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 Saturday, February 12, 2005
BLOOMBERG'S OPPONENTS ALSO FACE TEST OVER GAY MARRIAGE: From the New York Times
All eyes were on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg last week after a state judge made gay marriage legal in New York City--a ruling that put Mr. Bloomberg, a Republican mayor of an overwhelmingly Democratic city, in a particularly tight spot. But the judge's decision has raised challenges for some of Mr. Bloomberg's Democratic competitors, too, because beneath the surface of New York's supposedly liberal politics lie large constituencies of socially conservative voters. As Democratic primary candidates set out to divvy up blocks of support to win their party's nomination, some are bumping up against pockets of opposition among religious groups and others that could make their coalition-building more difficult this year, political analysts and religious leaders said. Those pockets are most potentially nettlesome for two of the four candidates, political analysts and religious leaders say: Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president; and Representative Anthony D. Weiner, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens. They were among four potential Democratic candidates who voiced support for Judge Doris Ling-Cohan's decision making gay marriage legal--a decision Mr. Bloomberg appealed while expressing personal support for same-sex marriage. More so than the other two candidates--Gifford Miller, and C. Virginia Fields--Mr. Ferrer and Mr. Weiner are counting on bases that include a sizable portion of voters who are generally not known to be supportive of gay marriage: religious Latinos for Mr. Ferrer; and white ethnic, social conservatives who live in the boroughs outside Manhattan for Mr. Weiner. more posted by Eve at 11:59 PM | link 0 comments 
GAY "WEDDINGS" AT SCHOOL PROTESTED: From the Los Angeles Times
Mock gay marriages of 18 students at Silverado High School on Friday drew dozens of angry community and parent protesters to a campus already plagued by controversy. The lunchtime "wedding" ceremonies of six female couples and three male couples in the school's outdoor central gathering area were part of a demonstration by members of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance in support of same-sex marriage and to mark National Freedom to Marry Day today. The day was declared by a gay and non-gay partnership advocating same-sex marriage. ... Chilly weather and persistent rain did not deter about 40 parents, community members, children and several students from protesting the mock ceremonies for several hours in an umbrella-covered huddle outside the school as the student demonstration proceeded inside. "It's not that I have a problem that they are doing it on campus -- they don't have to do it so publicly," said Therese Shore, whose son Andrew Stading, 17, is a Silverado senior. ... "I'm happy with the way I am," said sophomore James West, 17, as club members laughed and hugged around him. "What else matters?" ... Martin said he was "scared out of my mind" before he took the stage. He said he and other alliance members had been threatened with paintballs and violence if they went through with the planned ceremonies. Teachers reported no incidents, although alliance members said an egg was thrown at them. more posted by Eve at 11:54 PM | link 0 comments
MASS. ATTY GENERAL DRAWS CHEERS, JEERS FOR CHANGE ON GAY MARRIAGE: From the Boston Herald
Attorney General Tom Reilly, gearing up for a run for governor, won the praise of gay activists and scorn of Republicans yesterday with comments both sides said softened his past opposition to gay marriage. In a television interview and comments repeated to the Herald yesterday, Reilly said he opposes a constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage. "Everything changed on May 17th when gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts," Reilly said. "Once rights are given, they should never be taken away." But when Reilly used phrases such as "the sky didn't fall in" and "my marriage certainly hasn't been impacted" in the New England Cable News interview, it marked a shift, critics said. more posted by Eve at 11:49 PM | link 0 comments
VALENTINE'S IS NOW A DAY FOR ACTIVISTS: From the Associated Press
Chocolates and flowers still abound, but Valentine's Day is acquiring a new, politically tinged layer of symbolism: For many activists, it's now the date of choice to mobilize on matters of the heart--advocating abstinence, decrying divorce, rallying nationwide to demand gay marriage. Across the country, teens from hundreds of schools and youth groups will make chastity pledges Monday on the "Day of Purity"--organized by the Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based conservative legal group. In Arkansas, Gov. Mike Huckabee and his wife, Janet, will renew their wedding vows in the presence of hundreds of other couples at a ceremony promoting the state's covenant marriage law--a voluntary system that makes divorce harder to obtain. "The nation will be watching as we take a stand for marriage," the Huckabees' invitation says. And at statehouses, courthouses and city halls nationwide, gay-rights supporters will be rallying in support of gay marriage as Valentine's Day serves as the centerpiece of Freedom to Marry Week. Similar observances have occurred annually since 1998, but this year the mood is more combative as state after state moves to entrench bans on gay marriage in their constitutions. ... Monday's events include rallies for gay marriage in Milwaukee, Portland, Ore. and Tampa, Fla., and at the statehouses in Maryland, New Mexico and Washington state. In Richmond, Va., gay and lesbian couples plan to apply for marriage licenses at City Hall, then be united in ceremonies performed by a minister from the Metropolitan Community Church. Same-sex couples in California plan to request marriage licenses from their county clerk's office. A very different crowd is expected Monday evening at a North Little Rock arena for the marriage celebration in Arkansas--where voters overwhelmingly approved a gay-marriage ban last year. more posted by Eve at 11:45 PM | link 0 comments
Friday, February 11, 2005
PLEADING THE FOURTEENTH: Will Baude replies to Austin Bramwell
...Bramwell wrestles with the Boerne point but too briefly, because he breezes past the assumption that the Court will agree that marriage as recognized by the Fourteenth Amendment must always be between one man and one woman. While, like Bramwell, I doubt that the Court is going to hold that all marriage statutes must apply to same- and opposite- sex couples alike, I think he is too confident in assuming that the Court will believe that marriage can never be other than the man-woman pairings we currently recognize. Instead, imagine a meandering Stevens (or Kennedy) opinion in which the Court tours through the laws of the world, and through history, to point out that not all marriages at all times have been between single man-woman pairs, and then tying that to the recent history of gay marriage in Massachusetts, civil unions in Vermont, and so on. [Alternatively, an attack on the statute could focus on first persuading Thomas, a la his Troxel concurrence, that there is no fundamental right to marriage per se in the 14th Amendment, and therefore that Congress can not enforce it.] One last thing. At one point Bramwell says that the Civil Rights Acts draw their power from Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. It's possible I misunderstood this part of Con Law, but my understanding that that was only true of the C.R.A. as applied to the states (which is why it can abridge 11th Amendment sovereign immunity), and that to apply to private actors, which is the bulk of its power, it draws from the Commerce Clause (C.f. Heart of Atlanta Motel, Civil Rights Cases, U.S. v. Morrison). This isn't important for Bramwell's argument, necessarily, although it would suggest that Congress is still powerless to do anything about private organizations (churches, etc.) recognizing gay marriage. more posted by Eve at 10:33 PM | link 0 comments
PLEADING THE FOURTEENTH: Jonathan Rowe replies to Austin Bramwell
...Reading the entire article, it really seems to have some major holes in it. The major weakness of the argument for their side, if you don't remember, is the endorsement of the notion that "[i]t is well-settled that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry." Antigay Federalist conservatives would be wise to argue that there is no such federal right, that marriage is wholly a matter of states' rights. Embracing a federal right to marry would more easily lead to a federal right to same-sex marriage than what they desire. So how does Bramwell attempt to limit this federal right as enuciated in Loving to heterosexual couples only? [I]n Loving v. Virginia, the case that struck down anti-miscegenation laws, the Supreme Court recognized that one of these rights is the right to marry. Interestingly, the court in Loving cited an earlier case, Skinner v. Oklahoma, that connected the right to marry to the right to procreate. Insofar as biology prevents homosexual couples from procreating, one can assume that the Loving court had heterosexual marriage exclusively in mind. We see here how such logic would also hold an infertile heterosexual couple, for instance one involving a post-menopausal woman, to have no "right" to marry either: "Insofar as biology prevents infertile couples from procreating, one can assume that the Loving court had procreating heterosexual marriage exclusively in mind." Fits pretty perfectly, doesn't it? Moreover the language in Loving to which Bramwell refers states, "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men" and moreover that "Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man'...." It's hard to see how such broad language points in any other direction except a federal right to same-sex marriage. Gays currently have no freedom to marry the person whom they love. Who can effectively purse happiness in an orderly manner without the freedom to marry the person he or she loves? more posted by Eve at 10:24 PM | link 0 comments
SSM AND POLYGAMY: Jonathan Rowe
...In this post, I demonstrate that Mr. Carter is wrong, that we indeed can meaningfully distinguish between gay marriage & polygamy. Note, I don't argue that ultimately we, as a society, must outlaw polygamy. It could be that competing principles, for instance the freedom and right of consenting adult individuals to enter into contractual relationships, ultimately trumps the arguments against polygamy. What I argue is that if you want some meaningful grounds in which to argue why we should recognize gay marriage but not polygamous ones, we have them. ... This is the natural explanation for why polygamy not only has been so cross-culturally widespread, but also almost always one-man, many women. And given that there are roughly equal numbers of men and women, widespread polygamy invariably equates with significant numbers of males with no female mates. That is unfair and wrong. And that's what we seek to avoid by outlawing polygamy. Note that the grounds for prohibiting polygamy seem entirely different than the ones for prohibiting same-sex marriage. But the two are related in this sense: We outlaw polygamy for precisely the same policy reason why we would demand the recognition of gay marriage: the meaningful chance for any individual to marry a person they love. The gay man, like the single-unlucky male in a polygamous society cannot marry any person he loves. This argument was briefly alluded to by a commenter in Carter's post, to which Carter responded: Isn’t it a bit sexist and homophobic to assume that all polygamous marriages would consist of one man and several women? Why not have numerous men intermarrying or one woman and five men? This is a pluralistic country. We could have a wide permutation of relationships. Given that gays are only 3% of the population, I'll ignore the "numerous men intermarrying" and instead focus on one women, many men. Human nature tells us that this won't happen to the degree that one-man, many women will. Human nature tells us that if widespread polygamy is allowed, its most common form will be one-man, many women and this invariably leads to large numbers of men without mates. This is what we see in Islam, and the sexual frustration of these men leads an innordiate number of them to practice situational homosexuality, and because it's situational (the acts are homosexual, the desire is heterosexual), younger teen-boys who are proportionately closest in size to adult women are abused -- forced to play the sexual role of the female -- as they are chosen as substitutes for unavailable women. Moreover, this frustration no doubt drives many of them into terrorism and Jihad-war. more posted by Eve at 10:18 PM | link 0 comments
