Video Sunday: What Matters Most

Tylenol, Norman Rockwell, and a blended family....

SCOTUS to consider whether to decide

As we all know by now, the Supreme Court doesn't grant a hearing to all appeals put before it. They consider them in a conference, and then decide whether to decide. Box Turtle Bulletin:

The Supreme Court has scheduled January 9, 2015, as the date on which to consider whether to hear appeals in five marriage cases. The states from which these cases originate are Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Louisiana.

In Louisiana a federal judge ruled to uphold the anti-gay marriage ban, and the other four are in the Sixth Circuit, where the appeals court overturned federal judges who had ruled for equality.

We will not know until next month whether SCOTUS will hear any marriage appeals, but if they do so, it will only be those which are requesting that marriages be allowed. In other words, the court has not scheduled for hearing any appeals which could reverse a state’s current practice of allowing same-sex marriage.

Since there's a split in the circuits (with the 6th ruling against equality), the Court is likely to step in.

Let's hope we have a happy new year!

A broadway Christmas (Video Sunday)

Marc Solomon on how we got here (Video Sunday)

Talking to a gay person can change minds

Why we have to keep coming out and telling our stories.

Some anti-gay voters in California changed their minds five time faster than their neighbors on gay rights, according to the new study. The secret? Openly gay activists went door to door, engaging these conservative opponents in “heartfelt, reciprocal and vulnerable conversations” about what marriage meant to them, according to a press release about the study. The activists didn’t just push gay marriage, they made a point of listening to their opponents' concerns and experiences, the release said.

 The other thing is, the effect lasted.

Religious Freedom redux

 Last week Michigan's legislature passed a sweeping "religious freedom" bill that allows one to refuse service on religious grounds to Teh Gay:

While Bolger insists the bill is meant to protect, say, the Muslim butcher who wants to prepare food in line with halal practices, or the Jewish mother who doesn’t want an autopsy performed on her son, civil liberties advocates warn it could be used as a defense for the landlord who wants to evict a gay tenant, or the pharmacist who doesn’t want to provide birth control, all because of sincerely held religious beliefs. 

This emboldened Kansas to revive its own bill:

Last session’s religious freedom bill extended to public employees, meaning that county clerks, for example, could refuse to serve same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses. Some attorneys read the bill as being broad enough that it would have extended to all public employees, including police officers, who could theoretically refuse to help a same-sex married couple based on their religious beliefs.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article4336207.html#storylink=cpy

As one person commented,

“Take out the word ‘gay’ and put any other word in there and is it acceptable? Put ‘Muslim,’ put ‘African American,’ put an ‘interracial couple’… does it sound better? Does it sound worse?” she said. “We’re not talking about churches. We’re not talking about forcing a minister to marry someone in a church. That’s protected.”

 Everyone who supports this so-called "freedom" which is really religious privilege, should be forced to put a sign in their window:  We don't Serve Fags.  I wonder how good their business would be if they had to own their bigotry.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article4336207.html#storylink=cpy

The boy in the dress (video Sunday)

No marriages in Mississippi yet

I know, Mississippi, right? 

The Federal District Court over turned the MS anti-equality law on the 25th, but today the 5th circuit denied the effort to combine this with the TX and LA cases scheduled to be heard in January, although they fast-tracked the schedule  They also stayed the marriages.

But these words from the opinion are great:

In reviewing the arguments of the parties and conducting its own research, the court determined that an objective person must answer affirmatively to the following questions:

• Can gay and lesbian citizens love?
• Can gay and lesbian citizens have long-lasting and committed relationships?
• Can gay and lesbian citizens love and care for children?
• Can gay and lesbian citizens provide what is best for their children?
• Can gay and lesbian citizens help make their children good and productive citizens?
• Without the right to marry, are gay and lesbian citizens subjected to humiliation and indignity?
• Without the right to marry, are gay and lesbian citizens subjected to state-sanctioned prejudice?

Answering “Yes” to each of these questions leads the court to the inescapable conclusion that same-sex couples should be allowed to share in the benefits, and burdens, for better or for worse, of marriage.

ThinkProgress also notes the poor argument that equality should be left up to the democratic process :

[Judge] Reeves was not compelled by the idea that the law should wait for people to come around, citing a 2011 survey that found that nearly half of Mississippi Republicans still oppose interracial marriage. “If the passage of 50 years has had such negligible impact on the public’s opinion of interracial marriage in the Deep South,” he wrote, “it is difficult to see how gay and lesbian Mississippians can depend on the political process to provide them any timely relief.” 

All God's Children (2) (Video Sunday)

All God's Children (Video Sunday)

Get married, get fired?

From Al Jazeera (BTW, I really like their reporting)

[T]he dilemma now facing a growing number of gay couples: They can legally marry, but they may also be fired from their jobs, thrown out of their apartments and denied service at businesses because of their sexual orientation. Many say the increased visibility of same-sex partners, even in small towns in conservative states, will lead to greater acceptance of gays. But particularly in the short to medium term, it could prompt more instances of discrimination.

...

“I didn’t expect marriage equality to happen so quickly — and it’s a good thing. I’m not complaining,” says Ted Martin, executive director of Equality Pennsylvania, an LGBT advocacy group. “But because you don’t have civil rights protections in place, someone even talking about their marriage could be used as grounds to terminate someone.”

It's in your hands (video Sunday)

From the Irish marriage equality campaign:

You can't be "nice" and deny equality

As we move into the end game of the marriage equality issue, our opponents are trying to figure out how to live with us married LGBT folk.  (Mostly, they are trying not to , on the basis of religious freedom).

Some of them are trying to tell us there's nothing personal, that they may oppose our marriages but hey, they aren't anti-gay bigots.

Here's an oldie but a goodie, on how you can't be "nice" while denying equality. 

First, the author begins with a discussion of a writer named Halee Gray Scott , who wants to separate her anti-marriage equality views from that of a more openly homophobic man, Charles Worley.

Worley wants to deny LGBT people their basic civil rights and legal equality because he hates them. Scott wants to deny LGBT people their basic civil rights and legal equality for other reasons.

See? See how very different they are? Same result. Same vote. Same fundamental discrimination enshrined in law. But Worley is mean. Scott is nice.
...
That sort of assumption — lumping her in with people like Charles Worley just because she wants the same legal outcome as they do — is hurtful. It wounds her feelings. Being compared to people like that is not nice.

And people should be nice to her, just as she’s being so nice to all the LGBT citizens whose legal equality she wants to nicely deny.

“I’m not asking for anyone to approve or accept my views,” Scott writes, magnanimously.

And it’s true. She doesn’t want anyone else to approve or accept her religious perspective. All she asks is that they allow her to write it into law....

Yeah, that's the part they miss.

But the argument is that you can't be NICE and still treat people badly.

Look, here’s the deal: It doesn’t matter if you think you’re a nice person. And it doesn’t matter if your tone, attitude, sentiments and facial expressions are all very sweet, kindly and sympathetic-seeming. If you’re opposing legal equality, then you don’t get to be nice. Opposing legal equality is not nice and it cannot be done nicely.

...

