Did you hear about that ABC news experiment?

They sent an actress playing a waitress into a Texas diner. Then they sent in same sex couples with children. The "waitress" didn't like that. THe question was, what about the other patrons?

Republican allies in MN

Rep Kriesel, a veteran, gets it. Would that more did.

Bloomberg on Marriage

Mayor Bloomberg in New York has stepped it up.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, declaring that “near-equality is no equality” for gay couples, delivered an uncharacteristically forceful and sweeping speech on Thursday in which he called on New York to “lead the American journey forward” by legalizing same-sex marriage this year.

Directly addressing an issue that is roiling the State Legislature in the final weeks of its annual session, Mr. Bloomberg said that the state’s inaction on same-sex marriage was incompatible with its long history of promoting freedom and tolerance. He invoked the riot at the Stonewall Inn in the West Village almost 42 years ago, widely viewed as the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement, as an example of the role that New Yorkers can play in shaping history.

“We are the freest city in the freest country in the world — but freedom is not frozen in time,” he told a crowd of about 200 at the Cooper Union in downtown Manhattan.

The article goes on to point out that Bloomberg is a major campaign donor to the Republicans in the state house in Albany.

Equality, the Roman Catholics, and Religious Freedom

One of the current arguments against equality is that allowing LGBT people to marry in their own faith tradition, is an unacceptable transgression against the religious freedom of those who oppose equality.

An analogy is that letting me eat a ham sandwich is an unacceptable transgression against the religious freedom of orthodox Judaism. Since I'm not forcing any orthodox Jew to eat a ham sandwich, it's not clear how his freedom is in any way impinged.

Writing in the HuffPo, Marrianne Duddy-Burke , an equality supporter, callsout the RC Bishops for the selective hypocrisy of their opposition:

[T]he bishops of my church and their allies have demonstrated no interest in reconciliation. Rather, they have taken an uncompromising stand based on principles that they readily ignore at other times, and blurred the distinction between freedom and entitlement in troubling ways.

To be taken seriously, appeals to religious freedom must be rooted in consistent teaching and practice. The arguments advanced by opponents of marriage equality do not meet this standard.The Catholic Church, for instance, recognizes only marriages conducted under its own auspices. It does not recognize marriage after divorce, unless the partner seeking to remarry has obtained an annulment. By Catholic standards, then, most of the marriages in this country are null and void.

Yet the bishops, bankrolled in large measure by the Knights of Columbus, have spent millions of dollars to keep gay and lesbian couples and their children from achieving equality under American law, while maintaining a discreet silence about the rights of heterosexuals whose marriages do not conform to church teaching. It is easy to grasp the political reality that informs this strategy: gays and lesbians are few, while what the church regards as unsanctioned marriages are legion. But in deploying arguments rooted in religious liberty only when they are politically advantageous, the bishops have diminished the currency in which they trade.

RC doctrine considers divorced-remarried people to be living in a state of adultery. But you do not hear the bishops calling to abolish civil marriages between such people. As Andrew Sullivan wrote some time back,

Catholics, for example, accept the word marriage to describe civil marriages that are second marriages, even though their own faith teaches them that those marriages don't actually exist as such. But most Catholics are able to set theological beliefs to one side and accept a theological untruth as a civil fact. ..... Catholics can tolerate fellow citizens who are not Catholic calling their non-marriages marriages - because Catholics have already accepted a civil-religious distinction. They can wear both hats in the public square.

In a somewhat different route to the same conclusion, equality opponent and theologian Tim Muldoon writes,

Christians are at a Gamaliel moment with gay marriage, meaning that we must relinquish the legal battle in order to refocus on the moral one. ….

[I]nstead of targeting gays, we must turn the focus on ourselves and ask why our impoverished understanding of marriage has led to widespread non-marital sex, divorce, cohabitation, adultery, and general misery—especially for children, teens, and young adults.

Coming from opposite sides of the battle, both of these voices call out the hypocrisy of scapegoating gays for broader questions. They call for the Roman Catholic Bishops to be morally consistent in how they apply civil law to doctrine. ALthough ironically, the Roman Catholic laity are amongst the strongest supporters of equality.

Perhaps we can try to move to a time when we do allow true religious freedom--where the Episcopalians are as free to marry a gay couple as the Roman Catholics are free to refuse. But right now, we are all unwilling Roman Catholics.