A REFRACTED IMAGE: Justin Katz
...To be sure, contraception erases some of the distinction, but I'd be astonished if many people truly believed that heterosexual's understanding of their sexual behavior isn't built around knowledge of its first-principle of procreation. That heterosexuals can pervert their principles is of limited significance in a discussion about marriage, anyway, because it means that bolstering is required, not further subversion. If marriage is a way to encourage monogamy and commitments that outlast the drive to sire a diverse array of children, then it should incorporate increased aversion to too-prolific "seed spreading." Isn't that less plausible when the sexual relationship bears only refracted resemblance to the biological standard? Whatever the numbers, behavior that subverts a marriage-based culture will surely be more difficult to curtail among a group for whom the cultural reasoning applies only abstractly and by force of will. more (please read the comments also) follow-up posted by Eve at 10:14 PM | link 0 comments
POLYGAMY AND RIGHT TO MARRY/RIGHT TO VOTE ANALOGY: Gabriel Rosenberg
[Not sure how far this gets you given that a) a huge part of the SSM debate is over whether sex difference is relevant to marriage in a way that it is not relevant to being a senator, and b) a lot of the "ssm-->polygamy" claims rest on particular rationales for ssm that are different from the anti-sex-discrimination rationale that Gabriel finds most persuasive. Still, his post is worth your time. --Eve] ...For example, suppose the law required that there be one senator of each sex from each state. This law burdens men and women equally. Neither group is advantaged or disadvantaged by it. Nobody is excluded from running for Senator nor is anybody excluded from voting. There may even be a legitimate goal advanced by this proposal. It would result in a Senate that, in terms of gender, more accurately reflected the population. Every state would have a Senator of each gender and the two would "complement" one another, and so forth. I believe such a policy, though, would violate our fundamental right to vote for the candidate of our choice. Does it follow that the legislature must permit anybody who so chooses to vote for as many candidates as they would like? Such a system, as in approval voting, could work. In fact I think it would be a better system than we currently have. But I do not think there is a right to such a voting system. The right to vote cannot include the right for us to each decide which voting system we would like to use. Every person has the right to vote (barring a compelling reason to disenfranchise), but not the right to vote for as many candidates as one would like. In a similar manner while the state would need a good cause to deny someone the opportunity to run for office, it is certainly reasonable to restrict the person to one office at a time. more posted by Eve at 10:05 PM | link 0 comments
BISEXUALITY AT YALE: Eve
Odd that this Jennifer Vanasco column and this Yale Daily News piece were published the same day. When I read the YDN thing, there were so many places where I wanted to challenge or complicate or reframe or just say, "yes, but" that in the end I was too tired to give anything like a full response. Instead, I'm going to list off the areas that the YDN touched on not at all and that Vanasco either ignored or barely gestured at. (Some of these are more directly applicable to college students, obviously.) I wish the YDN reporter had asked about, or printed the responses to questions about, any of the following: * religion. * what your parents think, what they want for you, and what responsibilities you have to them. * what you want from your future. * what dating is for. * what sex is for. * what sexual identity (as a man or a woman) is for. * what sexual-orientation identity (sorry, there's no great word for this) is for. * do you want children? if so, how would your choice of a male or female partner affect them? * what do your views imply about the ex-gay movement? * (this is mostly for one student from the YDN piece) if gender is really as fluid as all that--and getting fluid-er by the minute--what's up with saying men are cool b/c they're challenging and women are cool b/c they cuddle? do you think that will still be true in fifty years, and would you miss it? * does anybody ask you this stuff? posted by Eve at 9:24 PM | link 0 comments
BISEXUALITY AT YALE: From the Yale Daily News
...Many students and professors dispute the clinical definition of "bisexual," which assumes only two genders. Critics of the term call this two-gender assumption a social construct -- and one that is based on incorrect premises; instead they prefer the term "queer." But beyond politics, they said, the term "bisexual" is vague, amorphous and rampant with stereotypes. ... William Summers, a professor in the School of Medicine who teaches the class "Biology of Gender and Sexuality," agreed. One exercise he does with his students, he said, is asking them to imagine they will sleep with someone that night. They then have to picture everyone they know, of both sexes and all levels of attractiveness, and organize them from most sexually desirable to least. Even straight students, Summers said, will mix the sexes along the line -- the most heterosexual guy, he said, would still prefer to sleep with Matt Damon than, say, his own grandmother. Sexuality depends on context. "You may be bisexual at one time, and monosexual at another time and polysexual at another," Summers said. "I prefer to think of people as just sexual." ... Justin Ross '07, also a head of the Yale Co-op, agreed that the term "queer" is often more appropriate to describe alternative sexualities. In high school, he identified himself as gay, Ross said. He had a boyfriend; he fit in with the gay community. So when he arrived at Yale, he assumed he would continue primarily dating men. Instead, he found himself occasionally attracted to women. His most meaningful relationships, he said, have been with females. ... Gusman has felt similar pressures to be either gay or straight. Even though he began his time at Yale by dating both women and men, he said, he continually feels pushed to identify himself as homosexual. Now that he is in a relationship with a man, he worries he won't be able to go back to dating women. Girls seem to have more of a problem with having a bisexual boyfriend than guys do with a bisexual girlfriend, Gusman said. He knows only two male students who were able to foster relationships with women after starting their Yale careers seeing men. It is as though people are not supposed to vacillate in their sexuality, he said. more posted by Eve at 9:20 PM | link 0 comments
CHOOSING THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED: Jennifer Vanasco
This fabulous woman I know is marrying a great guy. And that's not a big deal, right? Except she has identified as a lesbian for over a decade. ... I think differently. Why can't she still be a lesbian if she's marrying a man? "Lesbian," as we use it, doesn't mean that a woman has never, will never, and doesn't currently want to be with a man. Usually it just means that someone isn't 100 percent straight and they like being part of our women-centered community. In fact, I think as time goes on, and social pressure to be straight lessens, more and more women will choose to be lesbians, at least for a little while. Yep. I said, "choose." And yes. I think that our sexual orientation is a choice. ... I am thrilled to have chosen lesbianhood. I consider myself a gay activist. I feel like I am privileged to be gay. But gay men and lesbians still get upset when I start talking about choice, and I believe it's because they think I'm saying that everyone is straight and some people choose to be gay. Not at all. I think everyone is bisexual, and people choose to be gay or straight. When I say "everyone," I mean "the majority of people." If it weren't for the tremendous social, religious and political pressure to be straight, I think that we would see a more natural breakdown of sexual orientation. ... For the majority of us, "lesbian" and "gay" are not biological identities. Biologically, most of us are bisexual. What they are is political identities that often (but not always) describe the relationships that we currently choose. more posted by Eve at 9:16 PM | link 0 comments
HRC UNVEILS NEW MARRIAGE STRATEGY: From the Washington Blade
After months of promising a bold new approach to advocating for same-sex marriage rights, the Human Rights Campaign this week unveiled plans to ask Congress to pass a collection of bills that would provide gay couples with many of the benefits and rights conferred by marriage. While saying it would continue its "hard push" for same-sex marriage itself, the group outlined a strategy that sidesteps a single, same-sex marriage bill. Instead, HRC is calling on Congress to pass separate bills to help gay families overcome the government's denial of their right to Social Security survivor benefits, spousal exemptions from estate taxes, the ability to make medical decisions for an incapacitated partner, and dozens of other benefits related to marriage. ... Members of Congress supportive of equal rights for gays have introduced bills in the past several years calling for a number of marriage-related benefits for same-sex couples, including Social Security survivor benefits and immigration rights for gay partners similar to those given to the foreign born spouses in heterosexual marriages. All of these bills have died in committee. Capitol Hill observers say they have little chance of passing anytime soon under a Republican-controlled Congress. Smith and Christopher Labonte, HRC's legislative director, said HRC is working with lawmakers to introduce more bills that cover a broader array of rights and benefits for same-sex couples. more posted by Eve at 9:03 PM | link 0 comments
REPORT: ADOPTING COUPLES IN IRELAND SHOULD BE MARRIED: From IrishHealth.com
Couples in Ireland who wish to adopt children should be married, according to a major new report on adoption. The report states that while it is accepted that marriage 'is not a guarantee of stability of a relationship or good parenting', providing eligibility rights to cohabiting couples 'is fraught with difficulty in Ireland'. This, it says, is due to the absence of any formal cohabitation agreement system, which would address the situation of children should the couple break up. The recommendation, which refers to 'stranger adoptions', is contained in the report, Adoption Legislation: 2003 consultation and proposals for change. It contains details of the consultation process established by the Department of Health in 2003, as well as proposals for legislation to overhaul the current adoption system. more report here posted by Eve at 8:57 PM | link 0 comments
MARRIAGE AMENDMENT BEING USED TO CHALLENGE NON-MARRIAGE BENEFITS: Eugene Volokh
Michigan's recently enacted anti-same-sex-marriage amendment reads (PDF): To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose. According to the Detroit News (Oct. 27, 2004), the amendment's chief supporters said it was just about marriage, not about domestic partner benefits and the like: "Same-sex marriage is illegal (in Michigan) and will remain against the law after the election," said [Dana House, political direct for the anti-proposition forces]. "However, there are some folk who seem to want to distract the voters by talking about same-sex marriage so that they can take away domestic partner benefits and actually change the definition of marriage. Our job is to alert the voters to that risk. It will have the same affect on heterosexual couples." . . . However, now the amendment is in fact being used to challenge domestic partner benefits: ... Now it may well be that the More Center will lose, and the amendment will be interpreted the way Ms. Hemphill predicted. And it may well be that the agenda of the More Center is indeed broader than that of Citizens for the Protection of Marriage. Nonetheless, the language of Amendment 2 is potentially broad enough that it may well have the effect the More Center urges, and that Citizens for the Protection of Marriage pooh-poohed. So just a reminder that voters and other observers need to look at the text of the provision, and not be lulled by the disclaimers by the provision's backers. more posted by Eve at 8:10 PM | link 0 comments
IS IT HIP TO SNIP?: Salon.com on vasectomies, also via Family Scholars
