A busy week in equality

Arizona's attempt to facilitate discrimination against LGBT people came perilously close to passing, before being vetoed last night by Gov. Brewer.  While many of the similarly-worded "okay to discriminate" laws have not made it, there are still a number in play.

Yesterday also saw another federal judge strike down an anti-marriage amendment, this time in Texas.  As is usual, there was an immediate stay pending appeal, so no one's getting married just yet, but this is the latest in a line of federal district courts applying the logic of the Windsor case.  So now, we've had rulings in Oklahoma, Virginia, Utah, and Texas.

The delicious thing about these cases is that Justice Antonin Scalia so often has provided the words.

From the HuffPo:

[Judge Garcia] chose to quote from Scalia's dissent in the landmark 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down the state's anti-sodomy law....

In explaining why tradition alone can't form a rational basis for a law, Garcia pointed to Scalia's argument in the 2003 dissent that the phrase "the traditional institution of marriage" is "just a kinder way of describing the State’s moral disapproval of same-sex couples." 

And in explaining why the biological ability of many opposite-sex couples to procreate doesn't justify denying equal rights to same-sex couples, Garcia cited Scalia, too. 

"[W]hat justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising 'the liberty protected by the Constitution'? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry," Scalia wrote at the time. 

Other judges have pointed at Scalia's words in his dissent to Windsor.

 Scalia wrote in that dissent that he believed the majority's logic would inevitably lead to other judges striking down same-sex marriage bans.

New survey: support for marriage equality >50%

From PRRI:

Currently, a majority (53%) of Americans favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry, compared to 41% who oppose.... 

.... Today, there are major religious groups on both sides of the issue. Religiously unaffiliated Americans (73%), white mainline Protestants (62%), white Catholics (58%), and Hispanic Catholics (56%) all favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. A majority (83%) of Jewish Americans also favor legalizing same-sex marriage. Hispanic Protestants are divided; 46% favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry and 49% oppose. By contrast, nearly 7-in-10 (69%) white evangelical Protestants and nearly 6-in-10 (59%) black Protestants oppose same-sex marriage. Only 27% of white evangelical Protestants and 35% of black Protestants support same-sex marriage. 

....Majorities of Americans perceive three religious groups to be unfriendly to LGBT people: the Catholic Church (58%), the Mormon church (53%), and evangelical Christian churches (51%). Perceptions of non-evangelical Protestant churches, African-American churches and the Jewish religion are notably less negative. 

„„At least two-thirds of LGBT Americans perceive both the Catholic Church (73%) and evangelical Christian churches (67%) as being unfriendly toward LGBT people.
Nearly 6-in-10 (58%) Americans agree that religious groups are alienating young people by being too judgmental on gay and lesbian issues. ... 

Among Americans who left their childhood religion and are now religiously unaffiliated, about one-quarter say negative teachings about or treatment of gay and lesbian people was a somewhat important (14%) or very important (10%) factor in their decision to disaffiliate.
 

Open letter to Ugandan scientists

From the New York Times, Nick Kristoff's column, out gay scientist Dean Hamer takes on the non-scientific claptrap that Uganda is using to justify its kill lock up the gays bill.  Among his rsponese:

1. There is no definitive gene responsible for homosexuality.
The presence or lack of a single gene says nothing about the overall extent to which a trait is influenced by heredity. There is also “no definitive gene responsible for” skin color, height, handedness or many other innate human characteristics because these traits, like sexual orientation, are influenced by multiple genes acting in concert with one another. That doesn’t make the traits non-genetic, it just makes them complex. 

In fact, twin and family studies indicate that genes are the major known factor responsible for individual sexual orientation in both males and females, accounting for 25 to 50 percent of the overall variation and 50 to 100 percent of the ascribable variation; the sources of the remaining variation are unknown, but are most likely to be biological and stochastic factors since they are not affected by rearing environment or social surroundings....

2. Homosexuality is not a disease, but merely an abnormal behavior which may be learned through experiences in life. 

There is no scientific evidence that homosexual orientation is a learned behavior any more than is heterosexual orientation. ... 

3. In every society, there is a small number of people with homosexuality tendencies. 

This is correct, but it points to precisely the opposite overall conclusion of the report. Cross-cultural universality is an indication that a trait has origins that are shared by all humans, most likely genetic. Traits that differ from one culture to the next are more likely to be learned. 

4. Homosexuality can be influenced by environmental factors, such as culture, religion and peer pressure among others. 

Although sexual activity can clearly be influenced by environmental factors, including laws, the underlying orientation is immutable. 