Why it matters: losing the house (video Sunday)

Voices of Faith Speak Out: Presbyterian Church

Recently, the Presbyterian Church voted to allow openly gay and lesbian people to be candidates for ordination. Writing in the LA Times, the Rev. Randall Tremba describes a candidate for ordination and comments:

I don't know what swayed every vote, but I know what made the difference for me. It was one crucial question: "Would Jesus ever call a 25-year, faithful relationship of love and care unholy?" For many of us, the answer was obvious.

After the vote, my anxieties vanished, replaced by great joy. The reflections and conversations around Sally's ordination had vanquished our collective anxieties. We came out of it feeling that our decision was indeed a celebration of God's infinite love....

The decision triggered amazing things at our church. Yes, a few members left. But many estranged believers and formerly "un-churched" people have walked through the door. Our Sunday school is bursting at the seams. Our youth group keeps growing. The congregation is proud to be part of a church that is open and affirming. We have added staff and undertaken several building projects.

So, to pastors and others who dread the consequences of openly gay and lesbian people serving as ministers, elders and deacons, I would simply say: This is a sacred moment, and a time for rejoicing. The church's action last week recognized an important teaching from the book of Galatians: "We are all one in Jesus Christ."

Boies and Olson on Prop8

Attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies discussed the Prop8 case recently. While they want to restore marriage in California, their goal has always been to take the case to the US Supreme Court and legalize marriage for all Americans. Ironically, the question of standing might limit their options to do so.

Of course, marriage for all is better than marriage for some, but marriage for some is better than marriage for none.

From the HuffPo:

There is, legal experts say, a distinct possibility the Court could determine that there is no one qualified to defend the state's interests in arguing that Prop 8 should not have been struck down. Both the governor and the attorney general have refused to do so. If that's the case, then Walker's overturn becomes de facto law. That would be a victory for gay rights advocates, but a narrow one. While it would likely allow for same-sex marriage in California, it would not address marriage in other states.

"We set out to overturn Prop 8 so that hundreds of thousands of millions will be living under a regime in which Prop 8 does not exist and that kind of discrimination does not occur," said Olson. "We would love to have a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court striking it down on its merits but we don't have any choice."....

Boies, for his part, reiterated that the ultimate objective was to get a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court determining that any law abridging marriage was an infringement on the equal protection. If that were to happen, he said, "the issue would be fully resolved," across all states.

"The fundamental issue is that this is not something that ought to be decided politically," he said during the briefing. "It’s very encouraging to all of us that there is this shift in public opinion [in favor of same-sex marriage]. Even in the absence of opinion in public, the fact of the matter is the constitutional protections are clear."

The article goes on to point out that there are no other obvious cases as potentially as useful as CA, if they were to need to relitigate this issue.

But of course, it's entirely possible the Supreme Court would find against us (I don't trust them at all) and then we'd all be screwed.

I'll take a win, any time.

What's wrong with the Midwest?

Some scary stuff is happening in the Midwest Statehouses. Oh, you've heard about the union bashing in Wisconsin, and the financial martial law in Michigan that allows the state government to take over cities and you may think it's just Tea Party Fiscal Libertarianism run amok. But the Tea Party is just an extreme example of the Christian Right, and they are assaulting LGBT rights as well.

• In Michigan, there is a Constitutional Amendment forbidding equality. Still, to remain competitive, Michigan's universities and civil service have offered domestic partner benefits to their employees. This has drawn the ire of the Republicans. They were unable to overturn this policy so now they have offered a law to penalize colleges and universities who dare to have such benefits.
• In Wisconsin, union-busting Gov Scott Walker is not satisfied with his attempts to hand the state over to his cronies and the Koch Brothers. Now, he wants to make sure that LGBT people can't visit their partners in the hospital, or have any of the other paltry rights of a very minimal domestic partnership registry. AmericanBlog reminds us that even the Federal Government has established policies to ensure hospital visitation. But not, apparently, in Wisconsin
• In MInnesota, the Republican-dominated Senate has passed a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same sex marriages; the House seems likely to follow. The only good news is that the Minnesota public opposes such an amendment

I thought it was about the economy and jobs? Nope, the Tea Baggers and the Republicans would rather bash the gays to rile up the base. SO much easier than coming up with a coherent economic policy.

Just "friends"....?

