April, The Gay and Lesbian Atlas, he estimates that 250,000 children are being raised by same-sex couples. ...

There is precious little research on the children of gay families compared with that done on the children from heterosexual unions. The studies are often small, conflicting and controversial. One of the most cited overviews of research was done by two University of Southern California sociologists. Peers reviewed their article for 18 months before its publication in the American Sociological Review in 2001.

In terms of most measures of child well-being, such as mental health and cognitive development, the study overall found results "at least as positive as children with heterosexual parents," says co-author Judith Stacey. But the report also challenges "the predominant claim that the sexual orientation of parents does not matter at all."

"Only a handful of studies track children to adulthood," cautions Stacey, now at New York University. One small British study found children raised by lesbians were no more likely to identify themselves as homosexual than those brought up in heterosexual households.

The analysis touches on the third rail of gay parenting research: sexual behavior. The British study said young girls raised by lesbians were more apt to be sexually adventurous than those raised by heterosexual parents and more likely to have had intimacy with a same-sex partner. Boys raised by lesbians, however, were less sexually adventurous than those raised in straight households.

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posted by Eve at 2:44 PM | link 0 comments

SSM WON'T WORSEN CRISIS IN THE BLACK FAMILY: Earl Ofari Hutchinson

...A Pew Research Poll taken immediately after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld same-sex marriages last year found that far more blacks than whites disagreed with the court's decision.

The two reasons most often heard for their rabid opposition is a biblical passage decrying homosexuality and deep resentment at comparing the gay marriage fight to the civil rights struggle. But the reason frequently whispered is that gay marriage will wreak mortal damage on a black family deep in crisis.

A higher-than-average divorce rate and a chronic shortage of marriageable men due to double-digit unemployment and the staggering imprisonment and mortality rates for young black men make that argument appealing to many blacks.

But the fear that gay marriage will further shatter the black family hinges on the shaky premises that there are thousands of gay men and women lying in wait to subvert traditional family values and that there is even a recognizable traditional stable family.

No one really knows how many black men or women consider themselves exclusively gay. An estimated 3 million same-sex couples in the United States maintain households, and the number of blacks living in same-sex households is only a small percentage of that number. That pales in comparison with the nearly 60 million traditional married couples in the country. ...

In 2000, nearly 70 percent of black children did not live in traditional two-parent households, one out of four children was born out of wedlock to a single woman and one out of two children was born out of wedlock to a single black woman. Half of all marriages ended in divorce.

Meanwhile, more than 50 percent of black women never married. All types of family and child-rearing relationships and parenting combinations have evolved over the past decade that were barely existent a generation ago.

There are single working women, single working men, custodial grandparents, single male and female couples, step-parents, foster parents, designated guardians, foster caregivers and even children raising siblings.

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posted by Eve at 2:31 PM | link 0 comments

LESBIAN COUPLE LOSES SUIT AGAINST SAN DIEGO CLUB: From the San Francisco Chronicle

A country club that denied a lesbian couple a family membership did not discriminate illegally, a state appellate court says, because California law doesn't require businesses to treat married and unmarried couples equally. ...

State laws prohibit discrimination based on marital status in employment, housing, insurance and several other commercial categories, and have expanded the rights of domestic partners in areas formerly reserved to married couples, like adoption, inheritance and hospital visitation.

But California's Unruh Act, the chief antidiscrimination law that regulates how businesses deal with their customers, has never been interpreted to cover marital status. Monday's ruling, the first by a state court to address the issue in 12 years, declined to make an exception for same-sex couples who can't legally marry under state law.

"As the law stands now, a marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman,'' said Justice Gilbert Nares in the 3-0 ruling. "Plaintiffs (the couple challenging the club's policy) desire that their domestic partnership be placed on an equal footing. This would run contrary to the policy, as engrained in state statutes, supporting the institution of marriage.''

The court gave plaintiffs B. Birgit Koebke and Kendall French a limited victory, allowing them to sue Bernardo Heights Country Club in San Diego for failing to enforce its policy even-handedly by allegedly issuing memberships to some unmarried opposite-sex couples. But the plaintiffs' lawyer, Jon Davidson of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the ruling was disappointing.

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posted by Eve at 1:08 PM | link 0 comments

GAY G.O.P. GROUP CHALLENGES BUSH ON MARRIAGE: From the Washington Post

In a dramatic break with President Bush, a prominent group of gay Republicans that supported him four years ago is launching a $1 million advertising campaign today attacking the administration for trying to ban same-sex marriage.

The ad, by the Log Cabin Republicans, uses grainy footage of Vice President Cheney saying during the 2000 campaign that the matter should be left to the states. ...

The ad shows Cheney in the 2000 vice presidential debate saying of gay marriage: "People should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. . . . That matter is regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."

The on-screen tag line says: "We Agree. Don't Amend the Constitution."

Cheney ducked questions about his earlier stance in television interviews last week, telling CNN: "I support the president. . . . He sets policy for the administration." Cheney's office declined to comment.

The 30-second spot likens the gay marriage effort to the civil rights movement, showing a protest scene from the 1960s and a sign that says "Colored Waiting Room." ...

But the president could be hurt among the 25 percent of gays who, according to 2000 exit polls, said they voted for him.

Bush got off to a rocky start with the Log Cabin Republicans in 1999, when, as a candidate, he said he would probably not meet with the group because it would "create a huge political nightmare for people." He reversed himself months later and met with some of the group's local members, and senior administration officials briefed 200 Log Cabin members earlier this year.

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posted by Eve at 1:05 PM | link 0 comments

GOV. ROMNEY IN MIDDLE ON GAY UNIONS: From the Washington Post

As a Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2002, Mitt Romney told a local gay and lesbian newspaper that he opposed same-sex marriage and civil unions but saw no need for a proposed constitutional amendment that would deny state benefits to gay couples.

Staking out the political middle ground, he wrote on a questionnaire, "I would do everything in my power as Governor to educate the public on the need to fight discrimination of any kind."

Times change. The once abstract campaign issue has swirled into a political maelstrom here in the state whose highest court sparked a nationwide controversy last fall when it ruled that a ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional. And Romney, a former financier, is now a first-term governor at the center of the nation's culture wars and among the most outspoken advocates of amending his state's constitution to ban gay marriage.

Perhaps more than any other politician embroiled in the marriage debate, Romney -- who favors limited benefits for gay couples such as hospital visitation and survivorship rights -- could feel the impact of the intensely divisive issue on his political future.

Widely thought to be biding his time for a presidential run, he is earning his stripes with national GOP leaders, who strongly oppose gay marriage. But at stake is his moderate reputation among Massachusetts voters, who like their Republicans to be liberal on social issues.

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posted by Eve at 12:55 PM | link 0 comments

TO YOUTH, GAY MARRIAGE ISN'T SUCH A BIG DEAL: From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

While the debate about same-sex marriages rages from the Oval Office to the kitchen table, young people in Wisconsin are much more apt to accept unions between gay couples than their parents and grandparents.

The TV show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," whose stars are shown above in Los Angeles in September, has helped bring homosexuality into the cultural mainstream.
And those who oppose the proposed amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution that would ban gay marriage say the move would saddle the younger generation with the change for years to come, even as society seems to grow more tolerant of homosexuality.

A Badger Poll in December showed that 54% of respondents between the ages 18 and 29 said they favor laws that allow homosexual people to marry, compared with 36% of those between 30 and 44, 27% of those between 45 and 59, and 14% of those over 60 years of age. ...

Chalk it up to a generation that grew up in a popular culture steeped with references to--and greater tolerance for--homosexuality. ...

The December Badger Poll, which was taken before the Massachusetts decision, shows that "younger people take a more positive view toward homosexuality," said G. Donald Ferree, Jr., director of the Badger Poll. The poll was conducted by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center and sponsored by the Journal Sentinel and the Capital Times, a Madison newspaper.

Although the same poll showed a strong majority of younger adults are also supportive of amending the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman, that apparent quirk wasn't consistent with their overall more-favorable views about same-sex relationships as presented in other questions, Ferree said.

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posted by Eve at 12:52 PM | link 0 comments

ASBURY PARK, NJ VOTES TO STOP SSM LICENSES, FILE SUIT: From the Associated Press

The Asbury Park City Council voted Wednesday to stop taking applications from gay couples seeking marriage licenses, but to file a lawsuit seeking a court ruling allowing them to resume. The vote was 5-0. The council met behind closed doors Wednesday morning after the state attorney general ordered city officials late Tuesday to stop accepting applications from gay couples or face prosecution.

Councilman John M. Loffredo said the council acted reluctantly. "I've had friends who were beaten for no other reason than they were gay. For us to deny anyone the right to marry is wrong," he said. Council members said they would seek a declaratory judgment affirming that a gay marriage ceremony performed Monday by the city's deputy mayor was legal and that the city could continue issuing marriage licenses to gays.

No timetable was set. In the meantime, officials said, the city would accept no more applications and consider all pending applications denied. The council voted not to expend public funds on the lawsuit, but to seek funding from gay rights organizations it did not specify. In letters to city officials sent Tuesday afternoon, Attorney General Peter C. Harvey threatened prosecution if they did not cease and desist.