It’d be terrific if Scott’s heartfelt plea for “a hermeneutic of grace” toward Christians who oppose legal equality had also thought to include such a presumption of grace toward the human beings whose legal equality those Christians continue to deny.
....

Scott wants to carve out a space in which she can be unfair, but still kind. Such a space does not exist and cannot exist.

Kansas and South Carolina

We added Kansas and South Carolina this week...at least, technically, although they are still kicking and screaming.  Here's the map from ThinkProgress.

So, who's left?

A Federal Judge in Mississippi heard a case this week.

The 5th Circuit (TX, MS and LA) and 11th circuit (FL, AL, GA) have cases moving up from the states. Cases are pending in SD, ND, and NE and AR;  these haven't had federal rulings yet or circuit decisions.  MO is (like KS and SC) trying to resist the circuit ruling that applies.  In  Puerto Rico  the case  may be moving up to the 1st circuit.  (All the states in the 1st have already got marriage equality.)

I will bet that we will have 50-state marriage equality by the summer of 2016.  I think it is possible that the Supremes will hold off on a case this year.

America is Ready: A view from the south (video Sunday)

6th circuit signs date with SCOTUS

The Supreme Court has been silent on the subject of marriage equality, tacitly approving it by ignoring appeals requests. Since all the circuit courts thus far have found for equality, there's been no conflict for the Supremes. This has led to a huge expansion of equality to 32 states.

But today, the conservative 6th circuit broke the streak, and issued a ruling finding that marriage discrimination is okay. For some reason, the bulk of their argument is that the people should be able to decide. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote,

When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers. Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.

The problem is this. The Constitution exists in part to protect the rights of unpopular minorities from the tyranny of the majority. We do not put basic rights to the ballot. If we had, schools in the South would still be segregated, inter-racial marriage would still be illegal, and husbands could control a woman's property.

This was called out in a brilliant dissent by Judge Martha Daughtrey.

The author of the majority opinion has drafted what would make an engrossing TED Talk or, possibly, an introductory lecture in Political Philosophy,” Daughtrey wrote in her dissent. “But as an appellate court decision, it wholly fails to grapple with the relevant constitutional question in this appeal: whether a state’s constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, the majority sets up a false premise—that the question before us is “who should decide?”—and leads us through a largely irrelevant discourse on democracy and federalism. In point of fact, the real issue before us concerns what is at stake in these six cases for the individual plaintiffs and their children, and what should be done about it.

This makes for a "circuit split" and the appeal to the Supremes is on its way. And then Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy must decide what they want their legacies to be.

If I have gay children .... (Voices of Faith)

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Voices of Faith

From a pastor, a promise to his children:

As a pastor and a parent, I wanted to make some promises to you, and to my two kids right now… 

1) If I have gay children, you’ll all know it. 

My children won’t be our family’s best kept secret. 

..... Childhood is difficult enough, and most gay kids spend their entire existence being horribly, excruciatingly uncomfortable. I’m not going to put mine through any more unnecessary discomfort, just to make Thanksgiving dinner a little easier for a third cousin with misplaced anger issues.....

2) If I have gay children, I’ll pray for them. 

I won’t pray for them to be made “normal”. I’ve lived long enough to know that if my children are gay, that is their normal. 

I won’t pray that God will heal or change or fix them. I will pray for God to protect them; from the ignorance and hatred and violence that the world will throw at them, simply because of who they are. .... 

3) If I have gay children, I’ll love them. 

I don’t mean some token, distant, tolerant love that stays at a safe arm’s length. It will be an extravagant, open-hearted, unapologetic, lavish, embarrassing-them-in-the-school cafeteria, kind of love. ....

If my kids are gay, they may doubt a million things about themselves and about this world, but they’ll never doubt for a second whether or not their Daddy is over-the-moon crazy about them. 

4) If I have gay children, most likely; I have gay children. 

If my kids are going to be gay, well they pretty much already are. 

God has already created them and wired them, and placed the seed of who they are within them. .....

And then he goes on to take on his fellow "Christians" who are angry or offended.

This isn’t about you. This is a whole lot bigger than you. 

You’re not the one I waited on breathlessly for nine months.
You’re not the one I wept with joy for when you were born.
You’re not the one I bathed, and fed, and rocked to sleep through a hundred intimate, midnight snuggle sessions. 

You’re not the one I taught to ride a bike, and whose scraped knee I kissed, and whose tiny, trembling hand I held, while getting stitches.
You’re not the one whose head I love to smell, and whose face lights-up when I come home at night, and whose laughter is like music to my weary soul.
You’re not the one who gives my days meaning and purpose, and who I adore more than I ever thought I could adore anything. 

And you’re not the one who I’ll hopefully be with, when I take my last precious breaths on this planet; gratefully looking back on a lifetime of shared treasures, and resting in the knowledge that I loved you well.

Video Sunday: The Body of Christ

Lutheran Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber asked her LGBT congregants to speak on being part of the body of Christ.  From her Facebook page:

I was asked to make a 5 minute video for an Evangelical on-line church leadership conference called The Nines http://thenines.tv/speakers/. The conference is centered on "culture clash" - including what is called "the issue of homosexuality". I conceded my time to a bunch of queer folks at church. Here is the result.

 You'll have to click through to watch this one. 

Voices of Faith: The toll of "Christian" love on LGBTs

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Voices of Faith

From the Huff Po, a writer calls out "Christians" for the damage that they do.

Scores of people from all over the world have shared with me their devastating stories of exclusion and isolation, of unanswered prayers to change, of destructive conversion therapies, of repeated suicide attempts, and of being actively and passively driven from faith by people of faith. 

Church, this is the reality of our theology on homosexuality. 

This is the cost of our religion to the LGBT community. More accurately, it's the cost of our religion to LGBT human beings. This is the painful collateral damage that comes when we see principles and ignore people; when we refuse to give them the dignity they deserve. 

Apparently love does hurt -- really, really badly. 

The most common defense I've heard over the past 14 days from Christians who believe that being gay is both chosen and sinful has been some variation of the supposedly well-meaning "Well, we're just loving people by being honest with them by giving them the truth. Telling people the truth is loving them." 

.....

I have a crammed, bursting inbox of "truth" for you if you're interested in reading, Church. 

It's full of vile profanity, and utter contempt, and crude jokes, and physical violence, and white-hot fear. It's packed with school-hallway harassment, and city-street beatdowns, and church shunning, and workplace hazing, and brutal self-harm, and all sorts of perpetual, personal terrorism. 

And none of it looks a thing like love to me.

He goes on,

However we want to frame it or justify it, the net result of our religion to so many gay people is that entire families are being torn apart, sent to the shadows, and horribly mistreated in the name of Jesus. Real flesh-and-blood people are going through uninvited, individual Hell every day at the hands of people who claim Christ. The church's treatment of the LGBT community people has been downright sinful, and it's killing our testimony to the world. 

We're making it virtually impossible for gay people to exist in our churches, and then feeling justified in damning them for walking away from God when they leave. The truth is that so often they aren't turning away from God; they're just removing themselves from harm's way. 