It's very clear that the opposition to marriage in part comes from the unwillingness of the anti's to admit that we are the same as they are, that we feel the same as they do, and that there is nothing really and substantively different in the emotions of love. This is why they try to reduce our relationships to mere sex, which they can cast as icky, rather than acknowledging the depth and meaning of real relationship.

David Link writes,

Those who argue that homosexuality is a choice view us, and view our relationships, as friendships either perverted or at best gone wrong. ...

You don’t hear that kind of language from our supporters any more. Only our opponents are clinging to that outmoded notion of choice. They think the whole debate over same-sex relationships is about our choice of friends. They still can’t, or won’t, imagine that the flood of emotions and connections that they recognize as love can occur between two people of the same sex. I’m sure that a lot of them don’t even think it’s demeaning to our relationships to view them as falling within the kind of choices we make about our friends. They want us to have friends. They just refuse to believe that the powerful and mysterious forces they remember and/or experience with love can happen, for some people, with members of their own sex, and are every bit as gratifying and amazing — are, in fact, the same thing they know so well.

And Andrew Sullivan follows up,

This reminds me of a social occasion when Aaron and I bumped into former Senator George Allen. I introduced Aaron (not without extreme pleasure) as my husband. Allen asked where we had gotten married. When I said Massachusetts, he said: "So you all are trying to export marriage from Massachusetts to here." Nope, I said, because we cannot (this was before DC's marriage law came into effect). I then asked Allen why he would object to a committed, legally protected relationship in the first place. He answered, memorably, "I just want you to be friends."

Can you imagine anyone saying that a straight married couple?

But really, it all comes back to the "ickiness" that straight people feel about gay sex. Because they can't imagine wanting to do that, they assume that who we are is somehow defined by that. And at times I despair. Even though marriage equality has been the law in the Netherlands for 10 years, about half of the Dutch still are bothered by two men kissing in public.

And i don't understand it. If I see two people kissing, whether two men, or two women, or a straight couple, I think it's sweet.

Civil Union Bait and Switch: it's not the same

In Rhode Island, they don't have the votes for marriage, but might have the votes for civil unions, even though both sides dislike them. In New York, CUs are also being offered by some as "compromise" as the battle heats up for equality. Ted Olson and Eric Schneiderman write in the NY Daily News:

Unlike the universally accepted concept of marriage, employers, businesses and individuals simply do not know how to treat civil unions. Several states have experimented with these so-called compromise solutions and have already reached the conclusion that they just don't work....

A civil union is not a marriage, nor is it an adequate substitute for one. To suggest otherwise is a cruel fiction. Even if all of the inherent confusion and complexities could be resolved and civil unions could somehow provide couples with the same rights and responsibilities of a true marriage, the separation of the two institutions creates a badge of inferiority that forever stigmatizes the relationships of committed same-sex couples as different, separate, unequal and less worthy.

Time and time again, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that marriage is one of the most fundamental rights that we enjoy as Americans under the Constitution. It's a right older than the Bill of Rights and older than our political parties. It is the foundation of society. The time to grant the right of marriage to all New Yorkers is now.

Great article, which includes some examples of how unions are treated as sub-marriage. Go read it! But don't read the online comments, they are disgusting.

Wealthy NY Republicans support equality

Will this make a difference?

From the NY Times:

As gay rights advocates intensify their campaign to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, the bulk of their money is coming from an unexpected source: a group of conservative financiers and wealthy donors to the Republican Party, most of whom are known for bankrolling right-leaning candidates and causes.

Their behind-the-scenes financial support — about $1 million in donations, delivered in recent weeks to a new coalition of gay rights organizations — could alter the political calculus of Albany lawmakers, especially the Republican state senators in whose hands the fate of gay marriage rests.

New Yorkers United for Marriage (video Sunday)

The battle is on for marriage equality in New York.

Quote of the day: How marriage changed the gay rights discussion

Poliglot 's series on DOMA interviews Andrew Sullivan on equality, early on, and why he focused on military service and marriage:

"Those stories, those causes, would re-describe gay people in the minds of straight people," he says. "The images they would put out there of gay people – soldiers, people living in families, which was the truth of who we were – was an important counterbalance to the only thing they previously had seen, which was gay rights parades, which, however wonderful they are, are not fully representative of who gay people are"

For a conservative like Sullivan, it changed the terms of the debate, as well.

