In Indiana, the state Senate has just passed a bill 40-10 to ban marriage for gays and lesbians. The House passed it a few weeks ago. Luckily, it can’t become law before the next legislature votes on it, and then voters have their say. Still, ridiculous.
Meanwhile, due to elected, poorly constructed wingnuts, the Montana House has been unable to get a bill out of committee to repeal the state’s law against, um, gay sex. This is, of course, goes against a Montana Supreme Court ruling, and also Lawrence v. Texas, but hey, it’s wingnuts. What are you gonna do?
Couple gets married in Vermont, wants to get divorced in Nebraska, and that’s a typical story, right? Except that it’s a same-sex couple, and that whole long ago useless Federalism thing is making things weird. In this case, the judge says that since same-sex couples can’t marry in Nebraska, they surely can’t divorce either:
Judge Randall Rehmeier ruled that a lesbian couple married in Vermont eight years ago couldn’t get a divorce decree in Nebraska because Nebraska only recognizes heterosexual marriage.
The divorce was sought by a Nebraska City woman who wanted to break the Vermont marriage with her partner.
However, Rehmeier did issue a ruling involving parenting, visitation rights for the couple’s 4-year-old daughter, child support and other matters.
In the nicest language possible, without using words like “disturbed” or “truly bizarre,” Dan Moore, an attorney and former adviser to failed Iowa gubernatorial candidate and known wingnut Bob Vander Plaats, has written a piece in the Des Moines Register where he addresses Vander Plaats’ strange crusade against the Iowa Supreme Court:
As a friend and former adviser on three of Bob Vander Plaats’ campaigns, I understood from Bob that he was done with campaigning against the courts after the retention vote Nov. 2. Yet his senseless attacks on the courts continue.
Bob is obsessed with the gay-marriage issue. He is so obsessed that he would rather see the Iowa judicial system destroyed, instead of pursuing a change in the law within the channels provided (a constitutional amendment). Iowa’s judicial system has been held in high regard by the entire United States. The Iowa judicial branch has a long history of exceptional service, distinguished and acclaimed decisions – and now it is being raked through the mud, disparaged, criticized and harangued daily.
I would like to ask all Iowans to step back and consider the gravity of what is now being proposed by Bob and other anti-court persons. They are suggesting that the four remaining Supreme Court justices be impeached. No justice in the state of Iowa has ever been impeached. Only 13 federal judges have been impeached in the history of the nation, and the impeachment proceedings were all based upon the commission of criminal acts.
The Iowa Supreme Court justices who wrote a unanimous opinion in Varnum committed no crime. To be impeached, a person must have committed a crime or engaged in malfeasance. When a justice works hard, researches the law, has legal assistants and law clerks research the law and issues a politically unpopular decision in one case, how can that possibly constitute “malfeasance”?
Yeah, that’s just the first part. He truly rips Vander Plaats apart.
Social conservatives don’t like our American system, because it doesn’t conform to their “ideas” about what society or governing should look like. They certainly don’t respect our Constitution — the easiest tip off to that is the way they all defensively wail about how much they love it — and their answer to pretty much anything that doesn’t go their way is to stomp their feet and cry, get people fired, etc.
William Saletan argues in Slate Magazine against the fake “slippery slope” argument used by delusional conservatives who say legalizing same-sex marriage will lead to the legalization of incest.
Morally, the family-structure argument captures our central intuition about incest: It confuses relationships. Constitutionally, this argument provides a rational basis for laws against incest. But it doesn’t provide a rational basis for laws against homosexuality. In fact, it supports the case for same-sex marriage.
When a young man falls in love with another man, no family is destroyed. Homosexuality is largely immutable, as the chronic failure of “ex-gay” ministries attests. So if you forbid sex between these two men, neither of them is likely to form a happy, faithful heterosexual family. The best way to help them form a stable family is to encourage them to marry each other.
Very well said. The idea that legalization of same-sex marriage leads to anything except same-sex marriages is an idiotic canard used to fool the easily gullible — such as Porno Pete’s five followers. Furthermore, there is actual proof that the argument is bogus. In countries and states where marriage equality exists, it has not affected laws on incest.
It technically doesn’t, as marriage is unfortunately controlled by religious authorities in Israel. However, in certain key ways, Israel has blown past the United States in terms of equal rights for gay couples. In a new video for VJM, journalist Yermi Brenner introduces us to how gay couples work it out in Israel. There’s a class issue involved here: for those couples who can afford to travel abroad to get married, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled several years back that the nation would recognize marriages performed abroad, including those of same-sex partners. And for those who can’t afford it, an organization has stepped up to help couples get the protections and rights that they need as couples. Interesting stuff.
Of course, WordPress is being difficult, so I can’t seem to embed the video here, but by all means, hop over to the Huffington Post to watch.
In May and June, I pointed out that we have reached a tipping point on LGBT equality.
Mainstream newspapers are finally catching on to this reality. Today’s New York Times had a good story, “Over Time, a Gay Marriage Groundswell”, that shows the trend towards public acceptance.