We are losing credibility to those outside organized Christianity, not because we're "condoning sin" but because when the rubber meets the road, we really don't know how to "love the sinner" in any way that remotely resembles Jesus, and our "God is love" platitudes ring hollow. 

Church, this is our legacy that we are building in these days to the LGBT community and those who love them, and I assure you it's not a legacy of love. 

I don't know what the answer is for you, and I can't tell you how your theology gets expressed in the trenches of real people's lives. I only know that we as Christ's church can do better, regardless of our theological stance. We have to do better. 

It's time for the freedom to marry (video Sunday)

Why tell the truth when the lies are so compelling?

You may have heard that there's a suit filed in Idaho by a wedding chapel who claims they are being threatened by the city over their refusal to marry same sex couples.  Not true.      It's a PR stunt by the right.

Mike Huckabee tells the lie:

"Remember when same-sex marriage activists used to claim that it would never infringe on other people’s religious beliefs? Well, that was a lie....Donald and Evelyn Knapp own a wedding chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, called The Hitching Post. They’re both ordained ministers and devoutly religious, so they declined to perform a same-sex wedding."

Facts are so inconvenient:

"The city of Coeur d’Alene has been contacted by a huge volume of people inquiring about our anti-discrimination ordinance, passed in 2013 by the City Council. These contacts have been a reaction to a lawsuit filed by the owners of a local marriage chapel, the Hitching Post, which claims the city has taken inappropriate action against their business for their decision to not perform same-sex marriages. In fact, the city has received no complaints about the Hitching Post and we have never threatened them. If we did get a complaint we would investigate it like any other complaint to determine if there is a legitimate violation of a city code. If we investigate it and determine that they fall within our exemption for religious corporations, we would not pursue it further because they would be exempt."

Civil Rights Lawyer Mary Bonauto (video Sunday)

Young Catholics overwhelmingly pro-gay marriage

From Pew Research, even more evidence that the Catholic PEOPLE are gay friendly even if the Catholic BISHOPS are not.

Notice that even Catholics in their 50s show a majority in favor of marriage.

Debunking The Top Five Myths About LGBT Non-Discrimination Laws (Video Sunday)

Inter-racial marriage vs same-sex marriage

I've made this comparison before (e.g., here) but now someone else has managed to get it noticed more broadly.  You'll note that the slope of the two "approval" curves is very similar.  What's not similar is that if this were truly parallel, marriages between same sex partners would have been legal in ca. 1990.

Just for grins, here's my version from 2012:

A quiet earthquake for marriage equality

When from out of the blue
And without any guide,
You know what your decision is....
Which is not to decide
          "On the Steps of the Palace", Stephen Sondheim

The Supreme Court today denied certiori to seven different cases involving marriage equality.  By denying cert, the court essentially says that the decisions from the lower courts stand.  This may be because those lower courts all agreed with each other, and have been falling all over themselves to find for equality.  Without a disagreement between the lower courts, there's not a conflict that requires the Supreme Court to solve.  This suits the Court, which prefers to let trends get hammered out by the states before taking a step.  

So this decision not to decide brings marriage to Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Utah.

I know, Utah.  Right?  (After what they did to us in CA it's hard not to enjoy this....)

But wait, there's more! 

The decisions came from the 4th, 7th, and 10th circuit courts of appeal, which means that other states that still have bans in those circuits are also affected, giving a total of 11.  

• 4th: Virginia , West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
• 7th:Wisconsin, Indiana 
• 10th: Utah, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas as well.

THinkProgress gives us the map.  Potentially 30 states will have equality, and 60% of the population.

It is possible (or even likely) that one of the remaining circuits will uphold a marriage ban, as those circuits tend to have more conservative judges.  And that may be the case that the Supreme Court eventually takes.

As always, the most detailed information can be found at Scotusblog.

Cartoonist Alison Bechdel (Video Sunday)

Same sex marriage is nothing new

In the very early years of the 19th century, 30-year-old Charity Bryant and 22-year-old Sylvia Drake essentially married. 

40 years later, in 1850, Charity's nephew wrote,

If I were permitted to draw aside the veil of private life, I would briefly give you the singular, and to me most interesting history of two maiden ladies who dwell in this valley. I would tell you how, in their youthful days, they took each other as companions for life, and how this union, no less sacred to them than the tie of marriage, has subsisted, in uninterrupted harmony, for forty years, during which they have shared each other’s occupations and pleasures and works of charity while in health, and watched over each other tenderly in sickness; for sickness has made long and frequent visits to their dwelling. I could tell you how they slept on the same pillow and had a common purse, and adopted each other’s relations, and how one of them, more enterprising and spirited in her temper than the other, might be said to represent the male head of the family, and took upon herself their transactions with the world without, until at length her health failed, and she was tended by her gentle companion, as a fond wife attends her invalid husband. I would tell you of their dwelling, encircled with roses, which now in the days of their broken health, bloom wild without their tendance, and I would speak of the friendly attentions which their neighbors, people of kind hearts and simple manners, seem to take pleasure in bestowing upon them, but I have already said more than I fear they will forgive me for, if this should ever meet their eyes, and I must leave the subject.

They are the subject of a new book,  Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America by Rachel Hope Cleves.

You see, we have always been here.

Voices of Faith: an evangelical for marriage

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Voices of Faith

Presbyterian minister Mark Achtemeier talks to Candace Chellew-Hodge at Religion Dispatches about his new book, The Bible's Yes to Same-Sex Marriage: An Evangelical's Change of Heart.

I really like his description of marriage:

Marriage is this arena where we can totally give ourselves to another person in body, spirit, and life and commitment and grow in that total gift of self which winds up being an image of Jesus’ total gift of himself for us.

Achtemeier used to be ardently opposed to marriage equality, and considered being gay "like drinking poison".  But no more:

 One of the things that was powerful for me in breaking out of that mindset was testimony about the blessings that came to gay and lesbian people through their committed relationships. Early in the book I talk about a conversation with a friend who said they knew all about identifying sin in their life and repenting of it, but when they thought about marriage to their partner, that’s what brought out the best in them and helped them learn love and self-sacrifice and nothing that needed to be repented of.

That really struck me that it sounded like my marriage.

The other thing that took me a long time to wrap my mind around is that an awful lot of Evangelicals really haven’t grappled with recognizing that this is not something you could choose your way out of. There’s always this sense of, “If you really tried hard, or prayed hard enough, you could come around.” Again, my gay friends would say, “Why on earth would I choose something like this? Who needs all this trouble?”

I think it’s the willingness of gay and lesbian people in sharing their stories that finally got it through my thick head that this isn’t an optional lifestyle, it’s a given.

Yet another reason why we must continue to come out !   Minds do change!

Until we could (video Sunday)

Marriage, after 70 years (video Sunday)

By now, you've heard the news of two women in Iowa who have been partners for 70 years, who got married. Oh, I can just hear the sanctity of marriage tumbling down! (NOT!) It's a very charming story.

Who takes marriage most seriously?

A columnist at the HuffPo writes about her thoughts upon attending her gay brother's wedding.  And about what she learned about "the sanctity of marriage".