"Straight people understood marriage more than they understood defense of sexual freedom," he adds. "And yet we had been trapped into this ... ghetto of defending sexual freedom. And then asking people not to be mean to us. Which, I thought, was the basic gay rights movement until the early '90s."

Blogger meltdown

As you may know, Blogger had a meltdown Thursday, and they reverted all blogs to their Wednesday status. What this means is, posts and comments made on Thursday have been lost. Publishing is now enabled, and they say they are working to restore those data but whether they come back or not remains to be seen.

I have reconstructed some posts that got swallowed, which may lead to some duplications in readers, etc. Bear with us!

More information: Blogger Status page and post describing the outage

The polygamy question

Those opposed to same sex marriage often claim that the same arguments used by the LGBT community could be used by those who want to support polygamy, or plural marriage.

This is a fallacy, of course. And there are sound arguments against it here, here, and here. Ask yourself, would any laws about marriage have to change for same sex couples to marry? The answer is, "no". Marriage law is based on a couple. Then ask yourself, would any laws have to change for multiple partners to marry? The answer is, yes. For example, what happens if one person in a polygamous marriage leaves. Are the others still married? How much property does the leaver get to take?

The UN condemns polygamy, stating

Polygamous marriage contravenes a woman's right to equality with men, and can have such serious emotional and financial consequences for her and her dependants that such marriages ought to be discouraged and prohibited. The Committee notes with concern that some States parties, whose constitutions guarantee equal rights, permit polygamous marriage in accordance with personal or customary law. This violates the constitutional rights of women, and breaches the provisions of article 5 (a) of the Convention.

There's a new article by Elizabeth Abbot on polygamy that is wrestling with the issues raised by fundamantalist Mormons in Canada, and religious freedoms. It asks rhetorically whether one has "religious freedom" to practice abuse. Abbot concludes

[Le]galizing [polygamy] is not ultimately in the same category as granting a pastor the right to express his loathing of homosexuality, or as legalizing gay marriage. While much has been made, in particular, of the parallel between sanctioning same-sex unions and sanctioning polygamy....the outcomes couldn’t be more different. The former brought people into an existing system of rights; the latter poses a significant threat to that system. And that’s probably our cue, as a liberal society, to hold our noses and draw the line.

Jim Wallis, Andrew Marin and the hollowness behind

By now, you may have heard about the kerfuffle. The pro-inclusion group Believe Out Loud filmed a video advertisement to promote acceptance of gay families in church. Not same-sex marriage. Not ordination. Just suggesting that a faith community welcome a boy with two moms.

The purportedly "liberal" Evangelical group Sojourners, represented prominently by Jim Wallis, refused to accept the ad (which you can see below). The Lead tells us that Sojourners said,

“I’m afraid we’ll have to decline. Sojourners position is to avoid taking sides on this issue. In that care [sic], the decision to accept advertising may give the appearance of taking sides.”

Taking sides? You have got to be kidding me! As Rev Robert Chase writes,

What are the sides here? That young children who have same-gender parents are not welcome in our churches? That “welcome, everyone” (the only two words spoken in the ad) is a controversial greeting from our pulpits? That the stares the young boy and his moms get while walking down the aisle are justified? I can’t imagine Sojourners turning down an ad that called for welcome of poor children into our churches. So why is this boy different?

I have never understood how Jim Wallis gets away with being the face of "liberal" religion, because he's not. He's a middle of the road guy who gets squirrelly around issues of women and gays, covering that up in generic statements.

He reminds me a lot of Andrew Marin, whose Marin Foundation ostensibly promotes dialogue between the LGBT and Evangelical community. We've discussed Andrew Marin quite a bit here at FoJ. Marin works by ostensibly apologizing to LGBT people. However,when he talks to other evangelicals, it's clear it's just more of the same. He wants to rescue people from being gay, scare teenagers away from being gay. His worldview of gay-ness does not include mature, happy gay couples with families--especially those who already "get" God and faith.

Wallis and Marin may have a nice cover to it, but they really don't like LGBT people. They don't believe that LGBT people can live whole, faithful lives being who they are, openly and honestly gay. They really don't want gay people in their churches, unless the gay people in question are self-loathing and celibate or closeted. Simply including openly LGBT people is viewed as a "wedge issue."

