Can we say it together? AWWWWWW!Upon seeing Huston, Guerrero dropped his bags; aimed a kiss toward Huston’s lips; and opened his arms to his boyfriends waiting embrace. The time and distance of 10 months’ separation evaporated in a public show of affection that less than a year ago would have been cause for court martial. After a few minutes of emotional holding and kissing, Huston went anxiously down on one knee; looked up at Guerrero, who was dressed from head to toe in military fatigues; and produced an engagement ring and the time-honored phrase, “Will you marry me?”
Huston’s mild tremble, a result of hours and days of anticipation about this day, was quickly quieted by the one word every hopeful fiancé wants to hear: “Yes.”
"I’m watching an intelligent, compassionate writer torture his intellect and his values to fit a dogma that can no longer be justified by anything outside itself.
Your argument requires you to believe that God’s natural order inflicts on hundreds of millions of people a sexual orientation they can never consummate or solemnize in a way that would honor His purposes. ”
Let me use an obvious analogy which really gets to the heart of the unfairness at the center of this.If the "religious freedom" of the Roman Catholic bishops requires that secular employers who are Roman Catholic can interfere in the most personal decision of a woman's health care, and deny benefits to gay couples, then they should also expect those employers to deny coverage of divorced-and-remarried spouses as well. Or is it just the women and the gays who are to be victims of "religious freedom"?
Modern America is full of divorced couples. Unlike homosexuality, Jesus spoke unequivocally about divorce. Does Ross insist that our civil laws return to banning divorce on all grounds? No. Does he back a constitutional amendment to ban civil divorce? No. His reason would be to say that it simply cannot be done democratically. But that precisely reveals the church's discriminatory position on gay people. Unlike divorcees, the gays' position is not a choice. But unlike divorcees, they alone are the target of a massive campaign by Christianists to deny them any right to marry at all - not just twice but ever! This is where the current hierarchy is.
Notice too how they are not threatening to shut down services for the poor and homeless because one of their civil employees might be re-married or divorced (and thereby violating church doctrine). And yet they apply that standard to gay people - who have not chosen any lifestyle, but are guilty purely of being as God made them. They do it because we are few in number and they can deploy the power of religion to demonize us.
This deliberate tolerance of heterosexuals and deliberate intolerance of homosexuals on the same issue is on its face discriminatory…..What else can this be rooted in but animus? And total panic.
At least one pastor isrefusing to go along with a plan to use Washington's Catholic churches as signature-gathering centers in an effort to repeal the state's marriage equality law.
St. James Cathedral won't be taking part in the campaign to add a repeal of the marriage equality law to the ballot in November, its lead pastor announced in a letter to parishioners. Father Michael Ryan said it would be "hurtful and seriously divisive" to go ahead with the plan from Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain.Rank this one right by the one in Minnesota who called out the Cardinal there for promulgating divisiveness and hate. The priests get it. Unlike the bishops!
"There is some question if the Prop 8 case will go to the United States Supreme Court," said Walker, who oversaw the Prop 8 trial and issued his ruling striking down the antigay ballot measure in 2010. "Because of the narrow grounds the 9th Circuit ruled on, they could turn down that case."
...
No matter when a DOMA case reaches it, the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage is inevitable, said Walker.
"There seems to be no way in the world it can avoid the federal DOMA," he said. "It will be decided one way or another. It does seem to me the notion of people deciding to get married without regard to gender is an idea whose time has come and is ever more accepted."
...
Walker said he knew that at "some point" in his judicial career he "would have to deal with" his sexual orientation "in some fashion." Nonetheless, he was surprised to see Prop 8's lawyers reverse course and argue before the 9th Circuit that he should have recused himself from hearing the case since he is gay and has a long-term partner.
The appellate panel unanimously rejected such arguments, and Walker called the questioning of any judge's "innate characteristics," whether it be their race, gender or sexual orientation, "a very dangerous road to go down."
In 1973, Columbia professor and prominent psychiatrist Robert Spitzer had led the effort to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness. Four years after Stonewall, it was a landmark event for the gay-rights movement. But 28 years later, Spitzer released a study that asserted change in one’s sexual orientation was possible. Based on 200 interviews with ex-gay patients—the largest sample amassed—the study did not make any claims about the success rate of ex-gay therapy. But Spitzer concluded that, at least for a highly select group of motivated individuals, it worked. What translated into the larger culture was: The father of the 1973 revolution in the classification and treatment of homosexuality, who could not be seen as just another biased ex-gay crusader with an agenda, had validated ex-gay therapy.This study has been a foundation of "ex-gay" therapies, right up there with George "lift my luggage" Rekers. Will they acknowledge that its author no longer believes it?