Weddings mark the start of a shared union -- a lifelong partnership between two people who have chosen to make binding promises to one another. Promises that often involve agreeing to work on the marriage when it needs to be worked on and to fight for it when it needs to be fought for. 

And if I had to guess which couples would be likely to work and fight the hardest for their marriages, I would predict it to be those who have already worked hard and fought to make marrying their partners a possibility in the first place. 

.....
Marriage is, indeed, sacred. But if proponents of traditional marriage are truly worried about sanctity, doesn't taking marriage away from those who likely revere it the most -- the same-sex couples like my brother and his husband whose ceremonies are far more focused on the extreme gratitude over their ability to be legally recognized in marriage than the cosmetic details of the day -- seem to contradict what they are after?

It's up to the supremes

From Scotusblog (Lyle Denniston)

With lawyers moving very rapidly, the number of appeals to the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage rose on Tuesday to seven, as state officials in Indiana and Wisconsin separately challenged a federal appeals court ruling against their bans, and lawyers for the couples planned to file immediate replies. The new cases landed at the Court five days after that decision; the states had the option of taking ninety days to file.
... 

The Court has the option of taking on either or both issues, and it also has the option of putting off any consideration for the time being, despite the heavy pressure from virtually everyone involved in the cases, who contend that the Court should not wait any longer to decide. None of the cases is a mandatory appeal. It would be highly unusual, however, for the Court to pass up all of the cases, when everyone is championing review now. 

If the Court opts to take on the controversy anytime up to mid-January, a final ruling could be expected before the new Term is completed late next June.

And guess what?  The case may well rest not on constitutional law, not on fairness, but on religious freedom.  Mark Silk at Religion News Service on an amicus brief filed for Utah:

The religious organizations make clear in their amicus brief that, besides addressing all relevant Fourteenth Amendment issues, the Utah case uniquely addresses the burden placed on religious liberty by SSM. Quoting from a 2012 letter from a coalition of anti-SSM religious leaders, they write:

Judicially redefining marriage powerfully conflicts with religious liberty because, among other reasons, such a dramatic change in the law inevitably will lead to “forcing or pressuring both individuals and religious organizations – throughout their operations, well beyond religious ceremonies – to treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalent of marital sexual conduct.”… 

Utah’s petition provides an opportunity to address whether avoiding religious conflicts and church-state entanglements is a sufficiently weighty reason, alone or combined with other interests, to warrant allowing States to retain the age-old definition of marriage. 

If the court did find such avoidance sufficiently weighty, I’ve no doubt that the next legal step would be to ask that all states be forbidden to permit SSM on religious liberty grounds. But the real significance of the brief, it seems to me, is that it represents an acknowledgment that SSM is becoming the law of the land, and that the battle has now moved to the securing of legal exemptions for religious objectors.

So, the logic here is that anti-gay archbishop Salvatore Cordileone's religions freedom demands that the state deny me my civil rights (not to mention any non-Catholic church's religious freedom to marry me).  The sad thing is, after Hobby Lobby, it's just what might appeal to the 5 Catholics on the bench in DC.

Because nothing says "Christian love" like wishing a child's parents dead

Honestly, can they sink any lower in inhumanity?  From Think Progress: 

In a new blog post by IFI’s Laurie Higgins this week, the group takes on a new target: the children of same-sex couples, who Higgins expects would find “joy” in imagining their parents dead. 

....Her primary concern is that children should not ever see books about same-sex families, deeming any portrayal of a same-sex couple as  “homoeroticism” and “sexual perversion.” Instead, she suggests that librarians consider adding the following kinds of books (granting the premise that such books even exist):....

• Young adult (YA) novels about teens who feel sadness and resentment about being intentionally deprived of a mother or father and who seek to find their missing biological parents..... 

• Picture books that show the joy a little birdie experiences when after the West Nile virus deaths of her two daddies, she’s finally adopted by a daddy and mommy.

Armagayddon (Video Sunday)

Posnered: the 7th circuit speaks

In a unanimous decision, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeal found that the marriage bans in Wisconsin and Indiana are unconstitutional.  What everyone is talking about is the scathing opinion by Judge Posner, a Reagan appointee who is widely considered to be one of the most influential living jurists.  From the opinion, summarizing the states' argument:

Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.

From Slate,  an analysis,

There is simply no harm, Posner writes, “tangible, secular, material—physical or financial, or … focused and direct” done to anybody by permitting gay marriage. Conservative Christians may be offended, but “there is no way they are going to be hurt by it in a way that the law would take cognizance of.” A lot of people, after all, objected to interracial marriage in 1967—but that didn’t stop the court from invalidating anti-miscegenation laws inLoving v. Virginia.

In his opinion, Posner makes these points with trenchant humor. But beneath his droll wit lies a moral seriousness that gay marriage opponents, even those on the high court, will be unable to shrug off. The modern arguments against gay marriage may be breathtakingly silly—but by mocking them, we ignore the profound harms that marriage bans inflict on gay people and their families. By placing these families at the center of his analysis, Posner restores the equal protection clause to its rightful place as the safeguard for all whom the state seeks to harm unjustly. His message for those who hope to demean gay people and their children is clear: Not on my watch.

From Twitter, the neologism Posnered, meaning to reduce an argument to rubble.

Christian anti-gay activist apologizes? Voices of Faith....

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Voices of Faith

Former activist anti-gay Randy Thomas apologizes.   He writes,

To be clear, my view of marriage in a spiritual context has not changed. I believe the wedding union of husband and wife bears the image of God uniquely..... 

What I am also trying to learn is how I can state my beliefs without being a jerk about it. ...

I have also come to believe that trying to make our secular government impose my
spiritual beliefs in this matter is not helpful or appropriate.

So, he's not a supporter per se, but he seems to get the separation of faith and civil law. I'm perfectly okay with that. It's progress.  He goes on,

The night that Prop 8 in California and Amendment 2 in Florida (both banning gay marriage) passed I was jubilant. I truly believed what we had done was right and good. ....What I didn’t make widely known was how heart-broken I was when I saw the gay community in California take to the streets. Their protests that night and in the days afterwards tugged at me. When I saw their grief-stricken faces my heart twisted in my chest. It was the first time in a long time I remember thinking, “did we do something wrong?” ...Eventually the doubt over what we had done would get louder in my mind and change from a question to a conviction; a conviction that indeed we had done something terribly wrong.

 He concludes

Today, I can honestly say that I am glad that the courts are striking down all the marriage bans across the country. It is my hope that we (Christians) can learn from the past, make the appropriate amends, and rebuild dialog and relationships with the LGBT community.

There are a number of prominent evangelicals who are coming around to being pro-marriage equality -- Brian McClaren, Steve Chalke, Rob Bell, Ken Wilson....  Most of them get rejected by their communities as apostates.  But the tide is turning.   And I would remind my fellow members of the rainbow tribe that forgiveness is a virtue.  Life is too short to hold a grudge.  Let's move ahead for justice, together.