...While there are no statistics about this subset of men just yet, there soon will be. For the first time ever, the government's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has asked men -- nearly 5,000 of them -- about their family planning and reproductive choices. Among the data expected to be released on Father's Day: how many men plan on remaining childless for good -- and how many of those men have gotten vasectomies to set that decision in stone. Most likely, the numbers will be far from staggering. What is startling, though, is that this is the first time that the numbers will even exist. Until now, discussions about contraceptive use and desire for children have largely revolved around women. The NCHS has been collecting data on women's reproductive choices in the National Survey of Family Growth since the 1970s. It's taken 30 years for them to ask men the same questions. "This is very unique," says Gladys Martinez, associate director for science at NCHS. "It's the first time you get the man represented by himself." ... Sterilized men who don't have children face criticism for being selfish, immature and shortsighted. "I've had someone tell me that it was wrong of me to make the choice when I was still a kid," says Ciaccio. "I've had people tell me that I've robbed my future wife the opportunity to be a mother. I don't think I can count the number of people who said I'll change my mind and it'll be too late." But here's the question that young men who have gotten vasectomies are asking: Why is it acceptable to make the permanent choice to have kids at a young age and not OK to make the permanent choice to not have kids? "The truth is, I put more thought and energy into not having kids than many people do into having them," says Ciaccio. "What's the worse scenario -- a man regretting his vasectomy or a man regretting accidental parenthood?" There are always exceptions -- like the man one urologist recalled, who got a vasectomy after he and a bunch of drunken buddies decided they didn't want to get their girlfriends pregnant; he later visited the doctor requesting a reversal -- but the bulk of the childless men who opt for vasectomies seriously think through the consequences. A Scottish survey of 78 men and women who were voluntarily childless concluded: "The findings of this study suggest that voluntary childlessness is not an expression of neurosis or immaturity; rather, it is a complex decision of which the benefits are considered to outweigh the costs of social nonconformity." According to Lunneborg's research, there are four major reasons men don't want children: They want the freedom to change jobs without financial obligations to children; they want time and space for personal development; they have never felt a need to have children and are happy as they are; and they don't want the responsibility of raising a child. more posted by Eve at 8:05 PM | link 0 comments
HAVE A BABY, GET A BONUS: From the Los Angeles Times (via Family Scholars)
Angelina Spiotta had always wanted to be a mother. Married a year, she figured it was time. It didn't hurt that her local government was offering parents nearly $14,000 for every baby delivered in this struggling southern town. Spiotta gave birth to little Massimo late last fall, "not because of the money," she said, "but the money is a help. It helps for the future." Across Italy, towns are dying, and like the canary in the coal mine, these small deaths are a sign of what could happen to the country as a whole if its birthrate doesn't climb. As it stands, Italy's population could shrink by a third by 2050; until now, only an influx of immigrants has kept the numbers stable. ... The Italian government last year gave a $1,300 one-time payment to couples who had a second child, but the Laviano plan appears to be unique. Italy's birthrate--slightly more than one baby per woman--has repercussions beyond condemning towns like Laviano. Because Italians are living longer, the population is aging. There are fewer able-bodied workers to pay taxes and contribute to pensions, while the segment of the population needing pensions and old-age healthcare balloons. The national statistics bureau says Italy has the highest percentage of people 65 or older in the world: 18.6% in 2003. grandmommas, boars, and much more posted by Eve at 7:57 PM | link 0 comments
SEMINARY OUSTS PRESIDENT FOR PERFORMING DAUGHTER'S GAY WEDDING: From the Associated Press
The New Brunswick Theological Seminary has ousted its president and reprimanded him for officiating at his gay daughter's wedding. The school's board of trustees said the Rev. Norman Kansfield, 64, performed the ceremony in Massachusetts. "We decided that the president had put the seminary in an awkward position by performing that ceremony without giving us the benefit of offering sufficient counsel," the Rev. Larry Williams Sr., a member speaking on the board's behalf, told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday's newspapers. "It could have hurt the school if it divided people in our student body, if it divided our faculty, if it divided other people who support us." In a letter sent shortly before the June 19 wedding of his daughter, Anne, Kansfield informed the board of his decision to officiate, and said he wasn't seeking its permission. The board voted Jan. 28 not to renew Kansfield's contract. Kansfield said he had not done anything to hurt his denomination, the Reformed Church of America. ... But the denomination's national office in Grand Rapids, Mich., said formal complaints have been filed against Kansfield, who expects to be brought up on charges in June at the church's General Synod in Schenectady, N.Y. more posted by Eve at 7:52 PM | link 0 comments
MASS. HIGH COURT WILL HEAR ARGUMENTS ON SSM, AGAIN: From the Associated Press
More than a year after the state's highest court legalized same-sex marriages in Massachusetts, the court will hear oral arguments on an opponent's petition. In its November 2003 decision legalizing gay marriages, the Supreme Judicial Court gave the state Legislature 180 days to implement the ruling. C.J. Doyle, a gay-marriage opponent and executive director of the Catholic Action League, sought to extend that time period pending the outcome of a process to amend the state constitution. Doyle's petition was denied by a single justice of the SJC, and his request for an expedited appeal was also rejected. Same-sex couples began marrying in Massachusetts on May 17, 2004. Doyle's appeal of that ruling has slowly made its way through the court, which this week put the appeal on its calendar for this spring. No date has been set yet for the arguments. more posted by Eve at 7:45 PM | link 0 comments
NY HISPANIC CLERGY DENOUNCE RULING ON GAY MARRIAGE: From the NY Sun
A state senator, Ruben Diaz, and several Hispanic clergymen met yesterday to denounce last Friday's Manhattan Supreme Court ruling and the unanimous support for same-sex nuptials from the leading mayoral candidates. Mr. Diaz, a Democrat from the Bronx who is president of the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization, spoke in Spanish to members of the group at the Christian Community Benevolent Association's building at East 172nd Street. Mr. Diaz is an ordained minister of the Church of God, a pastor at the Christian Community Neighborhood Church, and the founder of the benevolent association, a nonprofit group that provides assistance to the elderly. ... In the meantime, Mr. Diaz said, Hispanic clergy are mobilizing their communities to protest the decision and any further attempts to make same-sex marriage legal. A demonstration in March 2004, Mr. Diaz said, drew 30,000 Hispanic evangelical Christians to the steps of the Bronx Supreme Court to denounce same-sex marriage and support the federal marriage amendment. Another protest this year--which, by a show of hands, all the clergy gathered enthusiastically supported--would attract more than 30,000, Mr. Diaz said. That community response, and comments from Mr. Diaz, suggested religious Hispanics could cause political difficulty for Fernando Ferrer in his quest to reach City Hall. more posted by Eve at 7:42 PM | link 0 comments
TWO MASS. CATHOLIC LAWMAKERS WHO SUPPORT SSM "FIRM IN FAITH, BELIEF": From the Boston Globe
Two Catholic state lawmakers, Representative Marie P. St. Fleur and Senator Marian Walsh, said yesterday their religious faith had inspired them to support same-sex marriage, despite pronouncements from Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley declaring that such marriages are incompatible with Catholic teachings. Speaking as they were honored for courage by the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, the two Boston Democrats reflected publicly on the tension provoked by their decisions to support same-sex marriage during a heated vote in the Legislature last year. St. Fleur said she faced "a lot of anger" in her parish, and that some people placed "nasty" telephone calls to her home. Walsh talked about her difficult campaign for reelection in a socially conservative, heavily Catholic district. "There were people whom I have known since I walked into that parish at 7 years of age, who could not understand how at this age I was moving away from all that I was born and raised [to believe]," St. Fleur said. "But I came to understand that I was not moving away, but was in fact affirming all that I had learned in all those CCD classes, and that it is one thing to read it in the Bible, one thing to go through the sacraments, but it is another thing to stand up and really support and demonstrate that the Bible too is a living word, just as the Constitution." ... "My faith is really what gave me so much of the clarity and confidence to give witness to Christ," Walsh said in an interview after the ceremony. "Christ made all people equally, and some of different orientation." ... The organization also honored Episcopal Bishop M. Thomas Shaw for his active support of legalizing same-sex marriage even though his own denomination defines marriage as heterosexual. Shaw told the group that he plans to launch an effort to change the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church USA to allow same-sex marriage. The group recognized Rabbi Daniel Judson, of Temple Beth David of the South Shore in Canton, for his decision to purchase a newspaper ad featuring the names of about 100 rabbis who support same-sex marriage, a step he said he took because he was upset about what he perceived as excessive news media attention to the opposition to same-sex marriage by Catholic church officials and evangelical Protestants. more posted by Eve at 7:34 PM | link 0 comments
LYNNE CHENEY ON FMA: Via Andrew Sullivan
"I don't support an amendment to the Constitution banning gay marriage. I think it's a matter that should be left to the states. As a conservative, I don't support constitutional amendments generally unless the cause is clear and evident. The issue here, of course, is that some people think a constitutional amendment is necessary in order to preserve the rights of the states. I happen not to come down on that side of the issue and, indeed, there are many Republicans who do [not]. I think if you looked at our national convention, for example, among the prominent speakers -- Gov. Schwarzenegger, Rudy Giuliani -- feel the same way. It's not an issue that sets the Republican Party apart in one great mass. It's an issue upon which people differ." - Lynne Cheney, on NPR's Fresh Air, February 9. link posted by Eve at 4:38 AM | link 0 comments
MARRIAGE AS A NORM: Maggie Gallagher replies to Mark Barton
Mark says, "it's vague in that it's at best an it-would-be-nice-if claim." Well, no. It's a norm that, if internalized and accepted, produces some pretty strong claims on how men and women attracted to the opposite sex should behave. Logically (putting aside other competing moral issues) there are only five methods I can think of for preventing or reducing out-of-wedlock births: sterilization, abortion, extreme care at contraception, confining sexual partners to people you could and would marry in the event of pregnancy, abstinence until marriage and fidelity afterwards. The default position for heterosexual is lots of babies out of wedlock. Absent strong social norms. I happen to believe that the reason divorce rates are now declining mildly and that out-of-wedlock birth rates have stopped rising is that more people since the 90s have accepted and articulated this simple idea. It's a bad idea to deliberately get pregnant if you are not married. Divorce is a tragedy for kids which caring parents will avoid if possible. Fathers abandoning their kids is a bad thing, not a sign of social progress towards family diversity. Stupid, simple stuff. But it makes a difference. How and why the law and other institutions interact with social norms is always a more complicated question. posted by Eve at 4:01 AM | link 0 comments
RIGHT VS NORM: Maggie Gallagher replies to Mark Barton