The article revealed that only 25-percent of Americans supported marriage equality in 1994-1996. Now, between 45-50-percent of Americans support equal marriage rights. Amazingly, a majority of people support “gay marriage” in 22 states. Support has increased in all states — except Utah.
This morning, I read New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s meandering and incoherent op-ed, “The Marriage Ideal”. It may have been the worst column written in the history of newspaper, and maybe dating back to stone tablets.
Douthat begins by pretending to be fair. He deftly debunks the baseless arguments used by opponents of marriage equality. He points out that “traditional marriage” is not universal across societies worldwide and that monogamy may be the exception, rather than the rule.
Next, Douthat writes that heterosexuals have generally screwed up the institution of monogamous, life-long marriage by participating in “less idealistic” no fault divorce, frequent out-of-wedlock births, and serial monogamy.
Having said that, Douthat gives condescending lip service that feigns respect for gay relationships, but concludes that separate-but-equal treatment is the only way to preserve the heterosexual marriage “ideal”.
If this newer order completely vanquishes the older marital ideal, then gay marriage will become not only acceptable but morally necessary. The lifelong commitment of a gay couple is more impressive than the serial monogamy of straights. And a culture in which weddings are optional celebrations of romantic love, only tangentially connected to procreation, has no business discriminating against the love of homosexuals.
But if we just accept this shift, we’re giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization: the celebration of lifelong heterosexual monogamy as a unique and indispensable estate. That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve. And preserving it ultimately requires some public acknowledgment that heterosexual unions and gay relationships are different: similar in emotional commitment, but distinct both in their challenges and their potential fruit.
But based on Judge Walker’s logic — which suggests that any such distinction is bigoted and un-American — I don’t think a society that declares gay marriage to be a fundamental right will be capable of even entertaining this idea.
What a bizarre conclusion.
I call this the “Jesus Christ argument” to prohibit marriage equality. Douthat is basically saying that the constitutional rights and personal dreams of gay couples, although noble, must sacrificed at the altar to repent for heterosexual sins against the institution of marriage.
If society just stops marriage equality, all the heterosexuals who carelessly trample over marriage will miraculously change their ways over time. Thanks to the sacrifice of the good ole gays, there will be a resurgence of the marriage “ideal”.
Give me a break.
What bothers me is that Douthat printed this drivel without looking at real life examples of places that already have marriage equality. There is the District of Columbia and five states — Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut — where LGBT couples can already marry. All of these places are within a short drive from New York City, so Douthat could have jumped in the car and seen for himself that the affect on heterosexual marriage is nil. Instead, Douthat makes erroneous assumptions without a shred of evidence to support his conclusion.
The truth is, a gay couple marrying does nothing to influence or impact what happens to the heterosexual couple next door. Douthat’s absurd column was nothing more than a slippery attempt to assert heterosexual supremacy. But, it was written in a milquetoast and pseudo-intellectual way so he wouldn’t be scorned as a bigot by gays and enlightened heterosexuals at fancy New York cocktail parties.
What a sad, transparent attempt to justify discrimination. Who does he think he’s fooling?
Argentina’s Senate is scheduled to vote today on a bill allowing gay couples to get married. The marriage bill has caused a fissure between the Roman Catholic Church and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is in support of marriage equality.
The Church hierarchy (no doubt packed with closeted homosexuals) has staged large protests around the country. On Sunday, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, had declared it a “destructive attack on God’s plan.”
No, Cardinal, the systematic rape of children and evil cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church is what is a “destructive attack on God’s plan.” You want destructive? Read HERE and HERE and, well no more links because we could fill and burn out the entire server with examples of extreme moral turpitude.
What I’m basically saying Cardinal, is you have absolutely no moral authority to say one word against any issue that deals with sex and morality. Shame on you for such hypocrisy and moral posing.
Fortunately, polls show that nearly 70 percent of Argentines support giving gay people marriage equlaity. According to The New York Times, President Kirchner harshly criticized church leaders on Monday, saying that their discourse on the issue resembled “the times of the Crusades” and that they failed to acknowledge how socially liberal Argentina had become.
“They are portraying this as a religious moral issue and as a threat to ‘the natural order,’ when what we are really doing is looking at a reality that is already there,” the president said from Beijing. “It would be a terrible distortion of democracy if they denied minorities their rights.”
Note to President Obama — this is what a “fierce advocate” for LGBT equality looks like and sounds like. Please take note.
If you speak Spanish, here is an interview with the President of Argentina:
It’s country #8 with a national law allowing same-sex marriage.
And country #10 where gay marriage is possible.
Gay marriage also is legal in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Mexico City, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C.
In Portugal, you can launch the process and get married the same day – “in fact, in less than 60 minutes,” says my local correspondent, who will cover tomorrow’s wedding of Teresa Pires and Helena Paix?£o, who lost a same-sex marriage case before Portugal’s Constitutional Court last July.
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This morning, I read New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s meandering and i
Argentina’s Senate is scheduled to vote today on a bill allowing gay couples to get married. The marriage bill has caused a fissure between the Roman Catholic Church and President 