The action came at the close of a day in which more than a dozen gay and lesbian couples descended upon City Hall in hopes they could be licensed and married before Harvey made good on promises to invalidate the unions. ...

Gay marriage has so far been rejected by state courts. On Nov. 5, the Law Division of New Jersey Superior Court held that New Jersey's marriage statutes do not permit same-sex marriages. Nothing in the state constitution guarantees same-sex unions as a right and the appropriate forum to change marriage laws is the Legislature, the judge ruled. The ruling is being appealed by gay activists.

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posted by Eve at 5:53 PM | link 0 comments

MORE VOLOKH ON HATCH FMA

...None of these outcomes are certain (though I think the prohibition of common-law marriages would take a lot of textual squirming for courts to avoid). But they are plausible enough that they counsel in favor of correcting the language to avoid these problems.

My preference would be just to stick with the second sentence: "Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to require that marriage or its benefits be extended to any union other than that of a man and a woman."

This won't overrule Goodridge, but as I mentioned, I think that the Massachusetts voters should save themselves from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, rather than having the rest of the country save them. But if you must overrule Goodridge, then at least do it more clearly: "Nothing in this Constitution or in any state Constitution shall be construed to require that marriage or its benefits be extended to any union other than that of a man and a woman."

The one bad side effect of this is that it would prevent voter-approved state constitutional amendments authorizing same-sex unions; but that's not a huge problem, I think, since legislatures and voters would still be free to authorize such unions (or marriages) by statute, which is how marriages are generally defined. But if you really worry about that, try something like: "No provision of this Constitution or of any state Constitution shall be construed to require that marriage or its benefits be extended to any union other than that of a man and a woman, unless the provision explicitly provides for such an extension." ...

In any case, any of these proposals would, I think, be better than one that includes the buggy first sentence from the current proposal.

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posted by Eve at 5:25 PM | link 0 comments

FULL FAITH AND CREDIT: Eugene Volokh replies to Lea Brilmayer

Yale professor Lea Brilmayer writes, in today's Wall Street Journal:

"[N]obody [has] bothered to check whether the Full Faith and Credit Clause had actually ever been read to require one state to recognize another state's marriages. It hasn't. Longstanding precedent from around the country holds that a state need not recognize a marriage entered into in another state with different marriage laws if those laws are contrary to strongly held local public policy. The 'public policy doctrine,' almost as old as this country's legal system, has been applied to foreign marriages between first cousins, persons too recently divorced, persons of different races, and persons under the age of consent. The granting of a marriage license has always been treated differently than a court award, which is indeed entitled to full interstate recognition. Court judgments are entitled to full faith and credit but historically very little interstate recognition has been given to licenses." ...

I actually agree with a good deal of Prof. Brilmayer's other points, such as the value of leaving the matter to the states, and the impropriety of trying to save Massachusetts voters from their own Supreme Judicial Court's interpretation of the state constitution. But the argument I quote above has an obvious weakness -- it only works so far as courts are willing to recognize "longstanding precedent."

Lawrence v. Texas shows that the Supreme Court is willing to overturn a directly on-point Supreme Court precedent that's under 20 years old, and at the same time strike down statutes that have been seen as constitutional for centuries. Goodridge shows that some judges are willing to overturn a many-centuries-old practice of limiting marriage to male-female couples; sure, that was state judges interpreting the state constitution, but what state judges do now, federal judges might do later. On matters of gay rights, quite a few judges -- not by any means all, but quite a few -- are quite willing to set aside both precedent in the sense of traditional understandings and precedent in the sense of squarely controlling Supreme Court decisions. And of course many legal scholars in the gay rights movement has been assiduously arguing that courts should use the Fourteenth Amendment to require states to recognize in-state same-sex marriages, and the Full Faith and Credit Clause to require states to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages. Judges might well listen to them more than they would to Prof. Brilmayer.

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brief postscript here
posted by Eve at 5:19 PM | link 0 comments

ON SSM, BUSH FAILED THE PUBLIC AND HIMSELF: Jonathan Rauch

In a small Texas church in 1977, a young man named George W. Bush married a young woman named Laura Lane Welch. Their marriage changed them both. "She is the steel in his back," a reporter who knew them told CNN.com in 2001. "She is a civilizing influence on him."

A civilizing influence: If marriage's magic--for individuals, for couples, for communities, for countries--were to be reduced to a phrase, that would be it. If President Bush were asked what was the single most important day of his life, I imagine he might choose, not the day he was chosen president, nor the day his twin daughters were born, but the day he united his life with Laura Welch's. Marriage civilizes, comforts, nourishes. Possibly no man in the country knows this better than Bush.

I hope, then, that it was with some measure of agony that, on February 24, he called for the Constitution to be amended to define marriage as a union of a man and a woman. At that moment, the occupant of the office once held by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln declared that millions of Americans should be forever denied what is, after freedom itself, the greatest blessing of civic life: the opportunity to marry the person you love. ...

More: In the course of his speech, as indeed in the course of his presidency, the word "gay" or "homosexual" did not pass his lips. He had nothing to say about the people to whom he would deny the irreplaceable blessings of marriage, and nothing to say specifically to them. It was as if a politician, a century ago, had announced his support for an amendment that would forever ban women from voting in any election on U.S. soil, and had done so in a speech carefully crafted to avoid mentioning women or even using a feminine pronoun. The message of Bush's omission, intended or otherwise, must surely be: Gay Americans are of no interest or concern to this president. Gay couples are invisible.

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posted by Eve at 5:16 PM | link 0 comments

NOW, THINK ABOUT THE AGE OF CONSENT: Philip Jenkins

...Here's a simple question: If a state legalizes gay marriage, what is the age of consent? If we assume, for the sake of argument, that the gay age would be the same as the heterosexual age, the answer is startling. About 30 states fix the age of sexual consent at 16, with a few listing 17 or 18. Now, those minimum ages have qualifications--so many in fact that the whole area of consent law nationwide is a legal minefield. Even while stating a minimum age, some jurisdictions place added restrictions in some circumstances. Sensibly, some forbid relationships between teenagers and older adults who might have some position of authority over them, such as teachers or pastors.

But many states lower the age of heterosexual consent in the case of marriage. Even states with a legal age of 16 or higher will allow people to marry younger, provided they have the consent of their parents and--in many cases--the permission of a judge. The fact that such laws exist for heterosexual couples almost certainly means that any state legalizing gay marriage would have to apply those ages equally to homosexual duos.

When the Massachusetts Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision on gay marriage, the justices had in their minds the image of adult or middle-aged couples. But what they did in practice was to revolutionize the law on teenage sexuality. The court explicitly declared that homosexual couples must be entitled to full marriage rights. If that equalizing approach applies to the age of consent, Massachusetts boys now can marry at 18, unless they have parental consent or a judge's permission, in which case the age is 14.

So how does that constitutional amendment sound right now?

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posted by Eve at 5:11 PM | link 0 comments

LESBIAN COUPLE FIGHTS FOR SPOUSAL PRIVILEGES AT SAN DIEGO COUNTRY CLUB: From the Los Angeles Times

A state appeals court Monday gave a partial victory to a lesbian couple fighting for spousal privileges at the golf course where one of the two is a member. ...

The justices ruled that the plaintiffs' lawyers deserve the right to argue that the club discriminated against the couple by granting spousal privileges not just to married couples but also to unmarried heterosexual couples. The club denies that. ...

The appeals court, however, declined to rule that the club's policy of allowing spouses of members to play free at the course violates state law, which bans discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.

The plaintiffs had argued that the rule unfairly discriminates against gays and lesbians because the law does not permit same-sex marriages. The court disagreed.

"The [appeals court] decision basically strengthens the reason that same-sex couples deserve the right to be married," said Jon Davidson, an attorney for Lambda Legal, which defends gay rights cases across the country.

An attorney for the country club said that the club can easily prove that only married couples were allowed to benefit from the spousal rule.

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posted by Eve at 5:08 PM | link 0 comments

FRAGILE COMPROMISE SEEN ON BANNING GAY MARRIAGE: From the Boston Globe

After a weekend of polling and cajoling colleagues, state Senate President Robert E. Travaglini said yesterday he had marshaled a majority of lawmakers for Thursday's constitutional convention to support a compromise amendment that would ban gay marriage but create civil unions.

Travaglini cautioned, however, that "this situation is rather fluid" and that "it would be very difficult to do a head count with any degree of accuracy," but said he believed the fragile coalition would hold together in the end. ...

The latest compromise most closely resembles a proposed constitutional amendment that the Legislature rejected 104-94 in last month's constitutional convention. That proposed amendment would ban gay marriage and create civil unions.

But the measure also would have reclassified a gay marriage into a civil union if it occurred between May 17, when the Supreme Judicial Court historic ruling legalizing gay marriage goes into effect, and November 2006, when voters are to consider the ballot initiative.

The latest compromise would ban gay marriage and create civil unions, but it would not retroactively reclassify marriages that occur after May 17. ...

House Republicans, hoping to sway as many votes as possible yesterday, disseminated a letter from several conservative legal scholars warning that the Finneran-Travaglini measure would "raise serious religious liberty issues statewide" if passed. The letter says that the amendment would mean that "churches and other religious organizations that fail to embrace civil unions. . . may be forced to retreat from their practices or else face enormous legal pressure to change their views."