 

Regnerus Redux

The New York Times has a story on the discredited Regnerus study that exposes how it was funded by conservative groups. (You can read my prior coverage here).   I think this is the first big mainstream media coverage of how it came to be.  It matters,because Regnerus is cited by the anti-equality forces even though his study is fatally flawed and disavowed by professional sociologists.  

I think we'd be concerned at a putative scientific study in which a scientist is given $700,000 by a drug firm to find a desired result. 

From the Times

Wendy D. Manning, a professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and the main author of the association report, said of the wider literature: “Every study has shortcomings, but when you pull them all together, the picture is very clear. There is no evidence that children fare worse in same-sex families.” 

More research is needed as society changes, but it cannot guide marriage policy, she said, noting that only about half the children in the United States live with married, biological parents. 

Children of single mothers, adopted children, children of divorce and children in poverty all have worse outcomes on average than children in stable middle-class marriages.
“Are we going to hold same-sex parents to a different standard than heterosexuals?” she asked.

Grandpas getting married (video Sunday)

Yes, that's a plural, not a contraction.

If you can't see the video below, click here.

   

Who is behind the "right to discriminate" bills?

We've seen a number of state legislatures take up bills that have a breath-taking expansion of "religious rights" to allow someone to claim that their religious beliefs allow them to discriminate against same sex couples.  Call it the "baker/photographer" law, since they think that people with a business license should be free to discriminate on the grounds of their religion.

• These laws are written so broadly that they would allow a hotel clerk to refuse to rent a room to a couple of men, on the grounds that the men being a couple offends the clerk's religion.  
• Or allow an employer to pay women less than men due to his biblical beliefs.  
• Or a Muslim taxi driver to refuse to pick up a woman.

But despite their broad effects, the intent is simple:  to attack the gays and make it legal to discriminate against gay couples.

Aside from Arizona, most of these attempts have died during the legislative process.

But their appearance and similarity strongly suggests that they have a common creator.  And of course, this false claim of "religious freedom" is the fallback position of equality opponents (I'm looking at you, Catholic Bishops).

So who is behind this?

Anti-gay animus, or religious freedom?

In the wake of several deep-red states trying to pass laws that allow citizens to discriminate against fellow (gay) citizens because of "deeply held religious views", Andrew Sullivan gives us a metric of how to tell if this is animus, discrimination, or legitimate (if not legal) concerns about liberty:

So it also seems to me that the one demand we should make of such a defense of religious freedom is that it be consistent. For me, with devout Catholics, the acid test is divorce. The bar on divorce – which, unlike the gay issue, is upheld directly by Jesus in the Gospels – is just as integral to the Catholic meaning of marriage as the prohibition on gay couples. So why no laws including that potential violation of religious liberty? Both kinds of marriage are equally verboten in Catholicism. So where is the political movement to insist that devout Catholics do not have to cater the second weddings of previously divorced people?

For that matter, why no consideration of those whose religious beliefs demand that they not bless marriages outside their own faith-community? Do we enshrine the right of, say, an Orthodox Jewish hotel-owner to discriminate against unmarried couples who might be inter-married across faiths? Do we allow an evangelical to discriminate against Mormon couples, because their doctrine about marriage is so markedly different from mainstream Christianity’s?

It seems to me that the acid test for the new bills being prepared by the Christianist right with respect to religious freedom and marriage is whether they are discriminatory against gays and straights alike. Currently, they don’t begin to pass muster on that front. Until they do, the presumption that they are motivated by bigotry rather than faith is perfectly legitimate.

Anti-gay prejudice is bad for LGBT health

From the Advocate:

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people who live in communities with high levels of antigay prejudice are more likely to have a life span that is 12 years shorter than their peers who are not discriminated against.

Of course, the anti-gays are all in favor of that.

Clearly, if you can leave, you should.  It's challenging enough to live our lives out and proud when we have the relentless news about whether we are worthy.  But at least in some places we have protections and rights.

Voices of Faith: Calling out Christians

Click image for more
Voices of Faith

From the HuffPo, a Christian pastor calls out his fellow CHristians on their support for anti-gay laws and initiatives:

As an ordained Christian pastor, I am angered by my co-religionists' collaboration and complicity with these laws that specifically target the LGBT community. How outrageous -- how sinful -- that our religious tradition should be used in the service of the demonization and denigration of our fellow human beings. It has gone on long enough. It is time for justice-minded Christians to get up off the sidelines and in the famous words of the Stonewall drag-queen Sylvia Rivera: "Not take any more of this shit."

The good news is that many Christians both in the pews and in leadership positions are already standing with LGBT people. ...