Streak ends, as it must

A federal judge in Louisiana finds rational basis in supporting that state's marriage ban because, well, incest.  From THink progress:

Political operatives seeking to cast aspersions on Feldman’s approach to gay rights will find a lot to work with in his opinion. At one point, he describes being gay as one of several “lifestyle choices” a person can make. At another point in his opinion, he compares same-sex marriage to marriage between “aunt and niece,” “aunt and nephew,” or “father and child.” He also likens marriage equality to polygamous marriages.

He also seems a little confused about the 14th amendment, which is not limited to issues of race.  This one will head up to the 5th circuit for appeal.

Meanwhile, in this first of --what, 30?-- decisions on our side, the fundies are rejoicing with their dehumanizing, hate-filled rhetoric.

Love is strange (trailer, Video Sunday)

7th circuit arguments

Today the 7th Circuit court of appeal heard arguments from WI and IN challenging lower court decisions overturning their marriage bans.  From the A/P

Judge Richard Posner, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, was dismissive when Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Timothy Samuelson repeatedly pointed to 'tradition' as the underlying justification for barring gay marriage. 

"It was tradition to not allow blacks and whites to marry — a tradition that got swept away," Posner said. Prohibition of same sex marriage, he said, is "a tradition of hate ... and savage discrimination." 

Posner frequently cut off Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fischer, just moments into his presentation and chided him to answer his questions. 

At one point, Posner ran through a list of psychological strains of unmarried same-sex couples, including having to struggle to grasp why their schoolmates' parents were married and theirs weren't. 

"What horrible stuff," Posner said. What benefits to society in barring gay marriage, he asked, "outweighs that kind of damage to children?"

Court watchers think this one will go our way.

Being gay is rated "R"

There's a charming movie coming out called Love is Strange, where John Lithgow and Alfred Molina are partners of 40 years.  Upon marrying, Molina's character is fired from his job as a music teacher for a Catholic school and they lose their home.  They have to split, temporarily, and couch surf with family and friends.

It's by all accounts very charming, with no sex or nudity.  (See the trailer on Video Sunday on this blog, on Sunday 31st.)

But it's rated "R".

The MPAA movie ratings are supposed to provide information on a movie's content, so parents can decide whether or not it's suitable for their children. 

But what kind of information are they really providing? And what are they assuming we want to protect our children from? 

On Friday, "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" will be released in a wide number of theaters. It features nudity, sexual situations and substance abuse. Every woman in it is a stripper, a prostitute or a murderer. There is violence and graphic gore,...It is rated R. 

That day, "Jersey Shore Massacre" also reaches theaters. It features nudity, sexual situations, substance abuse and ethnic and racial slurs. There is violence and graphic gore....It is rated R. 

Also opening is "Love Is Strange." There is no nudity. There are no sexual situations. The drug or alcohol material mostly consists of adults having wine with dinner, or cocktails at a bar. There is no violence or gore. There are several scenes of men kissing, and two scenes of a gay couple sleeping together, fully clothed, in bed. It is rated R. 

If there's an equivalence among these three films, and their equal unsuitability for anyone under 17, it's lost on me — and, I suspect, on anyone but the censors at the MPAA. 

Not only is there nothing violent in "Love Is Strange," there's not even anything explicit. It is about as mild and mainstream a portrayal of gay life as you can imagine. Ben, played by John Lithgow, is a 71-year-old retiree. George, played by Alfred Molina, is a music teacher at a Catholic school. In the film, they have been together for nearly 40 years (until, in a unfair and sudden reversal of fortune, they lose their apartment).

It's a simple human story. And it is very hard to imagine that — if it starred, say, Robert Duvall and Jane Fonda as a similar long-time couple suddenly facing homelessness — it would be lumped in with movies crammed full of queasily stylish sexism and sickening torture porn.
.....
This is a gentle, if often heartbreaking story about two loving men in a long-time committed relationship. What on earth is in it that so horrifies the MPAA?
I'm sorry. I think I just answered my own question.

How to ask if she's gay? (video Sunday)

What's the Supreme forecast?

We've seen a remarkable string of federal court decisions impacting marriage equality in states with anti-equality laws or constitutional amendments.  But for the majority of those cases, there is a stay in place that prevents people from getting married, until the appeals process plays out.  So there are a lot of cases percolating.

To remind you, and for our foreign readers (if there are any), state laws can be challenged in the state court system,which will only consider issues relevant to the state constitution, or in the  federal court system, under federal constitutional law.  For example, in California's case, the state supreme court reluctantly found that under the California Constitution, Prop8 was legal.  A separate suit was then brought in federal court arguing that it was illegal under the US constitution.  That was heard by the district court, and the 9th circuit court of appeal.

That's what finally went to the Supreme Court, where it was overturned on a technicality because the state declined to appeal, and the only  appellants (the opponents of marriage equality) were a private group that lacked standing. Incidentally, that situation has led to equality in Oregon and Pennsylvania, where the state declined to challenge the ruling and private parties were found to lack standing.  (It's worth reminding people that there is no legal obligation to appeal a court decision. )

The Supreme Court doesn't have to hear any case. Typically, one big driver of them choosing to hear a case is if there is a disagreement in the lower courts.  For example, if the 9th circuit finds for marriage equality, while the 6th does not.  That can only be remedied by the SCOTUS. And that may happen, as court-watchers are betting that the case before the more conservative 6th circuit will find against marriage equality.

Of course, regardless, the losing sides in any of these cases can appeal all the way up to the SCOTUS, as long as they have standing. Right now, the Utah case is closest to making a SCOTUS appeal, since they've been through the circuit. The Oklahoma case is also on track.  The Virginia case may also make an appeal.  Each of these is in a different circuit, and each provides a slightly different twist to the question.  From Equality on Trial,

In the Virginia case, the fervor of the ban is unmatched—not only does its ban deny marriage to same-sex couples, but it also seeks to deny them from acquiring any of the rights of marriage through other means, such as civil unions or domestic partnerships. The plaintiffs, two couples, each represent one aspect of the ban’s two-pronged scope: the denial of both in-state marriage licenses as well as out-of state marriage licenses. 

In the Utah case, the defendants’ case relies more heavily on the claim that the state is being deprived of its right to define marriage, “disenfranchising” millions of its voters. Because the Constitution doesn’t define marriage, and the Supreme Court only deems the “right to marry” as a fundamental right, Utah claims that it has been delegated the right to define what “marry” means. The defendants claim that the Tenth Circuit’s ruling undermines democracy, and the federal system. 

In the Oklahoma case, more emphasis is placed by the defendants on the suspect nature of same-sex parenting. They note the uneasiness of young adults who don’t know their biological parents, or are conceived through sperm donation, though arguments from the other side rebut these claims as largely unfounded, while conflict in the social science community over that issue has also provided little evidence for the claim.

But the court doesn't HAVE to take any of those cases, unless it sees a question it must answer.

 If it does decide to take a marriage case next term (which it probably will), it will be able to pick and choose which one.

Lyle Denniston tells us,

With a little more than five weeks until the Justices assemble in their first private Conference, in advance of the new Term starting October 6, it is by no means clear that any same-sex marriage case will be ready for the Justices to consider it on September 29. That depends, in part, on whether the Court will have cases before it one at a time, as each is ready, or in a group., when several are ready. 