"Precedent from our own history. . . suggests that religious institutions could even be at risk of losing tax-exempt status, academic accreditation, and media licenses and could face charges of violating human rights codes or hate speech laws" if they refuse to participate in civil union ceremonies for same-sex couples, the letter said.

Senate Republican leaders, by contrast, stood firm with the Travaglini-Finneran compromise yesterday.

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posted by Eve at 5:05 PM | link 0 comments

IN SEATTLE, A LEGAL CHALLENGE TO MARRIAGE LAWS: From the New York Times

The gay marriage debate rippled into Washington State on Monday, as six same-sex couples filed a lawsuit challenging the state's Defense of Marriage Act and the Seattle mayor said the city would now recognize gay marriages forged elsewhere. ...

Washington is one of 38 states with laws barring the recognition of gay marriages. The state's Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage as between a man and a woman. ...

The six couples here applied for and were denied marriage licenses Monday morning in King County, which includes Seattle. Ron Sims, who is the King County executive, a supporter of gay marriage and a candidate for governor, participated in a staged event encouraging the couples to sue him and other county officials. They did so, filing a challenge to Washington's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act.

"I have always said I will follow the rule of law," Mr. Sims said. "I will not issue licenses, but I thought it was appropriate to have a challenge through the court system."

Lisa Stone, executive director of the Northwest Women's Law Center, one of the legal groups representing the six couples in the suit, said she thought it was more effective to mount a legal challenge to the state law, rather than encourage city, county or state officials to issue marriage licenses in defiance of the law, only to have them legally challenged later.

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posted by Eve at 5:02 PM | link 0 comments

ASBURY PARK, NJ MAYOR PERFORMS SSM: From the New York Times

The movement for same-sex marriages reached New Jersey yesterday when a gay couple who had been issued a marriage license by the city clerk's office were married in Asbury Park by the deputy mayor.

Though city officials said that authorizing the marriage license was permitted by New Jersey law, state officials quickly disagreed, and the state's attorney general said he would seek an injunction this week to bar such actions.

"We think that what the official in Asbury Park is doing is issuing invalid documents," Attorney General Peter C. Harvey said, adding that the license was "a worthless piece of paper."

Mayors and clergy members in New York have conducted marriage ceremonies for dozens of same-sex couples in the past two weeks, but all took place without the customary marriage licenses, and will probably face court challenges.

In Asbury Park, however, the city's deputy clerk, Dawn Tomek, said yesterday that she had studied state law before she issued the license and believed that no stature was violated. New Jersey's law, she said, does not specifically ban or permit same-sex marriages.

"I went by the Constitutions of the United States and of New Jersey, both of which guarantee equal rights," Ms. Tomek said after she joined a celebration for the couple at a local pub.

During the day, she said, she issued marriage licenses to six other couples, all male.

Lawyers said it was not clear whether the deputy mayor in Asbury Park would face prosecution for performing a marriage without a valid license. But Mr. Harvey said that his office did not intend to prosecute anyone.

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posted by Eve at 5:00 PM | link 0 comments

POLL FINDS GROWING SUPPORT FOR GAY CIVIL UNIONS: From the Washington Post

Public support appears to be growing for legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples, as well as for allowing states to make their own laws regulating gay marriage, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

About half the country -- 51 percent -- favors allowing gay couples to form civil unions with the same basic legal rights as married couples, up 6 percentage points in less than a month. A slightly larger majority also rejected amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriages in favor of allowing states to make their own laws, an increase of 8 percentage points in recent weeks.

But it's too early to draw firm conclusions from these results. Polling on gay marriage has been particularly volatile. Support for giving states the right to decide on who can get married stood at 58 percent in January, dipped to 45 percent in February and now stands at 53 percent in the latest Post-ABC News poll. ...

Fifty-nine percent of Americans polled oppose same-sex marriage, up 4 percentage points from last month.

Still, the survey suggests that Bush's endorsement of a constitutional ban is far from popular. Overall, 52 percent said they disapprove of the way Bush is handling the issue of same-sex marriage, while 44 percent approve. And when asked which candidate would better handle the issue, the public was divided evenly between Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

At the same time, Bush could reap political benefits from his endorsement. The survey suggests that the issue is more of a voting concern for opponents of same-sex marriage than for its advocates.

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posted by Eve at 4:52 PM | link 0 comments

JUDGES DON'T ACT IMMEDIATELY ON S.F. CASE: From the San Francisco Chronicle

Opposing sides in San Francisco's same-sex marriage controversy made their final pitches to the California Supreme Court on Friday as they anxiously awaited word on whether the state's top court will step in and decide the fate of gay and lesbian weddings.

In briefs filed with the court, San Francisco city attorneys asked the justices to refrain from taking any action now and allow two lawsuits pending in Superior Court over San Francisco's parade of same-sex nuptials to go to trial and wind its way through the legal system.

The legal maneuver was made in response to a request by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer eight days ago that the high court put a halt to the marriage procession that began Feb. 12, when Newsom ordered County Clerk Nancy Alfaro to begin issuing the licenses.

Mayor Gavin Newsom said Friday that he expects the city to vigorously defend its actions in court for as long as necessary to grant gays and lesbians the right to marry. ...

Meanwhile, attorneys for three San Francisco residents who also have asked the justices to stop the weddings, launched a new legal assault with the court Friday, filing a brief that specifically defends the constitutionality of California laws that bar gay and lesbian weddings. The court has the discretion whether to accept Friday's briefs. ...

The city is arguing that state laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman violate the equal protection rights of gays and lesbians under the state constitution. In a new twist, the city also contends that Newsom also was acting under the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection, raising the possibility that the case may eventually be decided by the nation's highest court. ...

Responding to pleas from local gays and lesbians, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz county officials say they are weighing whether to join San Francisco's lawsuit against the state ban on same-sex licenses. The Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on the issue Tuesday. Officials say that Santa Clara County Supervisors may take up the issue next month.

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

INTERDEPENDENT RELATIONSHIPS: Elizabeth Marquardt

...Third, the editor felt the argument about interdependent couples is irrelevant. No one is talking about that, he said. Well, actually, some influential legal theorists are making just this argument, that we shouldn't be concerned about who is having sex with each other but rather who is caring for one another. We should focus on care relationships, not sexual relationships, they say, and put our state and social support in the former category. Not a bad idea, perhaps, but once we extend marriage law to everybody who's caring for someone it's hard to tell what marriage itself is for anymore. That's why in the oped we advocate for other, significant kinds of state and legal supports being available to same sex and interdependent couples rather than marriage.

And incidentally, though the NYT oped editor claimed no one is talking about interdependent coupes, the NYT itself is already laying the groundwork with a couldn't-be-more-obvious piece that ran on the front page a little over a week ago, which talked about older women who've been friends for years teaming up to age together. They're not having sex, they're just friends, but they want to share housing and companionship and care for one another when they fall ill. Sounds like a great idea. But trust us, this is the first salvo in one of the next developments of this debate. If heterosexual couples and homosexual couples get the benefits of marriage, why not these caring, aging couples?

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posted by Eve at 2:21 PM | link 0 comments

A MARRIAGE MADE IN HISTORY: Don Browning and Elizabeth Marquardt

Both supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage make their case with hypothetical arguments about its social effects and claims about the history of marriage. Unfortunately, we know next to nothing about the first subject, and proponents of same-sex marriage have mischaracterized the second. ...

Legalizing same-sex marriage does not simply extend an old institution to a new group of people. It changes the definition of marriage, reducing it primarily to an affectionate sexual relationship accompanied by a declaration of commitment. It then gives this more narrow view of marriage all of the cultural, legal and public support that marriage gained when its purpose was to encourage and temper a more complex set of goals and motivations.

Same-sex marriage changes the purpose of marriage law. It no longer will serve, in concert with other aspects of society, to direct sexual and parental behavior to achieve a complex synthesis of goods. It will function instead to extend marriage privileges to a particular group of sexual partners.

Rather than expanding the status and privileges of marriage to same-sex couples and then gradually to other kinds of caring relationships, as logic would soon require, society should find alternative ways of meeting the needs not only of same-sex couples but also interdependent friends, and dependent but unmarried kin. Tax benefits, legal adoption, welfare transfers, and more refined and accessible legal contracts should all be used to meet these needs--but not the institution of marriage itself.

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[There's also a very interesting "behind the scenes" post here, in which Elizabeth describes the fierce resistance she faced in trying to get the New York Times to print a liberal case against SSM.]
posted by Eve at 2:00 PM | link 0 comments

NEW QUESTION: Does history matter?

Historical claims come up all the time in the same-sex marriage debate. It is extraordinarily difficult to find pre-1960s societies that have had anything even close to same-sex marriage; and, as far as I know, impossible to find earlier societies that have had a conception of same-sex marriage that actually resembles the one being promoted today. (There are a couple groups where the occasional woman would be treated socially as if she were a man, and would enter into marriage or a marriagelike union with another woman, as well as fulfilling the other expectations of the male role. This is both highly unusual and, obviously, not much like what SSM activists are calling for today.)

So: Does this historical absence of SSM matter? Has the world changed so much that while it once made sense to prohibit SSM and view marriage as a means of uniting the sexes, this prohibition is outdated? What, if anything, should we learn from the historical record?