Integrity, (which for those who don't know, is an organization of LGBT Episcopalians and allies), released a statement:

Given those articulated core values, it is incomprehensible to us that they would decline to run an ad that quite simply depicts a pastor modeling for his congregation that “all are welcome” as a lesbian couple and their son visit the church on Mother’s Day. The Sojourner spokesperson refusing the ad said their “position is to avoid taking sides on this issue” -- reducing a family seeking a spiritual community to “an issue” and needlessly politicizing the call for a pastoral response. It is deeply dehumanizing to gay and lesbian families and antithetical to protecting the safety and dignity of all people Sojourners claims to advocate.

Religion DIspatches has more on the fallout.

The fact is that there are many churches that are LGBT-friendly. Many Episcopal churches and dioceses actively recognize and welcome their LGBT congregants. The Presbyterians are one vote away from changing policies to allow gay clergy, and that vote will probably happen this week. The UCC has a long history of welcome. The MCC, the Quakers, and many others are inclusive. How has the self-promotion of Jim Wallis and Andrew Marin garnered such attention, when it is so hollow in substance, and when there are many people of faith who really DO walk the walk?

Married by the Navy? Not so fast.

The Navy is moving ahead on DADT repeal and has determined that Navy Chaplains may perform same-sex marriages for servicemembers in states in which same sex marriage is legal, if they choose to do so.

Naturally, this has outraged some members of Congress who are complaining.

The issue of military chaplains is one that the anti-equality forces have raised. The military, moving with due speed, has made it explicit that military chaplains have wide latitude and are not required to preach or do anything that conflicts with their religious views. However, as the Forum on Military Chaplaincy points out, there are many chaplains who work to support LGBT people in the service. Their religious freedom is indeed impinged by laws that prevent them from acting their beliefs. As they say,

It is about time there is a strong voice for people of faith who can no longer stand by and see religion used as a weapon against patriotic Americans who want to serve their country.

Here is the way to look at it:

Anti-gay chaplains: if anyone anywhere performs same sex blessings, MY religious freedom is impinged

Pro-equality chaplains: if I can't perform marriages, MY religious freedom is impinged.

As the Navy makes explicit,

"If the base is located in a state where same-sex marriage is legal, then base facilities may normally be used to celebrate the marriage," the memo read.

"There's been no change in policy, the only change that occurred was in training," Navy spokeswoman Lieutenant Alana Garas said in a telephone interview.

"It (the memo) emphasizes repeatedly that chaplains will not be required to officiate same-sex weddings if it's contrary to the tenets of their faith," Garas added.

Religious freedom means EVERYONE has freedom. It does not mean that YOU have freedom to tell ME what to believe.Bishop Gene Robinson, famously gay Bishop of the Episcopal Church lays it out here.

Why is this so difficult to grasp?

Unfortunately, the Navy has backed down.

Under pressure from more than five dozen House lawmakers, the Navy late Tuesday abruptly reversed its decision that would have allowed chaplains to perform same-sex unions if the Pentagon decides to recognize openly gay military service later this year.

In a one-sentence memo obtained by The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Tidd, chief of Navy chaplains, said his earlier decision has been "suspended until further notice pending additional legal and policy review and interdepartmental coordination."

The Navy said its lawyers wanted to do a more thorough review of the legal decision that allowed Navy chaplains to receive training to perform civil unions on military bases, but only in states where same-sex unions are legal.

Unbelievably, the Congressional neanderthals seem to think DOMA makes it illegal for gay servicemembers to marry.

Kudos, however, to the forward thinkers in the USN who tried to enter the modern age. Eventually, it will happen.

Eventually.

The Mortgage Crisis: it's our fault

From Right Wing Watch:

Mission America’s Linda Harvey knows what is really responsible for the country’s economic difficulties and foreclosure crisis: tolerance of gays and lesbians. According to Harvey, who believes that gay people use “demonic manipulation” to recruit children and told parents to “separate your child” from their gay friends, maintains that same-sex couples create a “sin-based family” that is “constructed around sexual deviance.” By affirming and promoting sin, Harvey says that “other sins are more likely to scurry in through the cracks,” like “substance abuse” and “poor decisions about finances.” She claims that the mortgage crisis has its roots in tolerance of homosexuality since “sexual and material covetousness are usually sin siblings,” and alleges that the acceptance of gay and lesbian families leads to social ills like “infidelity, divorce, gambling or porn addictions, job instability, credit card default, domestic abuse, sexual deviance, and criminality,” along with more children born out of wedlock and declining church attendance.