Those of us who are Christian have to add to and embolden these voices with our own. Christians should make sure that their churches, friends and denominational leaders have a chance to meet and talk to LGBT people and understand how being targeted by these laws makes us feel. Christians should take to their own Facebook pages and other social media and stand with LGBT people.

Religious leaders on every level must directly speak out against the complicity of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestant Christians in the targeting of God's LGBT children. Pope Francis, I'm talking to you. It is time for you to use your prophetic voice and speak out against use of violence and for the full equality of LGBT people. All of those on Twitter should reach out to @Pontifex using #PopeSpeakOut

Recent events around the world show us that sitting on the sidelines is no longer permissible -- especially for Christians. We cannot let others speak for Jesus. Our faith is being used to do serious harm to LGBT people. Showing love for our neighbor today, as commanded by Jesus, means stepping up and standing in solidarity with our LGBT sisters and brothers around the world.

SHE4ME: Video Sunday

I love a romance....

VIRGINIA?!

Box Turtle Bulletin fills us in:

While I was sleeping, Federal District Judge U.S. District Court Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen found Virginias constitutional amendment banning marriage equality and the recognition of same-sex marriages from other states as a violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution. 

Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban is considered one of the most sweeping bans in the country. It’s only fitting, then, the Judge Allen’s ruling is similarly sweeping.  

From the opinion:

Justice has often been forged from fires of indignities and prejudices suffered. Our triumphs that celebrate the freedom of choice are hallowed. We have arrived upon another moment in history when We the People becomes more inclusive, and our freedom more perfect. 

Almost one hundred and fifty four years ago, as Abraham Lincoln approached the cataclysmic rending of our nation over a struggle for other freedoms, a rending that would take his life and the lives of hundreds of thousands of others, he wrote these words: “It can not have failed to strike you that these men ask for just. . . the same thing–fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have. “ 

The men and women, and the children too, whose voices join in noble harmony with Plaintiffs today, also ask for fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as it is in this Court’s power, they and all others shall have. [Emphasis in the original]

More from Think Progress

Updated marriage map

From an excellent blog, called Middling America:

And in Kentucky....

From the HuffPO:

A federal judge has ruled that Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, striking down part of the state ban. 

In 23-page a ruling issued Wednesday, U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II concluded that Kentucky's laws treat gay and lesbians differently in a "way that demeans them." The constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was approved by voters in 2004. The out-of-state clause was part of it. 

This doesn't address marriages IN Kentucky, but says they can't discriminate against people like me who are legally married in another state.

Fundy wingnut head explosions in three....  two....

update:  more from the New Civil Rights Movement:

[Judge] Heyburn said that while ‘religious beliefs … are vital to the fabric of society … assigning a religious or traditional rationale for a law does not make it constitutional when that law discriminates against a class of people without other reasons,’” the Courier-Journal reports.

How an Irish drag queen took the homophobes to task (video Sunday)

So, an Irish drag queen called Panti Bliss named several prominent anti-gay activists as homophobes.  They promptly sued the television station which paid up.

And Panti did not take this well. She made a speech.  The speech is long, but worth watching.



  A full transcript is here.  Here's part of what she said:

Three weeks ago I was on the television and I said that I believed that people who actively campaign for gay people to be treated less or differently are, in my gay opinion, homophobic. Some people, people who actively campaign for gay people to be treated less under the law took great exception at this characterisation and threatened legal action against me and RTÉ. RTÉ, in its wisdom, decided incredibly quickly to hand over a huge sum of money to make it go away. I haven’t been so lucky.

And for the last three weeks I have been lectured by heterosexual people about what homophobia is and who should be allowed identify it. Straight people – ministers, senators, lawyers, journalists – have lined up to tell me what homophobia is and what I am allowed to feel oppressed by. People who have never experienced homophobia in their lives, people who have never checked themselves at a pedestrian crossing, have told me that unless I am being thrown in prison or herded onto a cattle train, then it is not homophobia.

And that feels oppressive.

So now Irish gay people find ourselves in a ludicrous situation where not only are we not allowed to say publicly what we feel oppressed by, we are not even allowed to think it because our definition has been disallowed by our betters.

And for the last three weeks I have been denounced from the floor of parliament to newspaper columns to the seething morass of internet commentary for “hate speech” because I dared to use the word “homophobia”. And a jumped-up queer like me should know that the word “homophobia” is no longer available to gay people. Which is a spectacular and neat Orwellian trick because now it turns out that gay people are not the victims of homophobia – homophobes are.

Sweeping federal protections for married gay couples

From the WaPo:

The Justice Department on Monday will instruct all of its employees across the country, for the first time, to give lawful same-sex marriages sweeping equal protection under the law in every program it administers, from courthouse proceedings to prison visits to the compensation of surviving spouses of public safety officers.