Oh, this is interesting. A right is something claimed by an individual for his or her own benefit. Mark is right: It tends to lead to new social norms in the sense the behavior claimed as a right is seen as something that cannot now be interfered with, or sometimes even criticized, by others in the society. It's this latter trait that sets up the dichotomy between rights and norms, as I am using the word. Norms, in the sense I am using the word, are the ways in which societies attempt(outside of legal punishments) to channel behavior in certain pro-social directions. If marriage is about me and my rights, it can't be about getting men and women to act in such a way that children are born and raised by their own mother and fathers. Marriage is significant primarily because it orders human behavior in certain directions and embues that behavior with certain shared social meanings. Whereas if marriage is a "right" then it's about me and my entitlements. And yes, viewing marriage as a right will lead to changes in social norms. On that we agree. posted by Eve at 3:57 AM | link 0 comments
Thursday, February 10, 2005
CREATING KIN: Eve
There are a lot of ways you can approach any marriage-related issue. You can ask what marriage intrinsically is. You can ask why society and government give marriage special recognition. There are probably lots more, but the one I want to focus on is the question: What does marriage uniquely do? One striking answer--and I know I name-check him all the time, but he is very cool--is Jonathan Rauch's: Marriage creates kin. That intuitively sounds good. But I'm not sure what it means. Over the past couple days I have found myself thinking a lot about this case (which I think is the same one discussed here). Who is this child's kin? Has she got three parents, two parents (which two?), one parent, one-and-a-half? Is her sperm-donor father, who was a friend or acquaintance of her mother, kin? Should he be? Should someone have challenged him about whether he would or should be kin to this child? (And why is he so thoroughly erased from the Post-Gazette news story? I read the piece, wondered, "Is the girl adopted, and if not, where's Dad?", and Googled to see if I could find the answer.) Thinking about these questions made me realize that I'm still unclear on what "creating kin" means. But I'd welcome your thoughts. posted by Eve at 7:28 PM | link 0 comments
E.R.A. IN WASHINGTON STATE: Gabriel Rosenberg
...I am a firm believer that denying same-sex couples the right to marry makes an impermissible classification based on sex and is hence unconstitutional in almost the exact same way the California Supreme Court in 1948 found racial classifications in marriage impermissible. (See my post on Perez v. Sharp or my posts on sex discrimination). Some people, like Professor Jack Balkin, feel this argument has a disadvantage in that it's not really sex discrimination but rather sexual orientation discrimination. Well, there is a great amicus brief being (pdf) filed in the Washington cases by NOW and other women's rights organizations that explains how sex discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination are linked and how denying same-sex couples the right to marry is detrimental to all who wish to be free from traditional gender stereotypes. I am hopeful the court will make use of this brief to strike down Singer. more posted by Eve at 7:22 PM | link 0 comments
NY RULING: Commenters at Balkinization
Lots of interesting discussion here. (Mostly) short posts, thus easy to read. Marriage as social approval, marriage as "integration of the sexes," marriage as religious freedom issue, marriage as contract (with spouses as "cosignees"), marriage as right to procreate; polygamy, cousin marriage, and more. Gets a bit repetitive later, as many such threads do, but still might interest you. --Eve posted by Eve at 7:04 PM | link 0 comments
DEFINITION OF FAMILY CONFUSES ISSUES: Maggie Gallagher
...What's wrong with this claim? J. Michael Bailey, a professor at Northwestern University who is an expert on gay fathers and their children, points out one problem with the Times' position: The studies it cites are small and not representative of gay parents at large. "You can't force families to participate, and there aren't that many of them out there to start with," he noted. "There is also a strong volunteer bias: The families who want to participate might be much more open about sexual orientation" and may be eager to report positive outcomes. We just don't know very much about how kids fare raised by two same-gender parents compared with intact married families. It's a social experiment on children, the results of which are not yet in. But here's the really big trick buried in the story reporting that kids with gay parents do just as well as kids in more "traditional" families: The vast majorities of these studies compare single lesbian moms to single heterosexual moms. They tell us nothing at all about how children raised by a same-sex couple fare when compared with children raised by their own married mom and dad. One cannot help but notice that more than marriage is being redefined. What's a traditional family? At one point, it meant a family with a working dad and a stay-at-home mom, and children. As time went on, a "traditional family" became any intact married couple raising their kids together. Now, in The New York Times nomenclature, a "traditional family" is any family that is not headed by a homosexual. Unwed mothers, rejoice! more posted by Eve at 6:58 PM | link 0 comments
MASS. SENATE BOSS PLANS TO DELAY GAY MARRIAGE VOTE: From the Boston Globe
Fearing the contentious issue might become a distraction, Senate President Robert E. Travaglini plans to delay a vote on gay marriage until as late as the fall to allow the Legislature time to focus on a busy agenda that includes health care, the budget, and job creation, senior legislative sources said yesterday. Travaglini's decision has not been made public, but those familiar with his thinking say the Senate leader wants to give the newly reorganized House leadership time to focus on the budget and other measures before he calls a constitutional convention on the proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriages and allow same-sex civil unions. Senate minority leader Brian P. Lees, an East Longmeadow Republican, confirmed yesterday that Travaglini had decided to delay the convention. A second Senate source also said Travaglini plans to wait until the fall. The Senate president is the presiding officer over the constitutional convention. ... Supporters of the amendment banning gay marriage need 101 votes to pass it and send it to the ballot. A Globe analysis last month, taking into consideration the fall election results and the recent resignation of three legislators who opposed same-sex marriages, indicated that supporters of gay marriage appear to be gaining ground. more posted by Eve at 6:34 PM | link 0 comments
Q&A WITH CANADIAN PM's PRIEST: From Macleans
...In the Roman Catholic church that Prime Minister Paul Martin attends -- St. John Brebeuf, in his Montreal riding of LaSalle-Emard -- Father John Walsh, 62, sees his parish rocked by spiritual turbulence. He also has a unique view of the issue's effect on his most prominent congregant. How do you define marriage? When I first began to study marriage, its purpose was procreation, education of children, and allowing people to get rid of their sex urge. Then Vatican II [reform council] opened us to new meanings of marriage. We still had procreation and education of children, but now the Church tells couples they're creating a community of love. So how does that definition apply to same-sex couples? The Church has always considered the homosexual act as intrinsically evil. A same-sex marriage allows two people to come together in a sinful condition. But my responsibility as a priest is to educate people as to what we see as the values of marriage, not to impose one definition on anybody. ... In this divide, which side are you on? I find it difficult to come down on one side. We think of family as being a man, a woman, two children and a gerbil, you know? Well, there are more family models today than there have ever been. We have single-parent families. We have reconstructed and blended families. How does that integrate same-sex marriage? Well, we're new at it. We're scared this is going to turn our culture upside down. But we thought that about divorce. I'd rather be inclusive than exclusive, but there are members of the Church who work from a sense of fear, a difficult attitude. more posted by Eve at 6:31 PM | link 0 comments
US CAMPAIGN PUTTING PRESSURE ON CANADIAN MP's: From CBC News
Some members of Parliament say they're getting pressure from their constituents, and from Americans, over the same-sex marriage legislation, currently before Parliament. "They're phoning, they're sending e-mails and they're faxing," said Liberal MP Beth Phinney. "It doesn't concern me, because I'm just going to listen, certainly just listen, to people in Canada and hopefully just listen to people in my riding," she said. "I tell them it won't make a difference in my vote." ... A spokesman for Canadians for Equal Marriage, an organization that supports passing the legislation, said his group can't compete with a campaign funded by American dollars. "There's an attempt from the American religious right to hijack our debate, to dominate our debate," said Alex Munter. "We have a Charter of Rights here and discrimination is unCanadian." more posted by Eve at 6:01 PM | link 0 comments
ANGER SIMMERS AMONG NY CLERGY ON GAY RITES: From the NY Sun
Not consulted, for the most part, by politicians or the press, many New York religious leaders expressed anger at a state Supreme Court judge's decision redefining marriage and frustration at receiving the cold shoulder from Mayor Bloomberg on the issue of gay marriage. "The church teaches that the state is in a position of recognizing, but not designing, marriage--it comes from God. ... It really can't be messed around with," the priest at the Immaculate Conception Church in Staten Island, Peter Byrne, said. ... The Catholic Archdiocese of New York declined to comment. ... The president of the Catholic League, William Donohue, criticized the mayor for not communicating with the religious community on the gay marriage issue. Mr. Donohue, whose national Catholic civil-rights organization is based in the city, is strongly opposed to same-sex marriage. "Clearly, if the mayor had in place the kind of outreach programs to people of faith as he has to the gay community," Mr. Donohue said, "he'd be much more inclined to reconsider his position, and take a stronger stand." ... Also expressing concern about the judge's ruling was Agudath Israel of America and its executive vice president for government and public affairs, David Zwiebel. "We oppose the idea of redefining marriage to encompass same-sex relationships. We think it creates a fundamental revolution in civilized societies and also, at the same time, places a certain imprimatur of legitimacy on relationships that large segments of the population, including our own, regard as sinful," Mr. Zwiebel, who is an Orthodox rabbi and a lawyer, said. ... The Rabbinical Assembly's Joel Meyers also said the court decision reflected an excess of zeal for stripping the secular law of any sort of religious content. The assembly represents Conservative rabbis, and Mr. Meyers said: "For the Conservative movement, marriage at this point ... continues to be viewed religiously." ... Their Reform counterparts, however, feel quite differently. "The Reform movement has been fully supportive of civil legal rights to gays and lesbians, and that includes gay marriage," the director of the Religious Action Center of the Union for Reform Judaism, David Saperstein, said. Mr. Saperstein said the movement's stance on gay marriage stemmed from its opposition to discrimination of any kind, and its "clear policy that sexual orientation ought to be treated like gender and race." more posted by Eve at 5:55 PM | link 0 comments
MIXED BLESSINGS: From the Houston Press
...Dean will exchange vows with Kelly Gilbert, her partner of nine years, in a ceremony that will include an estimated 100 same-sex couples at Resurrection Metropolitan Church on Saturday, February 12. The event, part of National Freedom to Marry Day, is being touted as the largest same-sex wedding ceremony in the state, despite the fact that the unions aren't legal under the Texas Family Code. Jerry Simoneaux of the Foundation for Family and Marriage Equality, the local group coordinating the event, says participants will show that "there isn't one single answer in religion to the question of same-sex marriage. And they'll be there to show that their marriages are real and are supported and recognized by their friends, family and faith. Only the state of Texas refuses to give them that same dignity." ... The wedding ceremony will kick off Freedom to Marry Week, which runs though February 19. Coincidentally, the Christian-based Focus on the Family Foundation will host the "Love Won Out" conference at Grace Community Church in Clear Lake on February 19. The conference's theme is that "homosexuality is preventable and treatable -- a message routinely silenced today," according to the group's promotional materials. To promote the event, some 15 billboards featuring beaming, fresh-faced men and women with the tagline "I Questioned Homosexuality" have greeted drivers. more posted by Eve at 5:51 PM | link 0 comments