An Associated Press story called it “explosive.” In the words of one of Spitzer’s gay colleagues, it was like “throwing a grenade into the gay community.” For the ex-gay movement, it was a godsend. Whereas previous accounts of success had appeared in non-peer-reviewed, vanity, pay-to-publish journals like Psychological Reports, Spitzer’s study was published in the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Spitzer’s study is still cited by ex-gay organizations as evidence that ex-gay therapy works. The study infuriated gay-rights supporters and many psychiatrists, who condemned its methodology and design. Participants had been referred to Spitzer by ex-gay groups like NARTH and Exodus, which had an interest in recommending clients who would validate their work. The claims of change were self-reports, and Spitzer had not compared them with a control group that would help him judge their credibility.
.... I asked about the criticisms leveled at him. “In retrospect, I have to admit I think the critiques are largely correct,” he said. “The findings can be considered evidence for what those who have undergone ex-gay therapy say about it, but nothing more.” He said he spoke with the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior about writing a retraction, but the editor declined. (Repeated attempts to contact the journal went unanswered.) .... Would I print a retraction of his 2001 study, “so I don’t have to worry about it anymore”?
All that changed three years ago when her son met and married a young woman whose mother was in a long-term lesbian relationship. Potts met her future in-laws shortly before the wedding and left the meeting embarrassed about the stereotypes she had carried to the encounter.
“I was just freaking out: ‘This just can’t happen,’” she recalls thinking before their first conversation. “And then it dawned on me, this wasn’t worth losing my son over. And then once I started hanging around with them, I’m like, ‘This is insane.’”
A Charismatic Christian who now attends church sporadically, Potts attributes much of her former bias to her faith experience. Her conversations with other Christians focused almost exclusively on sexual activity and dehumanized gay people.
“I just thought it was all about sex,” she said. “That’s what everything was based on: sex, sex, sex, sex. You were expecting that they were constantly going to be hanging on each other and making out. I’d never thought of anyone as people. It was just all based on sex.”
....
Potts wrote about her evolution last month in an op-ed for the Iowa Gazette. The piece, “Stand Together,” offered a stinging assessment of the Iowa caucuses that took place in January.
“I heard a lot of rhetoric about gay and lesbian Americans that didn’t fit with what I know to be true and what many Republicans believe,” she wrote. “As an evangelical Christian Republican, I know many people who hold conservative values like equality and freedom, but those voices were lost this year. However, I believe in my heart that things are changing. If it weren’t for the loud voices of a few in our party, I do believe more Republicans would stand up in support of marriage equality.”
In an interview with The Advocate, Potts said that many Republicans in Iowa support marriage equality but fear they could be “ostracized” if they speak up. She said that one husband of a party insider told her that he was glad she wrote the op-ed because it reflected his own feelings.
“The party here is being led by strong right-wing people right now,” she said. “A lot of them would like for it just to be church. They’ve very antigay, and with the abortion issue, too, they’re extremely loud spoken about it.”Will we ever change the fringe? I don't think so. But this story tells us we can reach those who can hear, and it's why we need to keep coming out, and be who we are!
For one thing, it means that North Carolina could not, now or ever, take any step or devise any policy to extend legal recognition and protection to same-sex couples. No domestic partnership laws. No civil unions. Nothing.Indeed, it's just bad politics. My emphasis....
That’s mighty cold. If you disdain gay and lesbian persons, and don’t care whether they and their families remain permanently outside of the protection of our laws, such a policy might be your cup of tea. But it’s not our view, and we doubt that it’s the view of most North Carolinians.
If you want to create a backlash against mother-father marriage – if you want to convince people that the real agenda of marriage advocates is not protecting marriage, but ignoring and ostracizing gay people – then this amendment might be to your liking. But we believe that the cause of marriage is hurt, not helped, by gratuitously linking it to the cause of never under any circumstances helping gay and lesbian couples.A voice of reason? or purely pragmatic?
