equality blooms with spring, pt. II

[Irvine511]

and the same bus got Rosa Parks to the same destination at the same time.

[anitram]

Originally Posted by deep

Lets make some progress and pick off the moderate states with Civil Unions.

After a few thousand GAY WEDDINGS of co-workers and gay neighbors without the sky falling, with gays having the same rights, and the system not blowing up.
People will wonder how we could have allowed some people to go for so long with out 'equal protection."

I agree with you on a practical level.

Also, pushing civil unions on the ballots would negate the argument that people are fighting this because they want to preserve the sanctity of "marriage".

[Irvine511]

question: has anyone ever met someone who used to support gay marriage, but has come to oppose it?

[deep]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

and the same bus got Rosa Parks to the same destination at the same time.

And Rosa Parks and MLK Jr did not care if you called it Colored Rights, Negro Rights, or Civil Rights

they wanted legislation passed that would give them 'equal treatment' under the law.


besides I think the more operative word is wedding.
People send out
Wedding announcements. Wedding invitations. Wedding cakes.

[melon]

Of course, the problem with this approach is when you deal with "civil union" states and the recognition of "marriages" performed in states or countries where they are legal--and chances are, due to petty insistences on not using the word "marriage," now all gay marriages won't be recognized as "civil unions" in that state. All of a sudden, we're dealing with a patchwork of laws that are incapable of dealing with the reality that people no longer stay in one state their entire lives anymore.

[deep]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

question: has anyone ever met someone who used to support gay marriage, but has come to oppose it?

I use to advocate for gay marriage.

But now I think it makes more sense and more can be accomplished advocating for Civil Unions.

CA will have gay marriage on the ballot again in either 2010 or 2012.

I will vote for Gay Marriage. I think it will not pass again for a 3rd time. If it does pass it will be by just a couple of points. That will only get the opposition to put it back on the ballot again.

I think Civil Unions could pass by a decent margin. Perhaps 8-10 points. That would be enough to keep it.


But, a more direct answer to your question. I believe many of the young people now, under 35, could flip when they are in their 40s and have kids and start attending church.

[deep]

Originally Posted by melon

Of course, the problem with this approach is when you deal with "civil union" states and the recognition of "marriages" performed in states or countries where they are legal--and chances are, due to petty insistences on not using the word "marriage," now all gay marriages won't be recognized as "civil unions" in that state. All of a sudden, we're dealing with a patchwork of laws that are incapable of dealing with the reality that people no longer stay in one state their entire lives anymore.

My thought is once we got it up to 35+ states we could get congress to do away with DOMA and pass legislation that said Civil Unions and Marrige Unions (gay or straight) will be treated the same and recognized in all states.

[U2DMfan]

Is the DOMA the only reason the Fed Court won't hear discrimination lawsuits?
or do they hear them?

This seems to me, to be fundamentally something that has to happen in the Fed courts.
What is the barrier to getting a full-on inequality lawsuit in the USSC?

That is, not arguing over definitions or arguing for "having what they got" I'm talking about the extension of those legal recognitions, be they seen as rights or privileges (or is that the probelm?).

This might seem like a dumb-ass question. I couldn't figure out how to word it. Fundamentally, at it's most basic level, why doesn't the Fed look down and see this as discrimination?

The States dictate their own marriage laws, obviously this much I get, but why doesn't the Fed interject...why don't they see the discrimination? The only thing I could think of was the DOMA.

[deep]

I personally see it as discrimination also.

I can not justify why a gay person does not enjoy 'equal protection' under the law. I believe there is a case making it's way from CA that will be argued by Ted Olson, Solicitor General for the Bush Administration.

I believe it was the Plessy v. Ferguson decision handed down by the Supreme Court that passed - separate but equal, or legal segregation in a 7-1 vote. The 7 should be ashamed of themselves. They were later overturned.


I have said that I would like to see this court hand down a decision so Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas could go down on the wrong side of history. Kennedy might vote with them and possibly Sotomayor.

I believe it would be eventually overturned by a later court, just like Plessy.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by deep

I have said that I would like to see this court hand down a decision so Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas could go down on the wrong side of history. Kennedy might vote with them and possibly Sotomayor.

I believe it would be eventually overturned by a later court, just like Plessy.

yes, this is quite a thing right now, the Olsen case. the SCOTUS is clearly right wing at present, and a decision there would effectively kill the issue. perhaps increments of change are the only way to get this done, but it does reinforce the clear purpose of the courts.

question: did men get to vote on whether or not women should have the right to vote? and if they had been allowed to do so, what do you think the outcome would have been?

minority rights are supposed to be protected by the courts, they should not be subjected to mob rule.

but, whatever. i suppose we have the first tackle the issue of why people fear and loathe us to begin with.

[anitram]

Originally Posted by deep

I have said that I would like to see this court hand down a decision so Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas could go down on the wrong side of history. Kennedy might vote with them and possibly Sotomayor.

I believe it would be eventually overturned by a later court, just like Plessy.

I don't believe Sotomayor would vote with the right on this issue.

From observing her (albeit short) time on the court thus far, she seems to be interested in expending her judicial capital on certain ingrained corporate principles and I think that, along with labour laws is where her fight and her controversy will lie. Almost everyone expects her to vote with the left on the issue of gay marriage and I think she'll do so because it's the easy thing in a way.

[A_Wanderer]

Somebody has been reading this thread

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/u...exmarriage.php

[MrsSpringsteen]

Elisabeth Hasselbeck made a curious analogy Friday on 'The View.' She asked Portia de Rossi, who is married to Ellen Degeneres, whether marriage equality is just a semantic distinction as outrageous as women wanting to be called men.