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF DOMA: Chuck Muth
...FIRST: Since the day the original decision legalizing gay marriage was handed down in Massachusetts, opponents have bemoaned the fact that a bunch of "unelected" judges "imposed" it on the people. Judge Ling-Cohan, however, was ELECTED to the bench by the people. She wasn't appointed. That eliminates a hugely effective PR argument from the anti-gay marriage side. SECOND: The reasoning put forward by Judge Ling-Cohan plants the seeds for declaring DOMA unconstitutional. "It was only less than 40 years ago that the U.S. Supreme Court held that anti-miscegenation statutes, adopted to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classification, violate the Constitution because they infringed on the freedom to marry a person of one's choice," she wrote. Boy, does THAT ever open a can of constitutional worms. Consider... First there's the conflict between state sovereignty vs. the federal government. Generally speaking, the Founders intended that the states be free to decide whatever they wanted in areas not specifically reserved to the federal government. But that changed significantly over the issue of whether or not some states could allow slavery while others were allowed to ban it. Putting it simplistically, the Constitution was changed with the adoption of the 14th Amendment to allow the feds to overrule state laws which violated what were considered the natural rights of all citizens of the United States. All U.S. citizens were deemed to have a right to be free; therefore, state laws allowing slavery were null and void. Therefore, if marriage ends up being interpreted by the United States Supreme Court as a natural right due to all citizens of the United States, then state laws and constitutions banning gay marriage will be overturned and gay marriage will become the law of the land. And that's why Judge Ling-Cohan's reference to miscegenation laws is so significant. more posted by Eve at 4:02 PM | link 0 comments
ALABAMA SENATE PASSES MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: From the Associated Press
The first bill passed in both the Alabama Senate and the House in the new legislative session is a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages in the Bible Belt state. The Senate voted 35-0 Tuesday for the constitutional amendment. It now goes to the House, where members voted 85-7 Tuesday for an identical proposal. Either the House or the Senate will have to pass the other chamber's version before the constitutional amendment can go before voters in a statewide referendum. more posted by Eve at 3:55 PM | link 0 comments
SEX ON THE RELIGIOUS CAMPUS: Stanley Kurtz
Naomi Schaefer Riley's God on the Quad is one of the most interesting books about sex I've read in some time. God on the Quad appears to be a prim study of religious institutions of higher learning. In fact, it's a fascinating account of how the problem of sex gets resolved at colleges where "anything goes" doesn't go. Take the contrast between a small conservative Catholic college, like Thomas Aquinas, and that Mormon giant, Brigham Young University. At Thomas Aquinas, public displays of affection are strictly forbidden. Yet ubiquitous pairs of Brigham Young lovers stroke and caress, even during Sunday religious lectures. Radical as this difference may seem, each school is channeling its students' desire for sex into the quest for marriage. Thomas Aquinas is a very small school, where a shared great-books curriculum nurtures an intense community spirit. That spirit would be weakened by open displays of affection between couples. Yet the tight sense of community is responsible for the fact that most graduates of Thomas Aquinas end up marrying fellow students. In any case, if they don't find a spouse during their college years, Thomas Aquinas graduates know they will still be able to meet fellow Catholics after graduation. Brigham Young, on the other hand, is not only a big school with a broad curriculum, it's the most concentrated collection of young, eligible co-religionists a young Mormon is ever likely to encounter. Mormons believe they will live on eternally in heaven with their families. In this and other ways, marriage is absolutely central to Mormonism. The years at BYU are the ideal time during which to meet and marry a fellow Mormon. So by graduation, about half of BYU students are married. Getting there means that BYU is a cauldron of romantic intensity, with whirlwind courtships and dramatic scenes of broken engagements the order of the day. Premarital sex may be forbidden at both BYU and Thomas Aquinas, but that doesn't stop these institutions from treating sex in radically different ways. ... As Riley shows, the end result is not so much outright secularization as a complex accommodation between religious traditionalism and modern attitudes toward women. Many female graduates of religious schools may postpone marriage and go on to professional careers, yet they remain fairly traditional theologically. No doubt, Riley is right about that. But if even women from the growing number of religious colleges increasingly postpone marriage and child bearing, the effects on fertility rates will be real. more posted by Eve at 3:44 PM | link 0 comments
LIBERTARIANS AND MARRIAGE: Maggie Gallagher
The always interesting Jennifer Morse, of the Hoover Institution, points out the libertarians who fail to support marriage are engaging in the ultimate self-defeating behaviors because, "Trying to have a minimum government without a culture of marriage is a bit like trying to have a prosperous economy without having property rights." In her interview with Marvin Olasky in World magazine, she says that "my little booklet, 101 Tips for a Happier Marriage, is the most libertarian thing I have ever written." Read the whole interview to find out why. posted by Eve at 3:39 PM | link 0 comments
JUDGES HEAR PA. LESBIANS' CHILD-VISITATION CASE: From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
[I'm pretty sure this is the same case discussed here. If so, the daughter was conceived with a sperm donor, "whom both parties knew, [and who] insisted that his parental rights be terminated." --Eve] Three members of state Superior Court yesterday heard arguments from lawyers for two lesbian women, one of whom is asking the appeals court to grant her visitation with her nonbiological daughter. The couple split eight years ago. Since then, the biological mother has successfully kept her former partner away from the girl, now 11, except for three sessions they had with a therapist. Because the girl has been alienated for so long from the noncustodial partner, it would not be in her best interest to re-enter a relationship with her, argued Nicholas Banda, who represents the birth mother. Although the state Supreme Court has ruled that the noncustodial parent had standing to seek visitation, a lower court subsequently ruled that it would not be in the child's best interest to reunite with her because of length of the alienation. Alphonso David, attorney for the noncustodial mom, cited state law and public policy that he said prohibits the parent with custody from alienating the other parent, then claiming a resumption of their relationship would be psychologically harmful to the child. Judge Michael T. Joyce and President Judge Joseph A. Del Sole several times yesterday interrupted Banda's arguments to question his client's action to alienate the child. "Why should this custodial parent be rewarded for alienating the child [from the other parent]?" Del Sole asked Banda. more posted by Eve at 3:24 PM | link 0 comments
SSM IN NEW YORK MAYORAL RACE: From the NY Sun
Mayor Bloomberg's sometimes difficult relationship with his fellow Republicans may come back to haunt him tomorrow night when the Queens County GOP organization is expected to endorse a former City Council minority leader, Thomas Ognibene, over the mayor in a Republican primary. ... Sources familiar with the discussions among the county leaders in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx said Mr. Ognibene has gained traction among rank-and-file Republicans in the wake of Mr. Bloomberg's declaration of support for gay marriage, his decision to raise property taxes 18.5% two years ago, and his fundraising efforts for high-profile local Democrats. ... "Tom's candidacy is a reflection of dissatisfaction with Bloomberg among the rank and file," the current minority leader of the council, James Oddo of Staten Island, told the Sun. "When the mayor says I am pro-choice, gay rights, and gun control, the rank-and-file Republicans are going to bristle at that. That heat is going to be felt by the county chairs." ... Mr. Ognibene, for his part, has been testing campaign slogans in the run-up to his formal announcement for mayor, which could occur as early as next week. His favorite: "After four years, it is time for a Republican mayor again." more posted by Eve at 3:21 PM | link 0 comments
SF MAYOR ARGUES CAUSE AT HARVARD: From the San Francisco Chronicle
A year after he decided to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom showed no indication of shying away from his cause. Tuesday, he took it to Harvard University, casting his fight for nuptial rights for gays and lesbians as another step in the U.S. march toward the expansion of civil rights. "This is really about discrimination ... about denying people equal rights and equal protection," Newsom told an audience of more than 500 students, faculty and activists at Harvard, likening his campaign to legalize same-sex marriage to the movement in the 1940s and 1950s to legalize marriage between blacks and whites. ... But Newsom appeared unperturbed by the blame, turning it into a joke Tuesday as he took the podium at Harvard: "My name is Gavin Newsom and I reelected George Bush." The audience responded with roaring laughter. Instead, Newsom blamed the Democrats for what he said was a hypocritical approach of supporting gay rights privately but attacking it in public. more posted by Eve at 3:14 PM | link 0 comments
MD. CLERGY GATHER TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE: From the Baltimore Sun
More than 40 clergy members gathered at a Bolton Hill church yesterday to support gay marriage and the same-sex couples who are suing to win the right to marry in Maryland. The ministers at Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church said they hope to counter a widespread perception that all Christian clergy oppose gay marriage. An Annapolis rally organized by opponents of same-sex marriage, widely covered by the news media, attracted about 1,000 people last month. "There's been a steady growth of some voices expressing opposition to equality of access to marriage, and it leaves the inaccurate perception that they are speaking for all of us--and they're not," said the Rev. Donald E. Stroud, the Presbyterian minister who organized the event. Stroud said that 71 ministers have signed a petition--enlarged and displayed for television cameras yesterday--calling for equal access to marriage for same-sex couples. "We believe that both heterosexual and homosexual relations are capable of being sinful and of being faithful," the petition states. more posted by Eve at 3:09 PM | link 0 comments
PROPONENTS OF GAY-MARRIAGE BAN MAKE HAY OF NEW YORK RULING: From the NY Sun
The prospect that New York's highest court could legalize same-sex marriage in the Empire State could generate new support in Congress for a constitutional amendment to ban such unions, activists say. The New York Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the traditional definition of marriage violates the state Constitution, and the amendment's supporters say the decision played right into their strategy. They want to see another vote on the amendment, which was rejected in both legislative houses last Congress, as soon as enough pro-gay-marriage court cases "ripen" in state and federal courts, said the president of the Alliance for Marriage, Matt Daniels, whose group wrote the amendment. Friday's ruling "is helping our cause," Mr. Daniels said. "Within five minutes, the news of the decision was spreading through the relevant networks in Congress," said Mr. Daniels, who said he heard about the ruling from an ally on Capitol Hill before he heard it on the news. ... A pro-gay-marriage group, Human Rights Campaign, also mobilized after Friday's decision, calling members of Congress to emphasize that the decision would not affect federal marriage benefits or a federal law that allows states to refuse to recognize each other's same-sex unions. Supporters of the amendment countered that New York State Supreme Court Judge Doris Ling-Cohan cited the Massachusetts ruling, demonstrating that judicial decisions in one state echo in other states. more posted by Eve at 3:05 PM | link 0 comments