The last scheduled day for distributing a case for consideration by the Justices at the September 29 meeting is September 10 — now, just three weeks away. The pending Utah case has a fair prospect of being ready then, but there is reason to doubt at this point that the pending Oklahoma and Virginia cases will be complete. The lawyers involved have said they were working diligently to push matters along, but the clock is against them for action by the Justices at the outset of the new Term. 

There will be plenty of time, though, to get a case before the Court for decision during the new Term. If a case is accepted for review by sometime next January, it is almost certain to be decided before the end of the Term, late next June.

Update: Waiting in Virginia

Never let it be said that state elections "don't matter". In Virginia, which has such a harsh anti-gay policy that I call it the State of Hate, there has been a complete change since the election of Democratic Governor and Attorney General. They are marriage equality supporters for one. However, the AG is defending the law as it stands. So far, the 4th Circuit has found against the marriage ban, and refused to stay their order further. The marriage opponents have appealed to SCOTUS for a stay. THe AG agrees, because he doesn't want the on-again off-again spectacle of Utah or other states.

The 4th circuit falls under the responsibilities of Chief Justice John Roberts. It's widely assumed that he will continue the stay, since the Supremes also stayed the marriages in Utah. We'll know today. In any case, we'll almost certainly be seeing the Court take up marriage equality in their next session (starts in October).

Update: and, as expected, the stay is granted. No marriages in Virginia this week.

Secrets (video Sunday)

Catholics protests latest firing of gay church employee

From the Chicago Trib:

In an emotionally charged meeting Wednesday, parishioners of Holy Family Catholic Church in northwest suburban Inverness voiced opinions over the firing of their longtime music director, who lost his job after announcing his engagement to his male partner on social media. 

Many of the roughly 700 people who attended appeared to support Colin Collette, who received a standing ovation when he entered the sanctuary. ....

The church pastor, the Rev. Terry Keehan, organized Wednesday’s meeting “in light of the many and varied emotions that so many of you have expressed,” he wrote in Sunday’s church bulletin.

He called it a “Town Hall Meeting for Listening and Respect” and described it as an opportunity to voice emotions about Collette’s departure. ....

In the bulletin, Keehan also wrote that he was concerned how the various emotions affect “our larger community.” 

“It is truly a very complicated and complex situation,” his message read.

Not complicated in the least.  The church doesn't want to employ gay people who marry.  And, the law says they don't have to--this man was a music director, and that's a ministry.  End of story.   So this is a pointless exercise. I'm not sure what the priest hoped to accomplish.

Analysis of "the Streak"

Scotusblog's estimable Lyle Denniston takes on the concept of a winning streak in marriage equality cases:

What the occasional breaks in the “streak” illustrate, though, is that the outcome is not necessarily predictable as other courts take on the question, and an ultimate Supreme Court decision in favor of same-sex marriage is hardly inevitable. ....

The “streak” also has created a lower-court record that, even if it does not produce the same result each time, will surely impress the Supreme Court when it finally allows itself to be drawn into the fray. Some historians have said that they know of no instance when the Court has bucked a trend such as this one has become. 

But the very nature of that trend can also be an argument against the Supreme Court choosing to get involved itself. If the only breaks in the “streak” have been a handful of rulings by divorce-court judges, none of whom so far has gone deeply into the issue before ruling, the Court could conclude that the issue is working itself out sufficiently in lower courts..... 

But that may not happen.

A number of observers who listened to hearings held last week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit came away with a clear impression that a majority of that three-judge panel might well uphold one or more of the state bans in effect in the four states involved in that hearing. 

That kind of a break in the current “streak” would certainly demonstrate that there is a real division of opinion on the question, one that it would take a Supreme Court decision to resolve.

And there are no guarantees from the Supremes.  Ever.

New "Study" from discredited Mark Regnerus

You remember Regnerus, the U. Texas sociologist who claimed kids of gay parents had bad outcomes, only to be censured by his professional society and scolded by his department because he didn't actually study kids with gay parents. NOM et al have tried to build a lot on this, only to have the study decisively thrown out by judges who can think. (Our prior coverage of Regnerus here.) 

He's done another one:  this one a "study" of views of sex.  You can clearly see the goal here is to tarnish anyone who supports equality with the idea that they support all sorts of sexual immorality too, including lack of fidelity and use of pornography.  From the New Civil Rights Movement:

Today, Regnerus has announced the completion of yet another anti-gay study.

It clearly is designed to make same-sex marriage supporters appear "immoral" .... 

"Churchgoing Christians who support same-sex marriage are more likely to think pornography, cohabitation, hook-ups, adultery, polyamory, and abortion are acceptable," Regnerus writes at the Witherspoon Institute -- his benefactor. "And it’s reasonable to expect continued change in more permissive directions."

And he displays his glaring ignorance on same-sex marriage and LGBT people -- as if there are some strange cultural differences married same-sex people exhibit.

Notice the logical fallacy "it's reasonable to expect...."

This has already been used for fund-raising by NOM.

THe Imitation Game Trailer (video Sunday)

The trailer fromthe new film about Alan Turing:

Hobby Lobby: A thumb on the scale

From the Advocate:

Of course churches, other houses of worship, and religious schools must have full control over their selection of clergy and those who teach religion and lead religious activities. But when an organization invites people of all faiths (and no faith) to apply for jobs doing nonreligious work (such as food service, janitorial, medical, and business functions), those workers need to be treated just as fairly as in any work setting. No child labor or cheating on wages. No toxic chemicals in the air. And no toxic discrimination either.

Once upon a time, Southern restaurants used religion to explain racial segregation. Businesses have cited the Bible to justify paying women less than men. Attitudes about race and sex discrimination have evolved through a powerful mix of advocacy and outrage. This past spring, bills to allow religiously motivated anti-LGBT discrimination appeared in too many states, including Kansas, Georgia, and Arizona. Because community advocates, corporate leadership, and elected officials stood together, fairness prevailed. Now, given Hobby Lobby’s thumb on the scale for religious interests, it is ever more important that civic, business, and affirming faith leaders create an urgent chorus of support for explicit, effective and equal legal protections for LGBT people at every level of government. Our extraordinarily talented, diverse American community deserves no less.

The Welcome (Video Sunday)

This is from the UN:

What it comes down to: Is same sex marriage a new right, or equal access to an existing right?

Excellent analysis by Lyle Denniston:

When judges have ruled that gays and lesbians must be allowed, constitutionally, to marry, they have done so on the premise that this would not be the creation of a new right – that is, not a new-found right special to same-sex couples, but a right to join in equally in the existing, traditional right to marry. Those judges have accepted the argument of the same-sex couples that they want nothing more than equal access to the legal opportunity to wed. That, in essence, is the marriage equality argument. 

When judges have resisted (most often, these days, in dissenting opinions) the idea that same-sex couples’ choice to marry must be constitutionally protected, they have argued that this would be creating a new and special right, and they have noted that the Supreme Court has actively discouraged the crafting of new rights by constitutional fiat, rather than by constitutional amendment or by the acts of legislatures. That, in essence, is the argument against minting a new right. 