Click below to join the debate!
posted by Eve at 1:57 PM | link 0 comments

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Gabriel Rosenberg to Eve

At MarriageDebate, Eve Tushnet writes that the same-sex marriage debate should be viewed as (or through the matrix of) a clash of worldviews on what marriage is for. I agree with that, but I don't agree with how she framed the two worldviews. ...

There are at least three distinctions here that Eve blurs into one. On the one hand she argues that the difference in worldviews has to do with the importance of gender. I agree with this for the most part, except that I'd say the second view holds not that the sex difference doesn't matter, but rather that it's up to the individual and not society to decide how it matters. Another distinction that Eve discusses is that the first worldview holds marriage as an honor and the second as a right. I'll leave it to Eve to describe her own worldview, but I believe SSM should be honored as well for the same need of people to do their duty. SSM is about responsibility as well. It just recognizes that you have the same responsibility to a spouse regardless of her gender. You have the same responsibility to a child regardless of how he was born. With regards to rights, the main shift in worldview I see is that whereas historically parents, family, and/or the town may have chosen one's spouse, in the new worldview the individual has a right to choose his own spouse.

One of the largest distinctions Eve draws between the two worldviews is that the first centers on children, and the latter centers on the couple. My strongest objection to her framing is reserved for this aspect. Yes most SSM advocates recognize that there is more to marriage than just the children, but there is nothing new in this view [nor is this view necessary for SSM]. Marriage has traditionally been about more than just children. Hence marriages have not automatically disolved after the last child is raised. [The longer life expectancy, though, is something that has gradually changed]. Hence marriages that ended--through death or divorce--have still been considered marriages in the eyes of the law. This has been important for allocating property, another traditional purpose of marriage.

More importantly the childrearing aspect is still critical in the pro-SSM worldview. This worldview does not want to strip marriage of its reference to and orientation around childrearing. Rather it recognizes that with regards to children, it is the childrearing aspects of marriage that are vital and not the capacity for child producing. Again I don't see a focus on childrearing as being very new [although the role of the parents in raising the child has I believed gradually changed]. Hence it has been desirable for single parents to marry (or remarry) even when the children's other genetic parent was no longer around (either because of death or abandonment).

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posted by Eve at 1:52 PM | link 0 comments

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Mark Miller replies to Eve

I agree that much of this debate does revolve around the 'two worlds'. The world view has changed in most societies and cultures and there is a legitimate debate about whether these changes have been good or bad. (Obviously, some have been good and some have been bad).

But I do object to the view--or maybe my perception of the view--that those who support SSM are less interested in 'the best interest of the children'. I don't remember any same-sex advocate referring to children as 'distractions' in a marriage. Of course children are aspirations and the fulfillment of unions. But using that in the context of this debate seems disingenuous to me. First, one of the arguments for same-sex advocates is that allowing them to marry will be beneficial to the stability of their own family. I guess you could say that the government has no interest in the stability of a family not biologically but that goes against the 'best interests of child' argument. (and comes across as sort of mean-spirited too).

Second, the truth is that children are 'optional extras'. If this issue were only about children, then the SSM foes could support laws where there is one legal status for couples with children and another status for couples without children. In other words, if it is about the children involved, then change the laws accordingly as the situation warrants.

If the same-sex marriage foes are going to argue that 'same-sex marriage' means that children are NOT important, then they must also be willing to say they oppose other 'freedoms' that also send that same message--such as divorce where children are involved, adoption by single parents, even the ability to keep your children if you are unwed.

Otherwise, the argument seems arbitrary since it is only used in the case of same-sex marriage.
posted by Eve at 1:48 PM | link 0 comments

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Matt Taylor replies to Eve

I think you are largely correct in that most people who feel strongly about SSM hold one of two worldviews:

"In the first, and older, worldview, societies across the globe and down through the millennia have regulated and honored marriages in order to deal with the fact that intercourse makes babies. ... In the new worldview, marriage is regulated and honored because society and government want to reward people for being in committed, loyal pair-bond sexual relationships."

However, I don't agree that the two most prevalent worldviews are those that you describe.

Your statement of the second, newer worldview reflects the conservative pro-SSM position of Andrew Sullivan and David Brooks, for example. But more liberal or radical SSM advocates, who probably constitute the majority of pro-SSM voters, seem uninterested in defining the purpose of marriage at all. Their primary concern is to give gays and lesbians equal access to every social institution, whether it be marriage or military service, employment, etc.

On the first worldview, traditional societies do not usually feel such a sense of agency in their conception of marriage, as Mark Tardiff once pointed out during an earlier discussion on this blog. Marriage is, for them, whatever was handed down by their deity(ies) or some other traditional authority, and this is in fact where most voters who oppose SSM seem to be coming from.

The communitarian view of marriage you articulated in your post is, in my opinion, a relatively new idea, primarily conceived as a response to recent changes in family structure, same-sex households among them. I personally find this view of marriage convincing; it's hard to think of anything more important than advancing the welfare of children, and marriage certainly does that. However, I don't think this view is widely held by the American people.
posted by Eve at 1:46 PM | link 0 comments

MASS DELUSION IN MASSACHUSETTS? Ben Bateman replies to Mark Barton

Mark Barton doesn't think that the MSJC should have interpreted the Massachusetts ERA according to what those voting on it intended it to mean. Instead, he explains that the constitutional provisions, "like lesser laws, must mean what they say, except where they're ambiguously worded or in conflict with other laws" apparently without reference to anyone’s intent.

It's tempting to dismiss this as simply untrue as a proposition of law. The first year of law school firmly teaches that words are always unclear in many circumstances, which is why we need lawyers and judges to interpret them. In every area of law I know of--except constitutional law--courts and administrative agencies regularly study legislative intent. But let's leave the legal point aside.

What's really amazing is Mark's notion that the people of Massachusetts didn’t understand what they were voting on. In his mind, SSM is the obvious result of saying, "equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex." Mark and four justices of the MSJC have determined the objective and indisputably correct interpretation of those thirteen words is to demand SSM. If the voters thought otherwise, they were just "kidding themselves."

Did the state of Massachusetts suffer a wave of mass stupidity or self-deception in 1976? Apparently so. It boggles the mind that hundreds of thousands of voters could have been so confused, yet only a precious few could possess the keen intellect necessary to unlock the true meaning of those words.

Let's assume for argument Mark's literalist notion that the Massachusetts voters didn't understand what they were approving in 1976, and that's just too bad for them. Hundreds of thousands of deluded people voted for it, but only a select few understood what it really meant. If that's true, then why does it matter that they voted for it? We ask the voters to approve constitutional amendments because their consent to those amendments is what legitimizes them. If the voters didn't understand what they were "really" voting on, then how can we say that they consented to it? We might as well print the ballots in Sanskrit, let the press provide inaccurate translations, and then yell "Gotcha!" once we've tricked the voters into "consenting" to the opposite of what they wanted.
posted by Eve at 1:44 PM | link 0 comments

DAVID BENKOF ON RICKI LAKE TODAY.

Benkof is an occasional contributor to this site. He'll be giving a case against SSM. Not sure when the show airs--different times in different venues--but figured I'd give you all a heads-up.
posted by Eve at 1:41 PM | link 0 comments

JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT: Matt Taylor replies to Mark Tardiff

On the question of creating legislative authority to overturn high court decisions, Mark Tardiff suggests:

[T]he issue to be settled by the legislature should be: Did the court overstep its authority? If the super-majority agreed that it did, the decision would be rendered null ... allowing for the possibility of conscientious legislators who would vote to sustain a decision they disagreed with.

If such legislative oversight were instituted, I agree that the constitution should encourage legislators to defer to the court in all but the most exceptional cases. However, it may be more practical for the legislature to author its own decision, than just to nullify the court's ruling. A substantive explanation from the legislature would supply valuable precedent to future cases, so that courts are more likely to interpret the constitution as the legislators (and the people) intend. Also, it would ensure that the individual case at hand is decisively resolved.
posted by Eve at 1:40 PM | link 0 comments

AN FMA EVEN A SAME-SEX MARRIAGE SUPPORTER CAN LOVE: Eugene Volokh

[SSM opponents might want to ask ourselves whether that's a point in favor of the Hatch language, or against it.--Eve]

Sen. Orrin Hatch proposes an alternative Federal Marriage Amendment, which even I would support in principle (for reasons mentioned over the last couple of weeks):

"Civil marriage shall be defined in each state by the legislature or the citizens thereof. Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to require that marriage or its benefits be extended to any union other than that of a man and a woman."

This means that states will be free to decide this for themselves, which I think is right -- it will both keep federal courts from forcing Utah to recognize gay marriage, and keep the rest of the country from forcing (say) Oregon not to recognize gay marriage.

In practice, I think that, as with many proposals, we need to think carefully about the language. For instance, wouldn't this (inadvertently, I suspect) prohibit common-law marriages, and perhaps even void existing ones, at least in states where common-law marriages really do flow solely from judge-made rules, with no statutory authorization? ...

In any case, this isn't a fatal problem; the solution to it is to change the proposed draft, not reject it. But it's worth thinking hard about such problems up front.