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
MOMS AND DADS: Maggie Gallagher
More evidence that gay marriage advocates feel obliged to deconstruct the idea that mothers and fathers matter. Most curious of all is the evolution of the term "traditional family." In the New York Times, it now means any family that is not gay. (Since Patterson's latest study, referred to below, actually compares children living with a gay parent who lives with a romantic partner, to children living with a heterosexual mother who lives with a man, whether married, remarried or unmarried). Only in America! NYT piece here. posted by Eve at 6:30 PM | link 0 comments
MARRIAGE AS NORM: Mark Barton replies to Maggie Gallagher
Maggie writes: You seem to be moving on some underlying logic like "marriage is a moral issue. What else is a moral issue?" No. My line of thought is: Maggie says, 'For me the question of what SSM will do to marriage is primary. [...] I don't see marriage as a "right." I see it as a "norm" and a social institution, which means it has to have substantive content.' But this makes no sense at all--in general there is no necessary contradiction between something being a right and something being a norm. On the contrary, enshrining something as a right is often a necessary first step to making it a norm. Maggie writes: The norm I'm supporting is that most children should be born to OK. It's a start, but a measure of how incomplete and vague it is is that I can happily sign on to it even though we have radically different views. It's incomplete in that it doesn't even cover all the major, substantive, marriage-related things that we know you want, such as most children being brought up by married couples. More importantly, it's vague in that it's at best an it-would-be-nice-if claim. It doesn't have any substance except to the extent that it implies a set of responsibilities for individuals in different circumstances, and a system of carrots and sticks to ensure that they fulfill their responsibilities in acceptable numbers. Hopefully there is a fact of the matter as to what you think people's responsibilities are, and how much carrot and stick it is reasonable to apply. Of course, in your previous post, you seemed to be suggesting that we could get to the ideal more or less entirely through enlightened self-interest, with no coercion or disapproval. But that doesn't pass the giggle test. First, it's certainly not how things worked in the old days, when every form of coercion up to and including a shotgun was used to enforce marriage norms. Second, it's implausible that a high level of conformity could be achieved today without similarly large sticks, given that the urge to have sex with little thought to consequences and the hatred for a spouse who has become tedious are two of the most powerful of human emotions. Third, it's certainly not something you're serious about, when you propose legally preventing same-sex couples from getting married. In particular, it's not at all clear how your formulation above implies any responsibilities for same-sex couples at all. For a fairly obvious sense of "be born to", no children can possibly be born to same-sex couples, married or unmarried, so same-sex couples being allowed to marry, or choosing to marry can't possibly have any direct effect on whether the goal is met. If there is to be any effect, it must be something indirect involving the attitudes of opposite-sex couples, and indeed you've often alluded to such a thing. But again, this makes no sense at all. If there were anything to it, there would have to be many straight couples that, if pumped full of truth serum and asked, would say, "Oh, we never thought to get married because of all those gays and lesbians getting married." But the sane response to that is not "How appalling! We must stamp out same-sex marriage!" but, "What an unbelievably lame excuse! If you're planning to have kids, or place yourself at a significant risk of having kids, then you have a responsibility to be there for them, quite regardless of whether gay people formalize and protect their relationships by getting married." posted by Eve at 5:53 PM | link 0 comments
HOW PRIVACY WENT PUBLIC: James Taranto
Last week a state judge held that New York City's refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates the constitutional right to privacy. When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court mandated the recognition of same-sex marriage in 2003, it too cited the right to privacy. Whatever the merits of gay marriage, this is a case of judicial activism run amok, for the contemporary right to privacy has its roots precisely in the traditional definition of marriage. "Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives?" Justice William O. Douglas asked rhetorically in the 1965 U.S. Supreme Court case of Griswold v. Connecticut. Then he answered: "The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship." But the court did not long confine those "notions of privacy" to "the marriage relationship." In less than a decade it expanded the right of marital privacy into a right of reproductive privacy. In Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) the court held that unmarried couples have the same right as married ones to obtain and use contraceptives, and the following year, in Roe v. Wade, the justices declared that the right to privacy includes abortion. ...In Planned Parenthood v. Casey--a decision for which Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter claimed joint authorship--the court essentially upheld Roe, while asserting a new, breathtakingly expansive formulation of the right to privacy. "Intimate and personal choices," the justices wrote, are "central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." more posted by Eve at 5:29 PM | link 0 comments
NY CHIEF JUDGE ASKS LEGISLATURE TO CONSIDER NO-FAULT DIVORCE: From the New York Times
Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye called on the Legislature on Monday to consider passing a no-fault divorce law, warning that New York's cumbersome process for divorce may be "hurting children" and further embittering estranged couples. ... New York is one of a few states without some form of one-step no-fault divorce, partly the result of years of opposition from some women's rights groups, the Catholic Church, legislators, and others who believe that easier divorces and quick settlements might harm one spouse--often women--who have historically earned less money or have not worked outside the home. Yet Judge Kaye, who leads the Court of Appeals and oversees New York's judiciary, argued in her speech that a "fair" compromise should be possible to dissolve marriages that are obviously over, protect the rights of both spouses, and aid victims of domestic violence who may find themselves trapped if their spouses evade fault or refuse to grant a divorce. She also called for appointing more judges to the heavily burdened Family Court system. Judge Kaye also said that "consensus has built" in New York for no-fault divorce--including an endorsement last year from the Women's Bar Association, which reversed its early opposition (and which counts Judge Kaye as a member). "After long and careful reflection," Judge Kaye said, "I, too, have come to see that requiring strict 'fault' grounds may well simply intensify the bitterness between the parties--wasting resources, hurting children, driving residents to other states for a divorce and delaying the inevitable dissolution of the marriage." more posted by Eve at 5:23 PM | link 0 comments
LAWSUIT CHALLENGES ANN ARBOR, MICH. DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIPS: From the Associated Press
The first post-Proposal 2 legal challenge to same-sex benefits could be considered sooner than expected. A religious law center and 17 taxpayers are asking the Michigan Court of Appeals to stop the Ann Arbor Public Schools from providing same-sex benefits. In court papers, they cite the November constitutional amendment known as Proposal 2, which says the union between a man and a woman "shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose." The lawsuit was filed in 2003, before Proposal 2 passed, but the Thomas More Law Center wants the constitutional amendment considered in its appeal. Patrick Gillen, an attorney with the Ann Arbor-based Christian law group, said Proposal 2 prevents public employers from giving same-sex benefits because such a policy recognizes a relationship similar to marriage. "It is akin to marriage," Gillen told The Associated Press on Monday. "The Ann Arbor Public Schools can't recognize same-sex marriages by calling them domestic partnerships." more posted by Eve at 5:20 PM | link 0 comments
PROSPECTS DIM FOR VA. CHURCH-PROPERTY BILL: From the Washington Post
The Virginia Senate on Monday effectively killed a bill that opponents said would put Virginia government in the middle of a dispute over the consecration of gay clergy in the Episcopal Church. The bill, sponsored by Sen. William C. Mims (R-Loudoun), would have allowed local church congregations that vote to leave their denominations to keep their buildings and property, unless a legally binding document, such as a deed, specified otherwise. Most mainline denominations now prohibit dissenting congregations from leaving the fold and taking their property -- an arrangement that has been upheld by the Supreme Court in all but a few extraordinary cases since 1979. Opponents said the measure would have allowed congregations roiled over gay clergy and gay marriage to more easily break away. They contended it targeted the Episcopal Church, which has been especially rent over the issues since clergy voted to consecrate a gay bishop in New Hampshire in 2003. Because of existing treatment of property, however, few discontented congregations have actually left the Episcopal Church USA but instead have formed a network of dissenting churches within the denomination. ... Mims, a lawyer who specializes in church law, has said his bill was not intended to put the General Assembly in the middle of a touchy national debate. Instead, he said, it was meant to rectify what he felt was the constitutionally unsound notion that courts should look to church law when deciding how to dispose of property in congregational disputes. more posted by Eve at 5:16 PM | link 0 comments
VA HOUSE PASSES MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: From the Washington Post
The House of Delegates passed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage Tuesday, despite a warning from the state's first openly gay legislator that the measure will one day shame the state as slavery and racial segregation laws did. ... "Today is one of those moments for which we shall one day be ashamed," said Del. Adam P. Ebbin, D-Alexandria, elected in 2003 by voters who knew he was gay. "I cannot stand by as this body continues to use gays and lesbians as scapegoats." He likened them to slavery, the forced Trail of Tears migration for Indians, lynchings, anti-miscegenation laws and Massive Resistance, Virginia's official effort to thwart court-ordered public school desegregation. "You may argue that these are different, but I would say that discrimination is discrimination is discrimination," Ebbin said. ... The House rejected an amendment by Del. James M. Scott, D-Fairfax County, that would have left the ban against gay marriage intact but eliminate provisions that would also prohibit civil unions or contractual agreements between two people of the same sex that approximate the privileges of marriage. ... Virginia voters, however, could vote on the measure no sooner than November of 2006. To amend Virginia's constitution, a resolution must pass the General Assembly twice with a legislative election in between before it is put to a statewide referendum. more posted by Eve at 5:14 PM | link 0 comments
VA SENATE BACKS MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: From the Washington Post