Teh crazy, it burns.....

Neither seen nor heard

Dan Savage said not long ago that he'd be happy to stop talking about being gay, once it stops being an issue to other people.

• Item: the Prime Minister of Great Britain thinks that gay kisses should be banned on TV before 9pm, in case, you know, someone young and impressionable sees them.
• Item: In Tennessee, there are efforts to pass a law that would forbid mentioning gay people in school before the 9th grade. So if you are a gay student, or the child of gay parents, you can't mention it. Otherwise, of course, you might recruit young and impressionable children to the Fabulous Side.

Because if they can hide us, then maybe we don't exist.

WHy it matters: immigration (video Sunday)

Brazil recognizes same sex couples

The high court in Brazil recognizes civil unions, despite vigorous opposition from Catholic conservatives. From AP:

Brazil's high court ruled that same-sex civil unions must be recognized, a decision welcomed as a watershed by gay activists who also hope it will cool rising violence against homosexuals in Latin America's most populous nation.

The ruling, however, stopped short of legalizing gay marriage in Brazil, which has more Roman Catholics than any other country. The Catholic Church fought the measure....

The court ruled that gay couples deserve the same legal rights as heterosexual pairs when it comes to alimony, retirement benefits of a partner who dies and inheritances, among other issues.

In Latin America, gay marriage is legal only in Argentina and Mexico City.

Same-sex civil unions granting some rights to homosexual couples are legal in Uruguay and in some states of Mexico outside the capital. Colombia's Constitutional Court has granted same-sex couples inheritance rights and allowed them to add their partners to health insurance plans.
Brazil's ruling sets a judicial precedent that must be honored by all public institutions, including notary publics where civil unions must be registered.

Talking about DOMA (updated)

There's a lot of discussion of DOMA going on.

First, over at Metroweekly/Poliglot:

In this week's issue of Metro Weekly, I begin a series of articles looking at the law. The aim of the series is to present an in-depth examination of the circumstances, consideration and passage of DOMA. In doing so, I hope to take readers to places they've not often gone -- starting with Thursday's cover story, "Domestic Disturbance," which examines the early debate over marriage within the gay and lesbian community.

Then, over at the Advocate, an interview with Bob Barr, former Representative and DOMA architect, who has now called for its repeal:

I guess what I’d say is, work on the marriage issue as a broad national issue — we ought to get the government out of it. But at the same time, try and get people to think of it as at least something that they ought to be free to decide at the state level. Leave it up to the people in the states. Then it’s easier in the next step to getting the government out of it, lock, stock, and barrel.

Meanwhile, on the legal front, the Attorney General has vacated a Board of Immigration decision. Basically, he wants to take a closer look at a deportation proceeding that involved a partnered gay couple. DOMA precludes treating binational gay couples as married, which means that they can be ripped apart and the non-American partner deported.

Attorney Lavi Soloway, a co-founder of Immigration Equality, has been one of the leading attorney-advocates on the issue of asking the government -- the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and White House -- to exercise that discretion. Soloway tells Metro Weekly in an email, "This development could be a sign that the Obama administration is looking for a way to protect gay and lesbian bi-national couples who are currently barred from the regular marriage-based immigration process by the Defense of Marriage Act.

We'll see....

How many gays does God have to create?

Video of the debate in Minnesota about a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality. Sadly, the state house and senate committes have approved this, and it will go to the full legislature, where it is likely to pass with Republican majorities in both. But full kudos to State Rep Steve Simon for this argument!

News from the States

• Rhode Island, which looked so promising for equality, has backed off. The state Senate will not pass a marriage equality bill, according to the (gay) speaker of the state house, Gordon Fox. The Democratic state Senate leader opposes equality but has called for civil unions.
  
  Civil unions are a start, but they are NOT ENOUGH.
  
  Still, they are enough to outrage the Roman Catholic hierarchy which continues to protest any legal rights for loving gay couples.

  In its own weekly newspaper, the diocese said civil unions come no closer to church doctrine than same-sex marriage:
  
  "Marriage has been established by our Creator in harmony with the nature of man and woman and with its own properties and purpose. No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman.
  
  "However well-intentioned it is the experiment called 'Civil Unions' is not an acceptable alternative to marriage as it too undermines the unique relationship of one man and one woman in holy matrimony by giving equal status, albeit by another name, to same-sex relationships,'' the editorial says.