UPDATE: I neglected to mention one other objection, which goes more to the core of the proposed Amendment (I had thought of this and blogged about this point in the past, but just didn't think much about it when writing the post above): I suspect that the first sentence is intended to (and is likely to) prevent state courts from forcing legislatures to recognize same-sex marriages under state Constitutions, much as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did. In addition to outlawing common-law marriages -- likely an unintended result -- the amendment would probably also prohibit such state constitutional decisions, likely the intended result.

I think that's a mistake. I disagree with the Massachusetts court's decision, but that should be a matter for Massachusetts legislators and voters to correct, not for the rest of us to mess with. I think the solution both to this problem and to the common-law marriage problem is to just use the second sentence, and drop the first.

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posted by Eve at 1:38 PM | link 0 comments

SOCIAL SCIENCE: NOT MUCH, SO FAR. From the Boston Globe

Justice Martha B. Sosman of the state Supreme Judicial Court raised the research flag first.

In her dissent to the court's controversial ruling in support of gay marriage in November, she criticized her fellow justices for ignoring the scientific research on the subject of children, declaring, ". . . Studies to date reveal that there are still some observable differences between children raised by opposite-sex couples and children raised by same-sex couples." ...

...Virtually all the nearly 50 studies on the children of gay and lesbian parents -- who number between 6 and 14 million in the United States, according to various studies -- have found no significant differences between children raised by heterosexual or homosexual parents.

But most of the studies have been small and some of them solicited families through gay literature or participant referrals, rather than a more representative process. Critics, mostly opponents of gay marriage, charge they are methodologically flawed and, in some cases, politically biased. ...

Patterson said that, while each study can be criticized, taken as a whole the studies point to a scientifically valid conclusion: Being raised by gay or lesbian parents does not make a child substantially different from his or her peers. ...

It is precisely that consistency that piqued the interest of sociologist Judith Stacey of New York University. To Stacey, it didn't make sense that children raised in somewhat different circumstances would be exactly the same -- findings of "no difference, no difference, no difference, just seemed so implausible," she said. So, she began looking carefully at the existing studies.

In 2001, Stacey and her colleague, Timothy Biblarz, then both at the University of Southern California, published a review of the social science research, stating that not only had researchers actually found some intriguing differences but that they had lowballed them for fear of how the findings would be used.

While the pair did not find gay and lesbian parenting to be harmful to children, they concluded that there is reason to believe that the children of gay parents "do differ in modest and interesting ways from children with heterosexual parents."

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posted by Eve at 1:21 PM | link 0 comments

BEHIND THE CASES: Gabriel Rosenberg

Here's a post looking into some of the stories behind the MA and NJ court cases, and giving links to several briefs from both sides in the two cases.
posted by Eve at 1:08 PM | link 0 comments

FICTIVE KIN: Camassia

...Turning people who aren't blood relations into relatives is an ancient and widespread practice, what anthropologists call "fictive kin." Though most of us have informal fictive kin, in the form of friends and mentors and whatnot, under the law there are only two ways to formalize it: 1) marriage and 2) legal adoption.

But other societies are not always so restrictive. Many had ways to create siblings, such as the Norse blood-brother ritual and the Eastern Orthodox brother- and sister-making ceremony. A recent book claimed that the latter was often a de facto gay marriage. That was controversial, but to me the more interesting point is that there was a way to create fictive kin that had nothing to do with procreation. Under current U.S. law, no such method exists. I gather you can do it piecemeal to fill some needs, through power of attorney and how you write your will and so on; but that generally requires a knowledge of the law that I don't have, and that few people do have. There's no simple, elegant way to do it, like marrying or adopting.

Why not? I can't think of a good reason. Probably just because the law traditionally assumed a basically kin-based society, where most of the important people in our lives would be related to us somehow. But today, of course, things have completely changed. My four-person family lives in four different states; I'm 32 and unmarried, and if I remain that way I could end up a single old lady with nobody left. So introducing a broader idea of fictive kinship seems like something I might have a vested interest in even though I'm straight.

After all, gay-marriage advocates argue convincingly that society should encourage commitment, whether or not it's procreative. Why, then, should we restrict formal commitment to sexual relationships at all? Shouldn't we encourage it in all its forms? An open next-of-kin option could cover a lot of different people -- friends, roommates, older couples past menopause, even groups of more than two (though it would make sense to restrict the number of people you could do it with).

With that non-procreative bond more clearly defined, the state could more narrowly define a body of law around couples who are actually procreating. Opponents of gay marriage generally argue that marriage law has traditionally been premised on the assumption of childbearing, not honoring a love match; and indeed, they're right. But legal marriage, even while still heterosexual, no longer maps very well to the people who are actually having babies. Many married couples don't have children, and many unmarried couples do. ...

...Right now we seem to be permanently mired in a dispute about what marriage is actually for -- procreation? benefits? commitment? official approval for a relationship? The reason we can't agree on that is that they are all locked up in only one legal institution. There was once a reason for that, but I don't think there is now.

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posted by Eve at 1:03 PM | link 0 comments

CIVIL UNIONS: WOULD A MARRIAGE BY ANY OTHER NAME BE THE SAME?: From Christianity Today

...If through civil unions (as endorsed by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry) gay couples can obtain the benefits of marriage, what difference does the word marriage make?

Quite a bit, say a number of Christian leaders who support civil unions but oppose same-sex marriage. They see civil unions as a means of economic justice--but not just for homosexuals. In fact, they would rather see such legislation avoid mention of sexuality altogether.

"It may well be that for the sake of public justice we need to recognize different kinds of households, but I would never start that by primary reference to so-called gay households." said Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, professor of psychology and philosophy at Eastern University. "[Civil unions] could include things like single people looking after aging parents. It could include, as in my own family, two bachelor brothers and a sister who ran a farm their whole life." Defined this way, she says, civil unions would actually preserve the uniqueness of marriage. ...

But Skillen, Mouw, Van Leeuwen, and others are part of a small minority: evangelicals who oppose gay marriage but support some form of civil union legislation. The Pew poll found that 20 percent of white evangelical Protestants agree to "allowing gay and lesbian couples to enter into legal agreements with each other that would give them many of the same rights as married couples." That's only an 8-percentage point difference from those who supported gay marriage. Three quarters of white evangelicals polled opposed such benefits.

Likewise, several Christian political advocacy organizations have formed a network called the Arlington Group to press for a federal marriage amendment specifically banning such legislation.

Mouw says he has "more sympathy" for such efforts than he did in 1999, when he moderated a Christianity Today roundtable discussion of the pros and cons of civil unions. "It just looks like anything that we do that concedes something in this direction will simply be used as a stepping stone to push us even further in the direction that we don't want to go," he said.

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posted by Eve at 12:57 PM | link 0 comments

I WONDER HOW MANY OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AND BUSINESSES ARE DOING THIS: From the Social Security Administration

[Another way in which local SSM affects the rest of the country.]

Due to the unresolved legal status of same-sex marriage documents being issued by the City and County of San Francisco, SSA will no longer accept as evidence of identity any marriage documents issued by the City and County of San Francisco on or after 02/12/04. Field offices should follow the procedures in RM00203.200 and RM00203.210A for other types of documentation that are acceptable to support a name change until further notice. Central office will continue to work with the San Francisco Regional Office to monitor this situation.

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posted by Eve at 12:54 PM | link 0 comments

MINORITY CLERGY UNITE FOR MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: From the Boston Herald

Some of Boston's highest-profile minority clergy fired up the faithful last night at a service held in advance of Thursday's resumption of debate over a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a heterosexual union in Massachusetts.

"This is the first time, as far as I can tell, in the history of Boston that we've been able to bring all these groups together,'' said Bishop Gilbert A. Thompson, senior pastor of New Covenant Christian Church. The crowd that jammed the modern church was so big, traffic on Blue Hill Avenue was backed up more than 20 minutes after the service began while drivers tried to squeeze into the vast but overfilled parking lot. The service--a mix of rousing political speeches and pounding gospel--was sponsored by the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston. Hispanic and Asian ministers also attended.

Drawing sustained applause, the Rev. Jeffrey Brown of Union Baptist Church in Cambridge denounced the rhetoric used by supporters of same-sex marriage. "I'm upset by the characterization of this as a civil rights movement,'' he thundered. "We fought too long and too hard to have any kind of comparison. Rather than a civil right, marriage is a social regulation that has always had restrictions. . . . You can't marry whomever you want to marry.''

A half-dozen ministers signed a statement saying they were uncomfortable appearing to attack gay men and lesbians but felt bound by their callings to back traditional marriage. The Rev. Steve Chin of the Boston Chinese Evangelical Church said there was near-unanimity in his congregation. Ministers said in interviews after the service they plan to hold African-American lawmakers accountable if they don't support the amendment. Yet, only one elected official--state Rep. Shirley Owens Hicks (D-Mattapan)--stood when a speaker asked any politicians in attendance to rise.

link
posted by Eve at 12:52 PM | link 0 comments

LAWSUIT IN WV: From 365Gay.com

A lesbian couple filed suit Friday to force the Kanawha County Clerk's Office to start issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Charleston, the state capital, is the largest city in the county.

Pat Link and Sheila Chambers went to court after Clerk Alma King said she would not issue a license to them because state law describes marriage as a union between a woman and a man. "We will do whatever the courts direct," said David Dodd, a spokesperson for King. "But we will not issue a marriage license without the court telling us to."