Both sides in this exchange can enlist some Supreme Court decisions on their side. After all, the Supreme Court has been working on its interpretation of just what marriage rights encompass for decades – indeed,at least since the late 19th Century. Little by little, the Justices have moved steadily toward the conclusion that, constitutionally speaking, the right to marry is fundamental to the civic order, a right of the highest constitutional rank. 

But yet to be decided, at least for gays and lesbians, is this: just what is the nature of that fundamental right? Is it a sweeping right to choose one’s life mate without interference by government? Or is it a right that is fundamental only because it has deep roots in the traditional definition of one-man, one-woman marriage?

Anti equality arguments just get sillier and sillier

From Slate:

Judge Vaughn Walker raised [a] point with a lawyer defending California’s Proposition 8, demanding to know “how permitting same-sex marriage impairs or adversely affects” straight people’s marriages. The lawyer had this response: “Your honor, my answer is: I don’t know. I don’t know.” 

The problem here, of course, is that an honest answer—“your honor, we believe gay people will destroy the marital institution altogether”—would undermine the supposedly secular, animus-free nature of these arguments. In developing them, anti-gay activists began with a conclusion—gay people don’t deserve the rights that we straight people have—then worked backward, camouflaging each prejudiced premise with a supposedly neutral talking point. Under any kind of scrutiny, these theories instantly fall apart, revealing their bigoted, constitutionally impermissible core.
...
And yet the inanity continues full-throttle, because gay marriage opponents have backed themselves into the corner they’ve always dreaded. They can’t give up their quest now—but they’re barred from citing the explanations that they truly believe, deep down, to be correct. The result is the current tailspin of idiocy, a shifting argument with rootless standards roaming from rationale from rationale in a desperate attempt to find shelter from the storm of progress swirling around it. It’s a pathetic display, but not an unpleasant one to witness. Stripped of all logic and reason, the argument against gay marriage has been reduced to gibberish. Enjoy the babbling while it lasts.

Video Sunday: Pride (Trailer)

It's Thatcher's Britain.  What happens when a group of gays try to help some Welsh miners on strike?

 

Voices of Faith: It's not discrimination if you can't discriminate

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Voices of Faith

I wonder if the increasingly hysterical anti-gay right wing ever listens to themselves.  They are claiming that if they are not allowed to discriminate against LGBT people, that is discrimination against THEM.

From Patheos,

So yeah, apparently we’re being “bullied” because in exchange for accepting government funds we have to agree not to fire people for being gay. 

Poor us.

So listen– I think we as Christians need to set something straight before we go any further:
It’s not discrimination when we are prevented from doing the discriminating. It’s not persecution when we are prevented from doing the persecuting. It’s not bullying when we’re told that we can’t bully others. 

It’s not any of those things. 

In fact, we should actually be embarrassed that we even have to be told that it’s wrong to fire someone for these reasons. Your place of business is NOT the same thing as your church– if you want to accept government funds, you’ll have to play by a set of rules that keeps it fair for everyone. Both for you, and everyone else

Making us go away

John Corvino reviews an essay by Michael Hannon.

Hannon argues that religious conservatives should embrace queer theorists’ view that sexual orientation is a social construction, rather than a natural and inevitable feature of persons. Furthermore, they should stop categorizing anyone as gay, because doing so organizes that person’s sexual identity around a particular temptation to sin, leading him to believe that he needs that sin in order to be fulfilled. Finally, and most important, they should stop categorizing anyone as heterosexual, because doing so lets people off the hook as “normal,” thus blinding them to their own sin. The general idea is that shedding these labels will enable people better to focus on the proper Christian grounding for sex and marriage.....

Hannon makes clear exactly what these social conservatives ultimately want. It’s not merely to deny same-sex couples the freedom to marry. It’s not merely to refuse to do our wedding photography or to bake our cakes. It’s not even merely to push gay-identified people back into the closet, although that’s an essential—and sufficiently frightening—first step in Hannon’s dismantling fantasy. 

What they want is nothing less than to dismantle the very vocabulary by which we express and realize our inchoate longings for intimacy. They want to push us back to a time when homosexuality was not merely the “love that dare not speak its name,” but the love that could not speak it. They want to restore a regime where the boy with the funny feeling might—if he’s lucky—grow up to have a good-enough heterosexual marriage, but he might just as easily grow up to have a lonely life of furtive, dangerous same-sex encounters. 

The old regime died because it was cruel and inhumane. Hannon seems to hope that, by not naming our reality, he can make it go away. He’s badly wrong about that, and thankfully so.

Video Sunday: A good man

From NPR's StoryCorps

Video Sunday: The Proud Whopper

Burger King has introduced the Proud Whopper.  (Fundie heads, predictably, are exploding.  Well, they can eat at Chik-Fil-ay).

What is a Proud Whopper, you ask?

Why LGBT people should care about women's reproductive rights

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Voices of Faith

Heterosexism, the saying goes, is but one room in the house of sexism.  Gay rights and women's rights are linked, because fundamentally both are based on the equal rights of people who are not straight  males.

From the Rev Harry Knox:

[O]ne fundamental connection that I hope we can all see given the events of the last two weeks. It’s that the struggle for LGBT rights and the struggle for reproductive rights are inseparable—and that we have to change the role religion is playing.... 

the larger goal of the extreme anti-gay, anti-abortion movement, which is that it is not ultimately about LGBT people or reducing the number of abortions. It is about imposing one narrow, religious view of sexuality and reproduction on everyone, with as much government support as possible.... their primary goal is not to reduce the need for abortion, it is to regulate other people’s bodies and decisions and punish anyone who makes choices outside what they establish as the moral norm. I call this approach “moralism.” It is deeply rooted in our American culture and it is deeply religious in nature.
....
As those committed to LGBT equality and/or reproductive health, rights, and justice continue to move the work forward, I hope that more and more of us will come to recognize that they are, in fact, the same struggle. And when it comes to religion, let me say this clearly: whether or not you identify as person of faith, you can help change the role religion is playing in the struggle. You can help your friends, family, and co-workers understand that the people trying to impose their extreme conservative views on others represent only a small minority of the religious community. You can help them to understand that there are millions of people of faith in this country who believe that every person deserves access to the rights and resources they need to make decisions according to their own beliefs and conscience. 

In order to successfully challenge moralism and the misuse of religion as a tool of discrimination, we need to build a broad, inclusive movement that includes both people of faith and people without a religious affiliation. It must include both religious organizations and secular organizations, and religious organizations cannot be the only ones talking constructively about the role religion plays. 

It is only through new and deeper forms of collaboration that we will overcome the challenge before us. I pray that the events of last week, and those that will undoubtedly come in the future, serve as a rallying cry that creates new energy, new allies, and a deeper sense of solidarity in our shared struggle for justice.

Children of gay couples happier and healthier

Oh, how inconvenient to the fans of Regnerus:

From the WaPo:

Children of same-sex couples fare better when it comes to physical health and social well-being than children in the general population, according to researchers at the University of Melbourne in Australia..... 

Crouch and his team surveyed 315 same-sex parents with a total of 500 children across Australia. About 80 percent of the kids had female parents and about 18 percent had male parents, the study states. 