If you wonder why the push for gay marriage is so rapidly gaining ground across our nation, especially among young people, we don’t think you need to look much further than this tragic social dynamic, in which support for mother-father marriage appears to many to have merged with either overt antagonism or cold indifference regarding the actual lives and needs of gay and lesbian couples and their children.Meanwhile, NOM and their supporters continue to prove the opposite, calling faithful lesbian and gay couples pedophiles, and worse, as they cynically try to fan racial conflicts and provoke violence. The reason so many of these groups are called hate groups is NOT because they disagree about marriage equality. It's because they distort the facts and tell blatant, demonizing lies about LGBT people.
From now on, when we stand up for marriage, let’s make sure that it’s marriage that we’re standing up for. In 2012, perhaps we marriage advocates can begin to prove – perhaps you in North Carolina can be national leaders in proving – that supporting marriage need not carry with it the requirement of bigotry against gay and lesbian persons.
According to Tillis, researchers have predicted Amendment One will pass with approximately 54 percent, but Tillis, who voted to pass the amendment, believes it won’t remain long. “If it passes, I think it will be repealed within 20 years,” Tillis said.So people are supposed to vote for a Constitutional amendment the appeal which is only ephermeral? And an amendment SUPPORTER says this?
"When it started going downhill when they started talking about single parents and adopted kids. They didn't directly say it, but they implied that kids who are adopted or live with single parents are less than kids with two parents of the opposite sex. They implied that a 'normal' family is the best family."
"When they finally got to gay marriage, [students] were really upset," said Bliss. "You could look around the room and feel the anger. My friend who is a lesbian started crying, and people were crying in the bathroom."
Bliss was one of several students who stood up to argue with the representatives from the archdiocese. One girl held up a sign that said, "I love my moms."Student Lydia Hannah continues the tale.
Hannah said students were anxious when they heard about the program and were suspicious because only seniors were required to go. "We put two and two together," said Hannah. "All of us will be able to vote next fall [on the constitutional amendment that limits marriage to same-sex couples]."
Hannah said the presenters briefly brought up the amendment but backed off when students got angry.
A priest and a volunteer couple presented the information. When someone asked a question about two men being able to have a quality, committed relationship, the couple compared their love to bestiality, Bliss said.
"Most people got really upset," said Bliss. "And comments about adopted kids, I found those to be really offensive. There were at least four kids there who are adopted."
Hannah, who is adopted, said one of the presenters said that adopted kids were "sociologically unstable." She called the comments "hurtful" and comparisons between gay love and bestiality upsetting.
"My friend said, 'You didn't just compare people to animals, did you?'" said Hannah.....
Asked if he thought the comments of the presenters were appropriate, [the Vice Principal] referred me to the archdiocese.
When a light is shined into the dark corners of American politics, it’s never pleasant to see what scurries away. ....
[NOM] uses its designation as a social welfare organization to avoid federal disclosure, but the memos dispel any notion that the claim has any legitimacy. National Organization for Marriage is a political group, through and through.....
[T]he most appalling portions [of the documents] deal with the group’s racially and ethnically divisive strategies.....
Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have publicly aligned themselves with the group and signed its pledge to work aggressively from the White House against same-sex marriage.
Now that the group’s poisonous political approach is out in the open, Mr. Romney and the others should be racing to make clear their disapproval.
We detect no stampede.
What was once a front-and-center issue for rank-and-file Republicans -- the subject of many hotly worded House and Senate floor speeches -- is virtually a dead issue, as Republicans in Congress don't care to have gay marriage litigated in the Capitol.
Even more than that, Republican leadership has evolved, too. It has quietly worked behind the scenes to kill amendments that reaffirm opposition to same-sex unions, several sources told POLITICO.
It's not like the GOP has become a bastion of progressiveness on gay rights, but there has been an evolution in the political approach -- and an acknowledgment of a cultural shift in the country. Same-sex relationships are more prominent and accepted. There are more gay public figures -- including politicians -- and it's likely that many Washington Republicans have gay friends and coworkers. Just as important -- there's also a libertarian streak of acceptance on people's sexuality coursing through the House Republican Conference.....
"Republicans see an issue that was a good wedge issue no longer is and will be a losing issue in the future," Nadler told POLITICO. "They can't just walk away from it; their base will get mad at them. They're slowly walking away from it because it's an increasingly losing issue."