Link and Chambers have been together for 23 years. The couple was married in Canada last year and celebrated a civil union in Vermont in 2001 but neither is recognized in West Virginia.

Chambers' recent retirement and the realization that her married co-workers could leave survivor benefits to their spouses was the catalyst for the lawsuit, Link said. "Legislative discrimination is what we're experiencing and we have to do something about this now," Link said.. " We will continue to fight this fight forever and a day."

The women's petition asked the court for immediate relief but the justices refused saying through a spokesperson that the case will be heard "in due course". The couple's lawyer, Roger Forman, said that the petition will probably be amended to "add anyone who wants to be added as plaintiffs."

link
posted by Eve at 12:50 PM | link 0 comments

NY LAWSUITS: From 365Gay.com

Gay marriage suits were filed in two separate actions Friday in New York State Supreme Court. In the first case Lambda Legal seeks to have state marriage laws which refer to "husband and wife" declared unconstitutional. New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer announced Wednesday that a review of state law which bears the references has led him to conclude it is illegal to marry same-sex couples.

Lambda filed the suit in Manhattan on behalf on a gay couple who have been together for over five years. The suit argues that denying marriage to same-sex couples violates the state Constitution's guarantee of equality for all New Yorkers.

The case is the first of its kind to be filed in New York since the Massachusetts high court ruled that same-sex couples are entitled to full marriage under that state's Constitution.

"This is the whole enchilada," said Kevin Cathcart, Executive Director of Lambda Legal. "We seek, and intend to win, full marriage for lesbian and gay couples across New York -- nothing more and nothing less," Cathcart told a morning news conference.

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posted by Eve at 12:49 PM | link 0 comments

NEW LAWSUITS IN WA, NY: From the Associated Press

Six same-sex couples filed a lawsuit Monday seeking the right to get married after they were refused marriage licenses by a sympathetic public official, as the mayor ordered the city to recognize the marriages of gay city employees who tie the knot elsewhere.

The six couples applied for marriage licenses at the King County Administration Building but were rejected because of a state law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. County Administrator Ron Sims said he supported the couples' efforts, but had no choice but to uphold the law. "Equal protection for all under the law is the basis of our nation," Sims said. "Every civil rights issue that we pursue and win makes us a stronger people and a stronger country."

The couples applauded Sims remarks, then went to King County Superior Court to file their lawsuit, which argues that the law violates the state Constitution's equal protection clause. "I think what we've seen starting slowly over the last 10 years and really accelerating in the last four months ... is an enormous groundswell, close to a popular uprising, of gay couples demanding the right to marry," Jamie Pedersen, the couples' lawyer, said before filing the lawsuit.

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posted by Eve at 12:47 PM | link 0 comments

SSM AND GNOSTICISM: WHY THE PASSION?: Noah Millman

...Why is [same-sex marriage] a topic that excites such passion?

I understand why this is a big deal for gay people. It has enormous practical but also symbolic significance. There are big consequences for their lives that spring from the marriage question. The downside risks, whether the ones I focus on or the ones Stanley Kurtz focuses on or the ones Maggie Gallagher focuses on or what-have-you, are abstract, hypothetical, pehaps contingent. They are exercises in reasoning, predictions about what will happen to law, to culture, to the social order. The upside potential for gay people is concrete and immediate. I know why they care so much. Why do we? ...

...I think the heart of the matter is the tinge of gnosticism that colors American Christianity.

The ancient gnostics held that we each have an occult self, eternal, older than creation, co-substantial with the divine, which we should seek to know through introspection. This true self is pure and unsullied by the fallen nature of the world and, indeed, of our own flesh. This self, and the divinity it is part of, is to be worshipped as the true divinity, not the lord of this fallen world, the demi-urge, who is a limited, parody of the true divine, unable truly to create but only to manipulate reality. ...

But you can also, quite plainly, find the idea echoed in the "coming out" narrative that is central to the contemporary construction of homosexuality.

In this narrative, we are each possessed of a sexual nature that is immutable and an essential part of our deepest self. To deny or suppress knowledge or this nature is wrong. The journey to discover this nature, whether through experimentation or, more importantly, through open-minded introspection, is essential to spiritual progress as well as mental health. To reveal this knowledge, once achieved, is to evangelize--not to make others like you (they are essentially what they are) but to encourage them to undertake a similar journey to discovering their occult selves. ...

So why does this contention infuriate so many religious Americans?

I think the reason is that they are also, to some extent, gnostics.

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posted by Eve at 3:10 PM | link 0 comments

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Eve Tushnet

One of the recurring themes in this debate is a clash between two different basic understandings of marriage--two different sets of assumptions, two different sets of pictures in our heads that we call up when we want to know what marriage is and why it matters.

In the first, and older, worldview, societies across the globe and down through the millennia have regulated and honored marriages in order to deal with the fact that intercourse makes babies. That fact plays out in countless cultural expressions, from tragedies to the tart English ballad "Cold and Raw" ("For should you prove tonight my friend, we'd get a young kid together/And you'd be gone ere nine months' end, and where shall I find the father?"). Intercourse makes babies: a source of wonder and awe, but also, for some, a source of despair or anger. Part of the point of marriage is to ensure that baby-making is more a source of joy than of hurt. Intercourse makes babies--even today.

This first and older worldview is what a friend of mine relies on when he tells unwed fathers, "Your child needs you. What's the reason you aren't marrying your kid's mother? You need to think about whether that reason is good enough to deprive your child of a real model of a man's role in the family." In this worldview, the differences between the sexes do matter; in the family, they matter a lot, much more sharply than they matter in most other social contexts. That's what these posters rely on. This worldview knows that children learn what a man is for, and what he can be expected to do, from their fathers; daughters of unwed fathers have a much harder time learning that they can expect loyalty and commitment from the men they sleep with. They have a much harder time learning how much they can ask of men. This worldview knows that there's a reason the blues lament "Motherless Child" is so uniquely heartbreaking.

In this worldview, marriage is honored in large part because it is a responsibility. The focus of the marriage is tripartite: father, mother, and children.

The newer--very new--worldview arose first among opposite-sex couples. It didn't start among gay activists. In this new worldview, the focus of a marriage is on the couple alone. Children are, at best, optional extras. At worst, they are distractions from the main pair-bond. They're not the natural fruit of a couple's union, nor the aspiration and fulfillment of that union.

In the new worldview, marriage is regulated and honored because society and government want to reward people for being in committed, loyal pair-bond sexual relationships. (Other forms of loyalty are considered not to need regulation or special honor.) The new worldview is unisex; if a woman can be a congressional representative or a CEO, why should her sex matter in the family?

In the new worldview, marriage is conceived primarily as a right, not an honor based on society's need for people to do their duty. The content of this right is discerned, as far as I can tell, by taking what marriage already is and stripping it of any reference to sexual difference and much of the reference to and orientation around childrearing. Marriage, in the pro-SSM worldview, is "whatever marriage is now, except that two men or two women can do it too." And finally, in the new worldview the legal benefits our society associates with marriage are considered one of the most important aspects of marriage: hospital visitation, Social Security, etc.

There are arguments for this new view of marriage. Our society turned away from the older view for reasons, some of them good. But I do think this clash of worldviews is the key to the debate, the matrix through which it is most intelligibly viewed.

If you disagree... click the email link below!
posted by Eve at 3:03 PM | link 0 comments

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

Mark Barton carefully distinguishes civil marriage from other types and then affirms with the Massachusetts court that civil marriage is a social construct. Even limiting myself to civil marriage, my argument is not substantially altered. I do not see how civil marriage could have been considered a social construct before the philosophy of law disputes that occupied much of last century with discussions about the nature of law, its relation to morality and to natural law. Mark concedes that "it was also very likely the founders' intent to have civil marriage approximate their conception of marriage as natural reality, and in particular some opposite-sex version." Thus I return to my assertion: no "plain reading" of the Massachusetts constitution can arrive at SSM without first substituting one philosophical view of the nature of civil marriage with another. It is a matter of philosophy before it is a matter of law, and the philosophical question was never explicitly addressed but only assumed.

As I understand him, Mark responds to this difficulty by arguing that the modern legislature has been using a different conception of marriage than the traditional one, and hence the court should not be bound by the rationale of earlier legislatures. I am much more in agreement with the premise than with the conclusion. I acknowledge that recent legal changes, and to an even greater extent recent social changes, have weakened the rationale for the traditional common law definition of civil marriage. It is entirely possible that the logic of the changes may have led sooner or later to legislative enactment of SSM. However, I still hold that the Massachusetts court overstepped its authority in its ruling. Specifically, as the dissenting justices point out, the court violated article 30 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.