The Virginia Senate passed a resolution Monday calling for an amendment to the state Constitution that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, in an effort to permanently prohibit same-sex unions. ... Similar legislation is expected to pass in the House of Delegates on Tuesday. [It did--see above. --Eve] To become part of the constitution, the proposal must pass the General Assembly again during the next legislative session and then must win approval from the state's voters in November 2006. The marriage amendment resolutions are among many measures this year that address the issue of marriage and the rights of gays in the state. Lawmakers in the House have passed a measure to allow motorists to request a license plate supporting "Traditional Marriage." The House gave preliminary approval Monday to a measure mandating that background investigations of Virginians seeking to adopt children include the question of whether the applicants are practicing homosexuals. Before expressing support for Senate Joint Resolution 337 by a vote of 30 to 10 Monday, senators conducted an emotional debate in which some Democrats invoked the memory of the Holocaust -- when thousands of homosexuals were among the 11 million people the Nazis killed -- to urge its defeat. In the Senate's version, marriage would be defined as a union between a man and a woman, and legal relationships that approximate marriage also would be off limits. That would make civil unions and domestic partnerships between same-sex couples unconstitutional. ... Sen. Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax) recounted a recent visit to the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond and an exhibit that showed Nazi concentration camp prisoners, forced to wear pink triangles on their dirty uniforms as a mark that they were gay. "In Virginia today, we do not require pink triangles," she said. "We stigmatize and marginalize people in other ways, as we go down a path that we do not know where it will end." more posted by Eve at 5:08 PM | link 0 comments
THE MAYOR AND GAY MARRIAGE: NYTimes editorial
...Gay couples should be free to marry, but marriage is an important enough institution that all of society has an interest in defining it carefully. One lower court judge -- or one small-town mayor, as in the case of New Paltz, N.Y., last year -- cannot single-handedly rewrite a state's marriage law. And gay couples should not be lured to New York City to have weddings that could turn out to have no legal standing. ... It is easy to dismiss as insignificant the mayor's announcement that he supports gay marriage -- coming in tandem, as it did, with the appeal. But it could carry weight in the State Legislature, which, ideally, will make the decision to allow gay marriage, or in the courts. If the Court of Appeals takes up the issue, a key legal question will be whether the state has a legitimate reason for denying gay couples the freedom to marry. Having the mayor of the state's largest city stand up as Mr. Bloomberg did should be powerful evidence that it does not. more posted by Eve at 5:03 PM | link 0 comments
PICKING GAY OR NAY: ONE JUDGE IS KEY TO NEW YORK CASE: From the New York Post, of course
Legalization of gay marriage in New York could come down to just one man--brainy, moderately conservative Court of Appeals Judge Albert Rosenblatt, legal scholars told The Post. If the explosive case reaches the state's sharply divided top court, as Mayor Bloomberg and others expect, court watchers say Rosenblatt--a Harvard Law School grad and longtime jurist who was appointed to the state's top court by Gov. Pataki in 1998--could hold the key. more posted by Eve at 4:59 PM | link 0 comments
NYC WILL REQUEST A QUICK DECISION ON GAY MARRIAGE: From the New York Times
Lawyers for New York City said yesterday that they would ask the state's highest court to review as quickly as possible a ruling that gay couples should be allowed to marry. Today, the city plans to file its appeal of a state judge's decision on Friday that New York law violates gay couples' constitutional rights. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has said he personally supports gay marriage, announced Saturday that the city would appeal the ruling, by Justice Doris Ling-Cohan of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, saying it was legally incorrect. The city's appeal, at least for now, shut down the prospect, raised by the ruling, that gay couples from across the country would come to New York to marry. more posted by Eve at 4:55 PM | link 0 comments
CT LEGISLATORS BACK CIVIL UNIONS, DESPITE OBJECTIONS: From the Hartford Courant
State lawmakers said Monday that they plan to push ahead with civil union legislation over the strenuous objections of gay marriage supporters. "Clearly, we have the votes for civil unions," said state Sen. Andrew McDonald, a Stamford Democrat and co-chairman of the judiciary committee. "Do we have the votes to get to the next level? My guess is we don't at this juncture." Legislative support for civil unions is building despite opposition from Love Makes a Family, an influential coalition of gay rights groups. During a packed public hearing on the topic Monday, Love Makes A Family President Anne Stanback told legislators that she appreciates their willingness to act on civil unions, but that the only acceptable outcome is marriage. ... Underscoring her point, several same-sex couples testified that they view marriage as a signal that they are equal to their heterosexual counterparts. Both bills before the committee deal with marriage, not civil unions. One would legalize gay nuptials in Connecticut, the other would grant state recognition to same-sex marriages performed in Canada, Massachusetts and other places where such unions have been legalized. more posted by Eve at 4:48 PM | link 0 comments
Monday, February 07, 2005
CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES OF SSM: Prof. Jack Balkin
[Again, check out the comments-boxing. I'm cutting this so sharply because I don't think edits would do justice to the argument, so you should click through and read the whole post. --Eve] This is a follow up to my previous post about the New York State case, Hernandez v. Robles, in which I argued that the trial court did not make the best possible arguments for its position. In order to explain why that is so, let me offer five different legal theories of why states cannot limit marriage to opposite sex couples. None of these theories is perfect; each has its strengths and weaknesses. Viewing them together one can see the choices that courts will have to make in upholding the rights of same-sex couples. My guess is that if the Hernandez case is upheld on appeal, the New York Court of Appeals will choose one of these five theories. more posted by Eve at 4:44 PM | link 0 comments
NY SAME-SEX MARRIAGE CASE: Prof. Jack Balkin
[Vigorous comments-boxing as well, much worth your time. --Eve] ...Hernandez is a puzzling case on two counts. First, the Due Process argument is that the right of privacy under the New York State Constitution includes a right to marry, which the Court says is the right to choose whom to marry. But the problem is that this would undermine state laws regarding incest and polygamy as well, and the court makes no attempt to distinguish those cases from the case of same-sex marriage. Indeed, at one point in the opinion (p. 45), the court uses the example of polygamy to show that marriage has meant different things at different times and in different places. Perhaps the court really means to say that as applied to same sex couples, the state has provided no compelling reasons for restricting who may marry, leaving to another day the question of whether there would be compelling reasons in cases of incest and polygamy. But if that is the holding of Hernandez-- and perhaps it is the best reading of the case-- the point is nowhere clearly expressed. And what is puzzling about the opinion is that the court does not even seem to spot the difficulty. ... I strongly support same sex marriage, but my decided preference is for legislatures to adopt reform of the marriage laws rather than have courts impose the reform. If courts are going to get involved, I greatly prefer the approach of the Vermont Supreme Court in Baker v. State-- hold that the current law is unconstitutional, explain the rough contours of the constitutional principles that a statute would have to satisfy, and send the issue to the legislature to come up with a solution. That is not the same thing as having the legislature take the issue up on its own, but it does have the advantage of giving the result some degree of democratic ratification. My view is that this is probably what the U.S. Supreme Court should have done in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton as well. For this reason, I would argue that if the New York Court of Appeals decides to uphold this case (although it will have to be on different grounds), it should reverse the trial court's remedy and give the New York Legislature 90 days to come up with a statutory solution. more posted by Eve at 4:39 PM | link 0 comments
PLEADING THE FOURTEENTH: Austin Bramwell
...It isn't true that only a constitutional amendment can stop the courts from imposing gay marriage. On the contrary, Congress can stop the gay-marriage movement cold by passing a simple statute. That statute need say nothing more than "No State shall define marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman." Surprising as it may at first seem, Congress derives the power to pass such a statute from the Fourteenth Amendment. The argument goes as follows: Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment gives Congress "the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." It is well-settled that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry. States may not violate this right by redefining marriage as something other than it really is. Therefore, Congress can pass a statute underscoring the correct definition of marriage. ... ...Thus far, most courts and mainstream legal scholars would agree with the foregoing line of reasoning: there is a right to marry, states cannot violate this right by ignoring the essential nature of marriage, therefore, Congress has some discretion to impose a national definition of marriage. Where courts and scholars might differ is in how much discretion Congress actually has. ... The court will therefore do whatever it can to avoid compelling the whole nation to recognize same-sex marriage. The beauty of a statute defining marriage as between a man and a woman is that it will force the issue upon the court. The justices know that they cannot impose gay marriage; they could not, however, overturn a statute defining marriage as between a man and a woman without also holding that marriage is not necessarily between a man and a woman. From the point of view of gay-marriage proponents, the court would be caught between the Scylla of upholding the traditional definition of marriage and the Charybdis of provoking an enormous popular backlash by rejecting that traditional definition. more posted by Eve at 4:33 PM | link 0 comments
THE RIGHT TO MARRY, OR NOT TO MARRY, IS THE ISSUE AMONG CANADA'S GAYS: From the New York Times
...But an odd thing is happening--or not happening. Only an estimated 4,500 couples--up to a quarter of them from the United States and other countries--have tied the knot in Canada since the first decision, by an Ontario appeals court in June 2003, opened the door. About twice as many gay and lesbian couples married in San Francisco and Massachusetts over a much shorter period last year. In fact, the gay and lesbian marriage rate has been falling in Canada over the last year, after an initial burst of weddings, and it is not for lack of candidates. In the 2001 census, 34,200 same-sex couples registered as permanent partners. What the availability of marriage has produced instead, it seems, is second thoughts among gays themselves about the value of marriage. Some activists say it will take time for gays and lesbians to get used to the idea that they can marry, and they note that childless couples have no incentive to rush. But others contend that marriage just isn't that appealing. "Do we want to be like everyone else, behind a white picket fence?" asked Rinaldo Walcott, a sociologist at the University of Toronto. The answer for Mr. Walcott is a defiant no; he warns that marriage could water down gay culture and even provoke tensions between those willing to assimilate into the broader community and those who will not. "Marriage is not a priority," he said, quickly adding that on human rights grounds he was not opposed to legislation that would expand the choices open to gays and lesbians. ... For some activists who say the gay population has already established its own culture, marriage and its conventions might as well come from a different planet. Infidelity, for instance, is a word that Mitchel Raphael, the editor in chief of one gay magazine, Fab, writes in quotation marks. The words "marriage" and "family," he writes, are "straight jargon." "As the gay community adopts mainstream terms," he wrote in a Fab editorial, "it will be a challenge to see whether they will twist their traditional definitions or simply fall victim to their traditional meanings." In the case of "infidelity," he continued, "What happens when one half of a married gay couple in the midst of a bitter divorce tells the judge that they had an arrangement that both could go to bathhouses, but not coffee dates?" more posted by Eve at 4:29 PM | link 0 comments