"Take men and women. Women want all the rights of men, but they're not asking to be called men," Elisabeth said. "Do you think...is the word [marriage] more important than the rights?"

"No, of course the word isn't more important than the rights," Portia responded. "Without the word, we don't have equal rights."

Portia continued to eloquently dismantle Elisabeth's reasoning.

"Every citizen of this country should have that legal right to be married," she said. "Marriage the word actually does mean something because people who see a gay coupling as a lesser thing in society can continue to [think] it's lesser than marriage when really it's the exact same thing. The exact same love, the exact same commitment, love of family."

YouTube - Portia De Rossi on The View - December 4 2009 - Part 2

[corianderstem]

In other great speech news:

YouTube - NYS Senator Diane Savino speaks on the Marriage Equality bill

Some choice quotes:


"Turn on the television. We have a wedding channel on cable TV devoted to the behavior of people on the way to the altar. They spend billions of dollars, behave in the most appalling way, all in an effort to be princess for a day. You don't have cable television? Put on network TV. We're giving away husbands on a game show. You can watch The Bachelor, where thirty desperate women will compete to marry a 40-year-old man who has never been able to maintain a decent relationship in his life."

"That's what we've done to marriage in America, where young women are socialized from the time they're five years old to think of being nothing but a bride. They plan every day what they'll wear, how they'll look, the invitations, the whole bit, they don't spend five minutes thinking about what it means to be a wife. People stand up there before god and man even in Senator Diaz's church, they swear to love honor and obey, they don't mean a word of it. So if there's anything wrong with the sanctity of marriage in America, it comes from those of us who have the privilege and the right and have abused it for decades."

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by corianderstem

Some choice quotes:


"Turn on the television. We have a wedding channel on cable TV devoted to the behavior of people on the way to the altar. They spend billions of dollars, behave in the most appalling way, all in an effort to be princess for a day. You don't have cable television? Put on network TV. We're giving away husbands on a game show. You can watch The Bachelor, where thirty desperate women will compete to marry a 40-year-old man who has never been able to maintain a decent relationship in his life."

"That's what we've done to marriage in America, where young women are socialized from the time they're five years old to think of being nothing but a bride. They plan every day what they'll wear, how they'll look, the invitations, the whole bit, they don't spend five minutes thinking about what it means to be a wife. People stand up there before god and man even in Senator Diaz's church, they swear to love honor and obey, they don't mean a word of it. So if there's anything wrong with the sanctity of marriage in America, it comes from those of us who have the privilege and the right and have abused it for decades."

That was fantastic. Very well said, Senator Savino!

[corianderstem]

I also liked her anecdote about the random stranger on the street who stopped to talk to her and questioned her viewpoint.

She and this complete stranger could waltz into the appropriate office tomorrow and get a marriage license, and no one there would deny the validity of their relationship or deny their request to get married.

[MrsSpringsteen]

TRENTON, N.J. — "The Boss" is backing gay marriage in the Garden State.

Bruce Springsteen posted a statement on his Web site urging support of the gay marriage bill that's up for a vote in New Jersey's Senate on Thursday.

Like many of you who live in New Jersey, I've been following the progress of the marriage-equality legislation currently being considered in Trenton. I've long believed in and have always spoken out for the rights of same sex couples and fully agree with Governor Corzine when he writes that, "The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is -- a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law." I couldn't agree more with that statement and urge those who support equal treatment for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to let their voices be heard now.

[Irvine511]

... and i'm just listening to the Bono/Patti/Bruce version of "Because The Night."

nice.

[MrsSpringsteen]

Parent Files Complaint Against Gay Teacher Over “Child’s Sense of Innocence” - The Sexist - Washington City Paper

Margaret C. Hemenway, identifying herself as a D.C. Public Schools parent, claims to have filed a complaint with Chancellor Michelle Rhee over her seven-year-old child’s “sense of innocence.” At what exact moment was the first-grader’s innocence whisked away from her, never to be returned? The moment little Hemenway’s teacher at Tenleytown’s Horace Mann Elementary allegedly announced to her first-grade class that she was planning to marry a woman. Think. Of. The. Children.

Hemenway recounts the horror for Parents and Friends Of Ex-gays (PFOX):

Our first-grader astonished her father at the end of the past school year as he dropped her off at our local Washington DC public school, Horace Mann Elementary, where he had attended school in the early 60s. She relayed to him that her teacher announced her impending marriage—to another woman—to the class. Following her revelation, this teacher encouraged questions from the children.

Our daughter also mentioned a book the teacher read aloud, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” about two male “gay” guinea pigs, promoted by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender Lobby for children. Since homosexual activists cannot reproduce their own children, recruitment to their cause (especially at a young age, before parents have raised such sensitive and controversial topics with their children) is essential to the political agenda of promoting homosexuality and “gay” marriage.

Nowadays, most parents are resigned to the fact that a gay guinea pig will inevitably steal their daughter’s sense of innocence, and there’s nothing they can do about it. Not Hemenway. Hemenway began the slow bureaucratic process of getting innocence restored:

Most parents would not consider a Q&A session with first-graders about homosexual marriage as an “age-appropriate” discussion. After our daughter’s revelation, we lodged a complaint with Chancellor Rhee’s office, requesting an investigation, and asking what department in the DC Government we can appeal to for restoration of our child’s sense of innocence? We are still awaiting feedback from the school on whether there is a Teacher’s “Code of Conduct” and what D.C. policy is on “age appropriate” sexuality education.

By the way, when does “sexuality education” finally become “age appropriate” for D.C. schoolkids? According to Hemenway, “There are sound reasons that sexuality topics are not generally introduced in school until fifth grade, at an age when some children begin to ask how babies are made.”

[Bluer White]

MrsSpringsteen, what's your opinion?