  
  
• Minnesota, meanwhile, has a trio of Republicans hoping to push through an anti-marriage amendment now that the Republicans have taken both houses of the legislature. Once this passes the two houses, it will go to the ballot.
  
  State Rep. Steve Simon asked those supporting this amendment, "How many more gay people does God have to create before we ask ourselves whether or not God actually wants them around?

Alas, it is inevitable this will pass in MN and go to the ballot. The hate, it just intensifies. THese people claim that they are not homophobes, and they claim they bear us no ill will.

News flash: denying us legal recognition for our families is ill will. Telling lies about us is ill will.

Vaughn Walker and vested interests

Saying that Vaughn Walker can't adjudicate Prop8 because he has a "vested interest" in the outcome because he's gay and might want to marry, is like saying a woman judge of fertile years can't hear abortion cases because she might want an abortion. It's like saying an African American judge can't hear a case about racial discrimination in the insurance industry because it might affect his premiums. It's like saying an atheist judge with children can't hear a case about prayer in school.

In short, it's stupid, and it's insulting.

And as one writer said,

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, at long last the anti-gay marriage movement has been unmasked for what it is; disgusting homophobia and bigotry wrapped up in voter referendums and moving documents.

Let's follow the logic through, shall we? Prop8 proponents are saying that Judge Walker must have a personal interest in this case because he's gay and in a long term relationship.

But they knew he was gay before the case started. It was widely discussed (including here at GMC). Thus, the time to ask for a recusal was a year ago. FAIL on point one.

Secondly, as Adam Serwer writes,

[S]supporters of the same-sex marriage ban are arguing that marriage equality is so damaging to the institution of marriage that the government has a vital interest in making sure gays and lesbians can’t get married. That means that a straight, married judge couldn’t be expected to be impartial, either — after all, according to supporters of Prop 8, “the further deinstitutionalization of marriage caused by the legalization of same-sex marriage,” would directly impact married heterosexuals. Therefore, a heterosexual, married judge could be seen as having just as much “skin in the game” as Judge Walker.

Proposition 8 supporters would never make that argument, of course, because the implication of their argument is that gays and lesbians are incapable of the impartiality expected of judges by their very nature. The notion that Walker’s ruling should be vacated is build on the flimsy assumption that gays and lesbians are different from heterosexuals in a manner that justifies denying them their fundamental rights.

If the whole thesis of their argument is that Prop8 attacks straight marriages.... so why wouldn't a straight judge also have an interest? FAIL on point two.

The hearing is on June 13th.

Criminalizing The Gay in Montana

Where do these people get off? From The Missoula Independent:

Fourteen years ago the Montana Supreme Court ruled that a state law criminalizing gay sex violates Montana's constitution, yet the Montana Legislature has repeatedly failed to scrub the language, which places homosexuality in the same legal category as bestiality, from the books. ...

In fact, at least one lawmaker, Rep. Ken Peterson, R-Billings, an attorney, argues that the archaic law may still apply in certain situations.

Which situations? According to Peterson, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, there are at least two prosecutable offenses—felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. One is the "recruitment" of non-gays. "Homosexuals can't go out into the heterosexual community and try to recruit people, or try to enlist them in homosexual acts," Peterson says. He provides an example: "'Here, young man, your hormones are raging. Let's go in this bedroom, and we'll engage in some homosexual acts. You'll find you like it.'" Peterson hasn't actually seen this happen, he says, because "I don't associate with that group of people at all... I've associated with mainstream people all my life."

The other offense, in Peterson's legal opinion, is the public display of homosexuality, since he believes the Supreme Court's decision only applies to private acts behind closed doors. Being gay in public, he says, is a wholly different matter:

"In my mind, if they were engaging in acts in public that could be construed as homosexual, it would violate that statute. It has to be more than affection. It has to be overt homosexual acts of some kind or another... If kissing goes to that extent, yes. If it's more than that, yes."

Words fail. Someone should hold a kiss-in.

Look, this is unlikely to get anywhere. But it exposes the pure and very ugly hatred that underlies much of the opposition.

Question 1: The Documentary (video Sunday)

This great Documentary reviews the battle for marriage equality in Maine. Mark Mutty, the advocate against equality, is worried that this is how he'll be remembered. Uh, yes, Mark, good chance. Sleep well? I hope not.