KANSAS MARRIAGE AMENDMENT RAISES SLEW OF LEGAL QUESTIONS: From the Lawrence Journal World
...Will gays be barred from visiting their partners in a hospital emergency room? What would happen if a lesbian couple is raising the child of one of the partners from a previous marriage, and the biological mother becomes terminally ill and wants the child raised by her longtime partner? And would the amendment affect other relationships outside of marriage? Constitutional lawyers disagree about the answers to those questions -- and that could lead to drawn-out litigation if voters approve the amendment. "It invites government by the judiciary," Bill Rich, a law professor at Washburn University, told lawmakers during a hearing on the measure. He said the amendment was a violation of the U.S. Constitution. But amendment supporter Kris Kobach, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said many of the arguments against the measure were "red herrings." "The Kansas amendment would not put homosexuals in a different position than they already are," said Kobach, a conservative Republican who recently ran an unsuccessful campaign against U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan. ... Section B states: "No relationship, other than marriage, shall be recognized by the state as entitling the parties to the rights or incidents of marriage." What if a single parent assigned guardianship of his or her son to a sibling? Would the provision also prohibit a private company from extending insurance benefits to the partners of gay employees? These kinds of issues are being litigated in other states with similar bans, including Nebraska. Rich said the provision was so vague that it would "only become meaningful when a panel of judges tells us what it means." But Kobach said no court would construe the provision to affect other relationships. And he said the state would have no authority to prevent private employee contracts where benefits could be extended to workers' partners. Gays and lesbians, he added, can protect their rights of inheritance and powers of attorney through private contracts and wills. more posted by Eve at 4:25 PM | link 0 comments
GAY-MARRIAGE DEBATE IS DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD FOR NY MAYOR: From the NY Times
...A court ruling against the city on Friday making gay marriage legal in the five boroughs threw Mr. Bloomberg and his election team their first real test of the campaign season. To forgo an appeal would have been to pave the way for a wave of gay marriages in New York City, which would certainly hurt Mr. Bloomberg--a longtime Democrat who only became a Republican four years ago--in a likely primary against two conservative challengers. But to appeal would be to anger not only politically powerful gay voters, but also heterosexual voters who approve of same-sex marriage. Mr. Bloomberg's solution, to pledge support for gay marriage while also announcing that the city would appeal the judge's decision to ensure that a higher court is in agreement with it, drew criticism yesterday from those on both sides of the debate. But even opponents said he seemed to have bought himself some time--though how much remains unclear. ... Mr. Bloomberg and his aides found out Thursday night what the rest of the city would learn the next day: that Justice Doris Ling-Cohan of State Supreme Court had decided that the state's nearly 100-year-old law defining marriage as between a man and a woman violated its Constitution. She gave the city 30 days before it had to issue marriage licenses to gay couples requesting them. Ed Skyler, a spokesman for the mayor, said city lawyers, who were defending the city in a lawsuit brought by five same-sex couples, wanted to appeal immediately. He said they thought that state law was clear and that the latest decision contradicted other rulings upholding the law forbidding gay marriages. ... What convinced Mr. Bloomberg to authorize the appeal, Mr. Skyler said, were his lawyers' arguments that the city should avoid what happened last year in San Francisco after its mayor, Gavin Newsom, issued thousands of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. A state court nullified them a few months later. "No one has written the story about how devastated people were when the California court came back and said those marriage licenses didn't mean anything," said Jonathan Capehart, an informal adviser with whom Mr. Bloomberg consulted late last week. Mr. Capehart said that the thrust of his advice to the mayor was, "Whatever you do, you must come out for gay marriage." He added, "I knew he was for it, so it was like, if you're going to say something, now's the time to say it--especially if you're going to appeal." more posted by Eve at 4:21 PM | link 0 comments
DIVISION OVER CT CIVIL UNIONS: From the Hartford Courant
Gay marriage, civil union or domestic partnership--Ray Dunlop doesn't care what you call it. All that matters to him is getting his partner of 18 years covered under his health insurance policy. "We're not looking to walk down the aisle," said Dunlop, a retired IRS agent who divides his time between Meriden and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "I just want to be able to get some medical coverage for my partner." For the first time in Connecticut, his goal could be within reach. Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have thrown their support behind civil unions, legal arrangements that offer same-sex couples almost all of the protections of marriage. But standing in the way is an unlikely opponent: the state's gay rights establishment. Gay and lesbian leaders have decided that settling for anything short of marriage, such as civil unions, would be an unacceptable compromise. They will make their case at a hearing before the legislature's judiciary committee today. "We don't want a separate system that says our families are not as good as everyone else's," said Anne Stanback, president of Love Makes a Family, a coalition of groups backing equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. Stanback says the movement has come too far to turn back. She pointed to two recent developments in neighboring states: Friday's ruling, which for now applies only to New York City, by a New York state judge that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, and a similar decision in Massachusetts that has resulted in thousands of gay marriages since June. more posted by Eve at 4:14 PM | link 0 comments
UNMARRIED BRITISH FAMILIES ARE MORE LIKELY TO FALL APART: From the Times of London
THREE QUARTERS of all family breakdowns affecting young children now involve unmarried parents, new research suggests. The findings indicate that family breakdown is no longer driven by divorce, but by the collapse of unmarried partnerships. An estimated 88,000 children aged under 5 were affected by the separation of their unmarried parents in 2003, compared with about 31,000 children under 5 whose married parents divorced, the research concludes. According to the 2001 census, 59 per cent of households with children are married, 11 per cent are co-habiting and 22 per cent lone parent families. The study is likely to provoke heated discussion among family policy specialists. While it argues for the Government to do more actively to promote marriage, critics say that encouraging parents who do not want to marry to do so simply does not work. ... Penny Mansfield, director of One Plus One, said that Britain appeared to have reached a watershed in the way families were forming. Whereas couples in previous generations did their courting, got married and had children in that order, nowadays growing numbers were having children first and only then deciding whether to remain in a couple relationship. "The problem with this approach is that having children generally destabilises a relationship. If you are trying to figure out whether to form a partnership in the early years after having a child, it's a bit like pedalling uphill," she said. "What we have lost is the idea that at the heart of marriage there is a link between parents which is of value of itself. That link would then cradle the upbringing of children. Maybe we need to rediscover this link in this new world of equality," Ms Mansfield said. Kathleen Kiernan, Professor of Social Policy and Demography at York University, accepted that children of cohabiting parents could be disadvantaged. They were more likely to live in different de facto step-family arrangements because their parents were more likely to split up than married parents. "We know that the more transitions, or experiences like this, that children have, the more detrimental it is to their wellbeing," she said. Ms Kiernan rejected policies promoting marriage, arguing that the Government's focus on the child, rather than the nature of the parental relationship, was the best approach. "There is no strong evidence that encouraging cohabitants to marry will enhance the durability of their union," she said. more posted by Eve at 4:10 PM | link 0 comments
MASS. RESIDENTS REJECT SSM VOTE: From BusinessWire
Overview of Bay State Poll -- A majority (51.5%) of Massachusetts' residents oppose even the idea of the state legislature placing a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage on the 2006 election ballot. more posted by Eve at 4:02 PM | link 0 comments
"FATHERS" CAUGHT IN LEGISLATIVE LOOPHOLE: From the Tallahassee Democrat
You have a relationship. You have a child. You split up. The father pays child support. It's not a perfect system, but it's reality for countless men. And here's another reality: Some of those men aren't the biological fathers of the kids they're supporting. Quincy resident Tony Winbush is one of them. He made his child-support payments month after month, year after year--until he discovered through DNA testing that he wasn't actually the biological father of the child. The same thing happened to Bobby Rhames, also of Quincy. Incensed, they wanted to stop those payments. But Florida law gave them little reason for hope. Generally, it requires that child support continue until the child's 18th birthday, regardless of who the biological father is. Now, two state lawmakers from Tallahassee are researching a bill that would make it easier for people such as Winbush and Rhames to end their child support. Eleven states, including Georgia, have changed those laws since 1994. But some people worry that what's best for the children is overlooked in this debate. Fatherhood is about more than biology, they say. ... Levine, who has a degree in child development, said if the father's feelings change toward the child, the emotional impact on the child could be "absolutely devastating." ... Paula Roberts of the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C., said paternity challenges, children born out of wedlock and infidelity in marriages say "terrible things" about the state of parenting. "We've divorced marriage, parenting and childbearing from each other," she said. "Instead of a cluster of events, we see them as separate events. That does not bode well for children." more posted by Eve at 3:58 PM | link 0 comments
CT DEBATE ON SAME-SEX UNIONS RESUMES: From the Associated Press
The battle over same-sex unions is set to resume at the state Capitol and gay rights activists say this session they want the big prize: marriage. Anne Stanback, president of Love Makes a Family, said her group has no plans to lobby for civil unions--a legal institution parallel to marriage. She said it makes no sense considering gay and lesbian couples in neighboring Massachusetts can say "I do." ... The first salvo in this year's debate in Connecticut is to be fired on Monday. That is when the legislature's Judiciary Committee is expected to hold a public hearing on two bills: one revamping the state's marriage laws to include same-sex couples and another recognizing the same-sex unions of Connecticut couples who got married in Massachusetts, Canada and elsewhere. This marks the fourth consecutive session that state lawmakers have either held hearings on the same-sex marriage issue or debated proposed legislation. But this year is slightly different because there is a lawsuit hovering over the legislature. Last August, seven gay and lesbian couples from around the state sued in New Haven Superior Court after being denied marriage licenses in Madison. The couples are being represented by New England's Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders or GLAD, which successfully represented plaintiffs in Massachusetts. The lawsuit led to a court ruling ordering that state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex residents in May. Those familiar with the Connecticut case say it could take about three years to wind its way through the courts. more posted by Eve at 3:55 PM | link 0 comments
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