Finally, Mark's assertion that civil marriage is "wholly the creation of a sovereign legislature, subject only to the state and federal constitutions," itself a philosophical position, raises other questions. If civil marriage can be so distinct from the natural reality that it is whatever the state says it is, then are civil rights distinct in the same way from natural or inalienable rights? If so, then my civil rights are what the state says they are, and there are no grounds for charges of injustice. If not, then on what basis do civil rights remain tied to something beyond legislative enactments while civil marriage does not?
posted by Eve at 2:19 PM | link 0 comments

SSM AND WORLDVIEWS: Mark Tardiff replies to Matt Taylor

Matt Taylor seems to accept my assertion that a clash of worldviews is involved in the debate on SSM. However, rather than choosing between them he would make a synthesis of the most convincing, relevant parts along with original contributions. For my part, I was trying to answer the question: what is the fundamental issue in this debate? To solve any problem we first need to ask the right question. The advantage of contrasting the two orthodoxies is that it would bring the fundamental issue to the fore. The question: Which is true? is a deliberate provocation, given that many doubt that such a question can be answered. An examination of the divergent positions of the two orthodoxies in view of their truth, while I doubt that it would lead to the type of synthesis that Matt favors, would certainly open up fresh perspectives. What eventually becomes public policy would ideally depend on what the majority of the people find persuasive, unless, of course, activists judges continue to impose their own views.

Speaking of activist judges, I agree with Matt that a constitutional amendment providing for some way to override judicial decisions would help re-establish balance among the three branches of government. It would, as he notes, have to be based on a super-majority. I would add that the issue to be settled by the legislature should be: Did the court overstep its authority? If the super-majority agreed that it did, the decision would be rendered null. If not, it would stand. A narrow focus should facilitate a decision as well as allowing for the possibility of conscientious legislators who would vote to sustain a decision they disagreed with if they are convinced that the court acted within its authority.
posted by Eve at 2:17 PM | link 0 comments

ELIZABETH MARQUARDT ON BOSTON GLOBE "CHILDREN OF SAME-SEX COUPLES" PIECE

[More or less my same reaction.--Eve]

The Boston Globe article, "Children of same-sex couples tell their story," reported by Sally Jacobs and posted by David, below, is pretty good. It is refreshingly free of the snide and defensive tone that so many pro-SSM articles have these days. Jacobs genuinely wants to know how the children are doing and she freely admits early in the piece that "there are, in fact, few places to turn to for answers... there have been very few, large, long-term studies; most are considered too small to be conclusive. The scientific study of gay childrearing is at an infant stage."

All true and nice to see in print. Jacobs concludes: "And so, for the moment, it is left to the children to speak." ...

Here's the problem, from an investigative point of view: Children love their parents, and children notice when their parents are vulnerable. In my own study of children of divorce they are much more likely to say they felt protective of their mothers, especially, than children of intact families are. Many other studies confirm this. They tried to hide their own feelings from their mother in order to protect her. I can only imagine that children of gays and lesbians feel even more protective of their parents who are stigmatized by society. Moreover, children themselves are vulnerable. They need their parents' love, attention, and affection. It takes a very secure child to make what sounds like significant criticisms of choices his or her parents have made (such as saying "Yes, I wish I had a mom") when he or she is not even a teenager yet, especially when the parents are sitting right there for the interview.

Some of the suffering these children experience is a result of their parents' sexual identity, and this should not happen. Our society should not stigmatize gay and lesbian people nor their children. But I would like reporters to probe deeper and ask if some of their suffering could be due not just to social stigma but to their family structure itself -- that is, lacking either a mother or father in their lives. For years the debate about children of divorce was stalled over the question of adult choices-- whether adults did or did not have the right to make the choices they made. When it comes to investigating children's lives, let's try to leave that question aside for a moment and look at the children's experience on its own terms. Regardless of what any of us think their parents should or should not have done, how do the children feel? And while we should definitely value an 11 year old's answer, it is not the final word.

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posted by Eve at 2:14 PM | link 0 comments

CIVIL UNIONS, BENEFITS ETC.: David Frum and Andrew Sullivan

Frum: "...Andrew, I know, agrees with me that civil unions for heterosexuals would be catastrophic. These kinds of 'marriage lite' arrangements exist in France, Canada, and other countries. They encourage young people to make a very bad choice: to enter into pseudo-marital relationships that lack the stability and security of real marriage. In Canada, the case I know best, the average non-marital cohabitation lasts only five years.

"While these arrangements tend to be short, they last long enough to produce children--children who almost certainly will grow up without a father, with all the risks that follow from that. So the damage done by civil unions is not confined to the unwise young people who enter into them. The real price is paid by their children.

"...But what about civil unions for homosexuals only? Won’t those obviate the problem? Hardly. The moment civil unions are offered to homosexuals, we will discover demand for them from all sorts of same-sex couples, many of them not homosexual at all. I was listening only yesterday to an item on NPR about a service that pairs single mothers who wish to share household expenses and child-rearing duties. The service has 11,000 names on its site. Might not many of these women want the benefits of civil union? And once they get them, as they surely will, opposite-sex couples will clamor for them. If two elderly sisters--or two female friends sharing an apartment--can have a civil union, how can we justify excluding a sister and a brother? Or two widowers? ...

"So what are couple-minded homosexuals to do? Everything that Andrew says he wishes to do can be done through the private law of contract. People can buy houses together, create powers of attorney, write wills, and so on--and in fact these agreements would be a good deal more powerful and binding than the marriage-in-some-states-but-not-others that Andrew now advocates."

Sullivan replies here.
posted by Eve at 11:48 AM | link 0 comments

POWER OF TWO: Jonathan Rauch replies to President Bush

In endorsing the passage of a constitutional amendment that would restrict marriage to the union of men and women, President Bush established himself as the country's most prominent advocate of same-sex marriage.

To be more precise, he established himself as the most prominent advocate of the best arguments for gay marriage, even as he roundly rejected gay marriage itself. ...

Children, parents, childless adults and marriage itself are all better off when society sends a clear and unequivocal message that sex, love and marriage go together. Same-sex marriage affirms that message. It says that whether you're gay or straight -- or rich or poor, or religious or secular, or what have you -- marriage is the ultimate commitment for all: the destination to which loving relationships naturally aspire.

Ages of experience have taught humanity that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society. Correct again. And the commitment of gay partners to love and serve each other promotes precisely those same goals.

A solitary individual lives on the frontier of vulnerability. Marriage creates kin, someone whose first ''job'' is to look after you. Gay people, like straight people, become ill or exhausted or despairing and need the comfort and support that marriage uniquely provides. Marriage can strengthen and stabilize their relationships and thereby strengthen the communities of which they are a part. Just as the president says, society benefits when people, including gay people, are durably committed to love and serve one another.

And children? According to the 2000 census, 27 percent of households headed by same-sex couples contain children. How could any pro-family conservative claim that those children are better off with unmarried parents?

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posted by Eve at 11:42 AM | link 0 comments

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WHOM?: Cathy Young

The same-sex marriage debate increasingly calls, or should call, into question the legitimacy of the privileges bestowed on marital relationships in general. Take this entry in Andrew Sullivan's blog (scroll down to "Why civil unions suck"). Sullivan quotes a letter from an army wife saying that when she and her now-husband were still dating and he was deployed to South Korea, she found that, despite having legally notarized power of attorney, she was repeatedly thwarted while trying to handle his affairs. She also found out that, without being legally married, she would not even be notified if he was wounded.

This doesn't quite make Sullivan's case for full marriage vs civil unions -- many of the current proposals for civil unions specify that the couple would have the same rights as a husband and wife. But apart from that, what is the moral and legal justification for the exclusive rights of the marital relationship? Does this mean that a single soldier deployed overseas will find it much more difficult to keep his financial and legal affairs in order than a married soldier, because whoever he entrusts with those rights will not be able to carry them out as effectively as a spouse?

Or take the issue of estate taxes. Right now, a wealthy 80-year-old widow can leave all of her property tax-free to a 20-year-old boy toy if she marries him a month before her death. If the same widow wills her property to, say, her niece who has been living with her and providing constant care and companionship for 10 years, the niece will have to pay a huge estate tax. Where is the justice in that?

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posted by Eve at 11:36 AM | link 0 comments

GAY MARRIAGE? HOW STRAIGHT: From the NY Times "fashion" section, FWIW

...Many gay men and lesbians--in fact most of the ones I know--are not jumping to jump the broom. They like their status as couples living between the lines, free of all the societal expectations that marriage brings. But since they don't want to feed politicians using gay marriage as an election issue, they are largely mum.

"It's very hard to speak freely right now," said Judith Butler, a gender theorist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "But many gay people are uncomfortable with all this, because they feel their sense of an alternative movement is dying. Sexual politics was supposed to be about finding alternatives to marriage."

"I've been with the same woman for 13 years," she continued, "and she jokes if I ever tried to marry her she'd divorce me. I know many people who feel the same way."

That's not to say that there isn't a reason to fight for a basic civil right. But ask around. You'll find more than a few gays questioning an institution that mixes property rights with love, church with state. Some also complain that a legal and legislative process that should take time to evolve has become a media circus. They even wonder if they will be forced to marry to receive domestic partnership benefits from their employers. And of course, given the present divorce rate, many feel that most civil unions are more civilized than marriages. ...

But beyond just the "queer eye" contributions of taste and the more substantive one of art commonly associated with gay people, there is the valued point of view of the outsider. "The idea of being different is in itself beautiful," said Jack Waters, a downtown filmmaker in a 22-year relationship, who finds that not having children with his partner, Peter Kramer, lets them serve as mentors in all kinds of ways to younger people. ...

"Being gay and single is the new smoking," Mr. Rudnick said. "It won't be socially acceptable anymore, and you will have to go outside." Or as Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist, told me: "It used to be that the whole point of coming out of the closet was to get people to stop asking you when you are going to get married and have children."