Children from same-sex families scored about 6 percent higher on general health and family cohesion, even when controlling for socio-demographic factors such as parents’ education and household income, Crouch wrote. However, on most health measures, including emotional behavior and physical functioning, there was no difference compared with children from the general populatio

Papa's Prince (video Sunday)

Why am I not surprised? Using Hobby Lobby against gays

From the Atlantic,

This week, in the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court ruled that a religious employer could not be required to provide employees with certain types of contraception. That decision is beginning to reverberate: A group of faith leaders is urging the Obama administration to include a religious exemption in a forthcoming LGBT anti-discrimination action. 

Their call, in a letter sent to the White House Tuesday, attempts to capitalize on the Supreme Court case by arguing that it shows the administration must show more deference to the prerogatives of religion. 

"We are asking that an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of faith communities whose religious identity and beliefs motivate them to serve those in need," the letter states.

Because nothing speaks to the love of God like refusing to hire a homo.

Religious Roots of (Pro) Gay Rights Activism

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Voices of Faith

Uncovering The Surprising Religious History Of American Gay Rights Activism

Today, although Americans for and against gay rights cite their religious beliefs, those who oppose same-sex marriage and other civil rights for LGBT individuals have been especially vocal in declaring that God is on their side. That's not always been the expectation about the faithful. In the mid-1960s, LGBT activists often looked to men of the cloth as allies in their fight for justice and human rights, according to historians.

Fascinating.  NOt surprisng, though.  Just another example of how we have let a minority (the Religious Right) co-opt religion as though THEY define it.

Kentucky

ThinkProgress:

[Judge] Heyburn took particular exception to a “disingenuous twist” added to the state’s argument this time, referring to Gov. Steve Beshear’s (D) claim that it’s too expensive to allow same-sex couples to marry. “These arguments,” he wrote, “are not those of serious people,” calling them “at best illogical and even bewildering.” He could think of “no other conceivable legitimate reason” for Kentucky’s laws banning same-sex marriage. 

In his conclusion, Heyburn spoke directly to those who objected to his previous decision this year. “In America,” he implored,” even sincere and long-held religious views do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been out-voted.” “Assuring equal protection for same-sex couples does not diminish the freedom of others to any degree… hopefully, even those opposed to or uncertain about same-sex marriage will see it that way in the future.”

The decision has been stayed.

The Bible and Homosexuality in under 5min, by Matthew Vines (Video Sunday)

Meanwhile in Indiana....

Also from ThinkProgress

U.S. District Court Judge Richard L. Young, a Clinton appointee, ruled Wednesday that Indiana’s state law banning same-sex couples from marrying or having their marriages from other states recognized is unconstitutional. The ruling takes effect today, though will likely be stayed as rulings in other states have been. 

According to Young, “It is clear that the fundamental right to marry shall not be deprived to some individuals based solely on the person they choose to love.” He expects that, “in time, Americans will look at the marriage of couples such as Plaintiffs, and refer to it simply as a marriage — not a same-sex marriage.”

“These couples, when gender and sexual orientation are taken away,” he concluded,” are in all respects like the family down the street. The Constitution demands that we treat them as such.”

Meanwhile in Utah....

From ThinkProgress:

In the first federal appellate level consideration of same-sex marriage since the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act last year, the 10th Circuit has agreed with the lower court that Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. In a 2-1 decision, the panel ruled that the Constitution guarantees that “those who wish to marry a person of the same sex are entitled to exercise the same fundamental right as it is recognized by persons who wish to marry a person of the opposite sex.” 

The ruling was immediately stayed, recognizing that the Supreme Court had stayed thedistrict court’s original ruling earlier this year.

From the opinion:

We hold that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry, establish a family, raise children, and enjoy the full protection of a state’s marital laws. A state may not deny the issuance of a marriage license to two persons, or refuse to recognize their marriage, based solely upon the sex of the persons in the marriage union.

and

As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can   invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.” Id. at 579. A generation   ago, recognition of the fundamental right to marry as applying to persons of the same sex   might have been unimaginable. A generation ago, the declaration by gay and lesbian   couples of what may have been in their hearts would have had to remain unspoken. Not   until contemporary times have laws stigmatizing or even criminalizing gay men and   women been felled, allowing their relationships to surface to an open society. As the district court eloquently explained, “it is not the Constitution that has changed, but the   knowledge of what it means to be gay or lesbian.” Kitchen, 961 F. Supp. 2d at 1203.   Consistent with our constitutional tradition of recognizing the liberty of those previously   excluded, we conclude that plaintiffs possess a fundamental right to marry and to have   their marriages recognized.

"I don't approve of your lifestyle"

After the march that nobody attended (NOM's poorly attended anti-gay marriage march in Washington last week), there was the usual effort by NOM and its friends (I'm looking at you, Abp Salvatore Cordileone) to pretend that they aren't against LGBT people, but just trying to defend the specialness of marriage from Teh Gayz.

It's not personal. They just "don't approve of our lifestyle".

But we know what that really means, and this article, 5 things you REALLY mean when you say I don't approve of your homosexual lifestyle nails it.

First,

You assent that nothing else about me is part of my "lifestyle"; not the job I do, not the worship I attend, not the food I eat, not the gardening I enjoy, not the children I am raising, and most certainly not the palpable and inescapable love I have for God and my neighbor. Next time, just be honest and say "I am grossed out by thinking about your sex life."

That's the biggest one, because it all comes down to an obsession with sex (particular sex between men, because we know that most straight men are turned on by the thought of women having sex.)

Second,

You have decided to ignore all social sciences that inform us that human sexuality is on a spectrum and that some people are in fact built (Created) to be attracted to, fall in love with and desire to make a life with people of the same gender. ....Next time, just be honest and say "I don't believe in science."

Because it's perfectly natural to be gay, a normal human variation like having red hair or being left handed, and yes, lots of animals are gay too.

Third

what you are really saying is DO approve of forcing me to live either a dark and dangerous lie or to be completely alone, forever.....Next time, just be honest and say "I don't  approve of you being whole and loved."

#3 particularly applies to the Catholic bishops who are happy to inflict loneliness on complete strangers, whether or not they are Catholic, by demanding that they live celibate and alone.  Funny how it's so easy to lay that cross on someone else.

Fourth

...you approve of me being persistently a second class, slightly fearful citizen living on the same street, shopping in the same community, worshipping at the same church and subject to the stricter laws than you. ... Next time, just be honest and say “I don’t approve of equal rights for all.”

Because really, what effect does my having the right to marry have on anyone else, except my spouse?  Does it hurt any other person that I have full rights of citizenship?

Fifth, for all the believers out there

what you are really saying is you don't trust God to generously create and extravagantly love an amazing array of differently configured children. What you are saying is that God's love is limited to people like you. And sweetie, we can call it blasphemy or we can call it heresy, hell I am happy to call it willful ignorance, but in truth it is just plain old, small-minded, narcissistic religiosity that denies the radical grace and is terrified of the incomprehensibility of God.....Next time, just be honest and say “I don’t believe in your sacred worth."

Abp Cordileone's God is a very small God, don't you think?