In a new policy memo, the department will spell out the rights of same-sex couples, including the right to decline to give testimony that might incriminate their spouses, even if their marriages are not recognized in the state where the couple lives.

THe wheels of justice creak along....

IOKIYAR, or when does a VA Attorney General have to defend a law?

The conservatives are up in arms because the new Attorney General of Virginia,  Mark Herring, refuses to defend the state's cruel anti-gay union law.  The AG considers it unconstitutional.

Never fear, the law will be defended by the Usual Suspects, thanks to several clerks also named in the suit. In fact, arguments were heard yesterday.

Let's have a quote from the Virginia A/G:

“I will not defend what I, in my judgment, deem to be an unconstitutional law.” “If I determine it not to be constitutional,” he explained [in a debate], “I will not defend it. My first obligation is to the Constitution and the people of Virginia.”  (source)

Oops .... I'm sorry.

That wasn't a quote from (Democrat) Mark Herring, but from his (Republican) predecessor, Ken Cuccinelli.

Apparently, it's okay to refuse to defend a law that you consider unconstitutional if you are a Republican A/G.  It's just a problem if you are a democrat.

The stench of hypocrisy....

(More from ThinkProgress)

New suit in WI takes on "marriage evasion"

Following up on yesterday's post, here's another facepalm.

Many LGBT people travel to states where marriage is legal to tie the knot.  Thanks to the fall of DOMA, marriage now accrues federal rights and benefits.  It's hard to return to a state that doesn't recognize them, but at least they have some protections.

But in Wisconsin, that's illegal. They have a statute  making it a crime for a gay couple to get married somewhere else.  And now, someone is going to litigate.

The litigation seeks not only to overturn the state’s 2006 constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, but also to enjoin state official from enforcing a “marriage evasion law” prohibiting couples — gay and straight — from going elsewhere to marry if the marriage would be prohibited in the state. 

The penalties of violating the marriage evasion law in Wisconsin, which is the only state to have such a statute, include up to $10,000 in fines and nine months in prison. 

... 

The marriage evasion law is particularly problematic for same-sex couples in Wisconsin because the Obama administration in most cases has elected to recognize same-sex marriages even if the state doesn’t recognize them — provided these couples are able to marry in a jurisdiction that allows it. 

John Knight, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT project, called the marriage evasion law a “Catch-22″ for same-sex couples living in Wisconsin who want to marry. 

“Wisconsin is unique in that sense, and so we think that argument particularly exemplifies the harm or the animus toward same-sex couples in some parts of the country,” Knight said.

How can that be considered anything other than rawest animus?

Marriage in Scotland!

The Scotsman reports:

Same-sex marriage legislation has been supported in a final vote at the Scottish Parliament today.

MSPs passed the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill by 105 votes to 18.

Well done, Scots!

Anti-gay laws in some US states are as bad as Russia's? Not quite, but still bad.

We're all upset over the blatantly homophobic laws in Russia that make being an out gay person almost a crime.  Russia forbids "promotion" of homosexuality, which is interpreted as essentially any mention of this being a normal human variant.  Simply holding a rainbow flag is a crime. Ostensibly this is to protect the children.

But did you know that some US states are also oppressive in how they instruct children?  They either forbid mention of gay sexuality altogether, or require anti-gay instruction.  Obviously this isn't in the same league as the violence in Russia, but it's disheartening.

From Think Progress:

Back in the United States, nine states impose limitations on how educators can talk about homosexuality in ways that mirror Russia’s law.

The state by state list includes the fact that Texas state policy on sex education actually states that homosexual relations are criminal.  Even though the Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, overturned their law and decriminalized gay sex.

But Texas apparently has a flimsy relationship with the facts.

Here's the graphic.

Update:  Aravosis  calls the language to task

That’s not to suggest that the anti-gay laws in the states are “good,” by any means. But there’s something to be said for proportionality. During the 1980s, the US (as it does today) most certainly had a problem with racism. As did South Africa. But to suggest that the US, and the world, should not have spoken out about the evils of apartheid, since the US still suffered from racism itself, is not only absurd, it’s also incredibly counterproductive to the cause of human rights.... 

Gays in America are getting married, while gays in Russia are getting beaten. Gays in America serve openly in Congress, the judiciary, and the highest levels of government. In Russia, they most certainly do not.

Imran Khan takes on homophobia (video Sunday)

Semi-satirical video by Bollywood star Imran Khan takes on the Indian anti-gay movement (they have re-criminalized homosexuality).