Those days are just about over, for better or for worse.

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posted by Eve at 11:00 AM | link 0 comments

GAY MARRIAGE LICENSES CREATE A QUANDARY FOR THE CLERGY: From the New York Times

For three weeks, the grand marble staircase at City Hall has been wedding central in San Francisco, with thousands of gay and lesbian couples lining up to be married by city officials.

But many of the couples are not stopping at the staircase. They are taking their marriage licenses and heading to a church or synagogue for a second ceremony or, in some cases, for an alternative to the civil proceeding.

The decision is driven largely by the religious convictions of the gay couples, clergy members who perform the ceremonies say. But there is also a deeply political undercurrent to the religious weddings that is creating divisions in some institutions, even those with a history of blessing gay and lesbian partnerships.

By getting married with a license in a church or synagogue, many couples are hoping to chip away at opposition to same-sex marriages among religious people, and thereby advance the broader goals of the gay rights movement.

The new marriage licenses in San Francisco are giving gay and lesbian couples here an unprecedented platform to push their cause among congregations that have accepted gay relationships in the past. ...

One of the most difficult questions facing some clergy members is whether to sign the licenses of the gay and lesbian couples. That would amount to an acknowledgment that the marriages are of equal standing with opposite-sex marriages.

In some religious institutions where same-sex blessings have been performed for many years, some reluctant members were tolerant in large part because the blessings were not the equivalent of marriages. ...

"If these marriages hold up to the legal challenges, it will make it very difficult for churches to censure clergy who participate in them," Pastor Frost said. "This pushes the envelope, and I suspect it will embolden congregations who are sympathetic but have not dared to perform blessings."

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posted by Eve at 10:57 AM | link 0 comments

U.S. SENATOR SAYS WORD "MARRIAGE" SHOULD BE SOLELY USED FOR RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES: From the Associated Press

Sen. Mark Dayton said Wednesday that marriage should be redefined as a religious ceremony, allowing for a civil "marital contracts'' for both gay and heterosexual couples.

"The Bible said, 'Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's,'" Dayton said in a conference call with reporters.

"Under the separation of Church and state, federal and state governments should leave marriage to God and to the religions of this country,'' he said, "and separate out the civil aspects of what is now termed marriage as a different term, whether it's legal union or marital contract.''

Dayton, a Minnesota Democrat, said the federal government should establish the overall "parameters'' for such contracts. But he said the focus this year should be on defeating a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Dayton made his pitch on the same day that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., urged Congress to embrace such an amendment, which Dayton called "un-American, un-Christian and unwise.''

"We need to find a better answer,'' he added. "And we also need to avoid the mean, dehumanizing and divisive debate that a constitutional amendment would require.''

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posted by Eve at 10:53 AM | link 0 comments

KANSAS SSM BAN CLEARS HOUSE, MOVES TO SENATE: From the Associated Press

With just four votes to spare, a proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution banning gay marriage cleared the House on Friday and moved to an uncertain fate in the Senate.

The proposed amendment states that Kansas recognizes only marriages between one man and one woman and confers the legal rights associated with marriage only on such couples.

Amendments to the Kansas Constitution must be approved by two-thirds of both legislative chambers and a simple majority of voters in a statewide election.

The 125-member House adopted the amendment Friday on an 88-36 vote, giving it just four votes above the required minimum. The measure must receive 27 votes in the 40-member Senate to go on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Sen. Tim Huelskamp, a strong proponent of the measure, expressed shock at the close House vote. As for amassing a two-thirds majority in the Senate, Huelskamp said, "That's tough to get on anything." ...

A state law adopted in 1996 already asserts that marriage in Kansas is valid only between one man and one woman. Proponents of the amendment say putting the same language into the Kansas Constitution would make the state's policy less vulnerable to reversal by a court.

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posted by Eve at 10:51 AM | link 0 comments

LAWSUIT CHALLENGES NEBRASKA DOMA: From the Lincoln Journal-Star

...The lawsuit's plaintiffs--American Civil Liberties Union Nebraska, Citizens for Equal Protection, and Nebraska Advocates for Justice and Equality--say they are not seeking legal recognition of same-sex marriage in Nebraska.

They claim the amendment violates due process rights because it undermines people's ability to lobby legislators on gay rights issues.

Signed into law by Gov. Mike Johanns in December 2000, the amendment defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. It also barred state and local government from giving legal recognition to any type of same-sex relationship. ...

Riskowski doubted claims by supporters of the federal lawsuit that its goal simply was to repeal a law they say created a barrier between them and state senators.

The Legislature, he said, has considered bills on employment, housing and death benefits protections for gay people since the amendment became law.

"So, obviously, they are lobbying," he said. "They haven't been stopped from lobbying."

He continued:"In the lawsuit itself, they state they will immediately apply for domestic partnerships (if the amendment is repealed)."

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posted by Eve at 10:49 AM | link 0 comments

CHILDREN OF SAME-SEX COUPLES TELL THEIR STORY: From the Boston Globe

...Interviews by the Globe with nearly two dozen children in families across the region found some still struggling to sort out their feelings about being unlike their peers in this one important way. Some still shrink from a neighbor's gaze in hopes that their secret will not be found out. Many others are so proud of their families, and happy in their lives, that they are prepared to clamber up the State House steps to trumpet the cause as the Legislature prepares to resume debate this week on gay marriage. ...

They are members of the "gayby boom" as some call it. Estimated at between 6 and 14 million in the United States, the children of same-sex parents are an expanding cadre of eclectic experience. Many of the older ones have divorced parents, one of whom now has a partner of the same sex. There are a large number of children born to lesbian couples, ever more so as donor insemination becomes more commonplace. And more and more gay male couples are building families through surrogacy or adoption. ...

"Most of these people have no idea what a gay and lesbian household is like," Deanna said. "It's just like any other family."

Deanna lives in a modest brown-shingle bungalow in Exeter, N.H., with her 9-year-old brother, Troy; their biological mother, Debora Masterson; and Barbara Richards, her mother's partner. Their father, to whom Masterson was married for 9 years, lives in a neighboring town, and the children spend alternate weekends with him. They have three cats, a dog, two hamsters, and 10 sea monkeys. All the animals are female, except for some of the sea monkeys.

"They're the only other guys here," shrugged Troy, although he does not seem to mind in the least.

It is generally believed by therapists and counselors that children of gay men and lesbians whose parents were formerly married have somewhat more difficulty than those born to or adopted by a same-sex couple. The trauma of divorce colors any child's experience. But Troy and Deanna were only 2 and 4, respectively, when their parents separated, and they cannot remember a time when Richards was not around, cracking jokes or throwing a ball to them. ...

Some families with same-sex parents make a deliberate effort to bring adults of the opposite gender into their children's lives. Alternative Family Matters of Cambridge -- which provides counseling and services for gay, lesbian, and transgendered families -- even has an "aunts and uncles" program that matches volunteers to children. But Cullinane and Brown find incomprehensible the question of whether they should seek out women to help round out the lives of their boys.

"My children are not being brought up on Mars," Brown said. "They have aunts and grandmothers they are very close to. If you are a living breathing part of humanity you cannot escape people of another gender being part of your experience."

Both boys say they do not miss having a mother. Tim lived with his biological mother until he was 4, while Ross remained with his for one month.

"I don't really care about who is in the family, as long as you're cared for," said Tim, a shy boy with braces. "Not everyone needs a mother. Not everyone lives with two parents. They live with an aunt or grandparents or whatever."

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posted by Eve at 10:42 AM | link 0 comments

GAY COUPLES MARCH ON MANHATTAN: From CNN

Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples rallied for marriage rights in Manhattan Thursday while about 40 couples lined up in the rain outside New York City Hall seeking to persuade Mayor Michael Bloomberg to issue them marriage licenses.

They chanted, "Marriage is a civil right -- gay, straight, black, white," in a demonstration that lasted 90 minutes. New York Marriage Now organized the rally, and a coalition of about a dozen groups sponsored it.

Several couples made it to the clerk's office, where they received a letter that said, in part, "Thank you for visiting. We are unable to grant your request. New York state law doesn't authorize this office to grant marriage licenses."

New York Attorney Genera Eliot Spitzer Wednesday had urged local officials to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples until the courts can rule on the matter.

But outside City Hall, Connie Ress of the group Marriage Equality, said, "We also want to hear from our mayor. ... He has not yet spoken out on this issue. We want him to take a stand."

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posted by Eve at 10:35 AM | link 0 comments

SEATTLE MAYOR TO RECOGNIZE GAY MARRIAGES DONE IN OTHER STATES: From the Associated Press

Seattle's mayor said Sunday the city will begin recognizing the marriages of gay employees who tie the knot elsewhere, although it will not conduct its own same-sex weddings.

Mayor Greg Nickels was to sign an executive order Monday giving same-sex spouses of city employees all the benefits of heterosexual spouses, including health insurance.

He also planned to send a proposal to the City Council that would extend that recognition to employees of city contractors and protect the rights of all same-sex married couples in Seattle. ...

If approved, the ordinance would protect gay married couples from discrimination in employment, housing, parks and other city facilities. It also would require contractors doing business with the city to recognize gay marriages among their own employees.

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posted by Eve at 10:33 AM | link 0 comments