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It was about a week ago that we saw the ruling throwing out California's Prop 8; that decision has now been appealed, and we will see, at some point in the future, how the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handles the matter.
A couple of days later, I had a story up that walked through the ruling, describing the tactics used by the Prop 8 proponents, which, in the opinion of the Judge who looked at the evidence, were basically to try to scare Californians into thinking that gay people, once they're able to get gay married, will somehow now be free to evangelize your kids and make them gay, too.
In the course of answering comments on the several sites where the story is up, I noticed that there were those who felt the Bible should be guiding our thinking here...that if it did, we would be better off than where we are today, with all those immoral gay people running around free to do all those immoral gay things.
This led me to an obvious question: are those who have been using the Bible as a sort of "divining rod" to figure out who is immoral and who is not...actually any good at it?
Just in time for today's NOM anti-marriage rally in Manchester comes news that Argentina's Senate voted in favor of approving same-sex marriage. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07...
This was done in spite of vocal opposition from Argentina's Roman Catholic Church.
The walls against same-sex marriage are slowly but surely crumbling!!!
We are back, just a bit late, to wrap up the discussion we began about the pair of rulings issued in Boston by Federal District Judge Joseph Tauro this week that declare the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional.
In the first half of the conversation, we examined the ruling in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), today we examine the companion case, Gill v Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
I don't usually tell you the end of the story at the beginning, but this time I will: there are a lot of happy Plaintiffs this week, and the Federal Government, as Defendant (whom I will refer to as "the Feds" from time to time), is not so happy at the moment.
As with last time, there's a lot of ground to cover, and the sooner we get to it, the better.
I have to work fast over the next two days to get you this story, but it is a good one.
We are all aware of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), championed by former Congressman Bob "I'm A Libertarian If It Doesn't Involve Your Penis Or Vagina" Barr; we now have two rulings, released on the same day by the same Federal judge, that will render the Act moot, if they're either upheld throughout the appeals process...or if the Obama Administration decides to end that appeals process right now.
There's a lot of ground to cover, and time is short.
A must-read in today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01...
The two killer quotes:
Former GWB Solicitor General Ted Olson: "These people are people you would want your child to grow up and marry. You can be a child molester and get married. You can be a wife beater and get married. You can be a child-support scofflaw and get married. The importance of that emotional relationship is so vital to the pursuit of happiness that even prison felons, who aren't really procreating, have a right to get married."
"I think there's something the matter with you if you don't care enough to feel the suffering that they've been through and if you're not emotionally upset about the fact that we're doing an immense amount of harm to people," he said. "We're not treating them like Americans. We're not treating them like citizens."
The New Hampshire Senate approved a same-sex marriage bill today 13 to 11. Governor Lynch hasn't said whether or not he will allow the bill to become law without his signature or veto the bill. While the New Hampshire House still needs to vote on the Senate bill it had previously approved a same-sex marriage bill so there is almost no doubt that it will be passed and so it'll all be up to Governor Lynch about whether or not to permit same-sex marriage.
Blue Hampshire has Lynch's statement regarding the passage of the bill and they think it might be a veto. In anticipation of this, we, progressives, would like New Hampshire Citizens to write, call or fax the Governor in support of same-sex marriage. You can do that by:
Office of the Governor
State House
25 Capitol Street
Concord, NH 03301
(603)271-2121 - phone
(603)271-7680 - fax
I'm guessing that if Governor Lynch doesn't sign the bill he won't be the Democrats top pick in 2010. But, that's just my opinion.
Currently "forty-two percent of Americans now say same sex couples should be allowed to legally marry, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds. That's up nine points from last month, when 33 percent supported legalizing same sex marriage."
And that support is showing progress in the Northeast. The Legislature's Judiciary Committee voted 11-2-1 today in support of a bill to allow gay marriage in Maine...Eleven members voted in favor of the bill, two voted against it, and one voted to send it to referendum."
It is starting to look more and more like the Northeast (New England + New York) will be a bastion for same-sex marriage by 2010. That's bound to bring the issue up in the 2012 Presidential Election. Of course, California is still the site of the most contentious fight over same-sex marriage. Amidst todays revelations the National Organization for Marriage announced that Miss California would star in their new ad against same-sex marriage.
While Conservative Groups fighting against same-sex marriage think California is the be all end all it's pretty clear that the best they can do now is delay the inevitable. We could see 5 or 6 states supporting Gay Marriage by the 2010 midterms.
I think that Nate Silver's timeline didn't factor in the possibility of a tipping point. Considering that a majority of New Yorkers support Governor Patterson's same-sex marriage bill its certainly time to start talking about whether or not same-sex marriage is at a tipping point.
Dangerous Things are happening in America these days, we are told, and the once-innocent citizens of Iowa and Vermont have already been exposed to the hazard...and now it looks as though the contagion might spread to States across New England.
But lucky for us, our friends on the Right are here again to save to save us from...(insert horror film music here)...
...The Gay.
The Gay, it turns out, want the opportunity to marry.
Among other complaints, our friends on the Right feel this will destroy religious tradition, which will ultimately destroy first Christianity, then the Nation. Therefore, religious tradition must be protected at all costs.
Well as it turns out, there are some people from our past who know a few things about religious traditions and how they distort reality-and today, we'll examine the lessons they have to teach us.
The Monitor takes on Jim Splaine's push to get the ball rolling on a marriage bill, and an odd line issues forth:
In [Rep. David] Hess's view, marriage is a traditional, Judeo-Christian institution between a man and woman. "I don't think that definition of marriage should be expanded," he said.
That's an awful lot of Chinese and Indian and Muslim and and ancient Greek and Roman marriages he's negated, just to name a few non-Judaeo-Christian societies that have had the institution of marriage for millenia.
