Same Sex Marriage Thread - Part III

[Galeongirl]

Am I the only one seeing the irony that that comes from a man named GAYnor?


I can hardly believe there's anyone taking that stuff seriously, how can he even take himself seriously?

[LuckyNumber7]

Surely he's just happy, GG.

[Irvine511]

Who is that person?

[BoMac]

Not sure where else to put this:

Granddaughters of an infamous homophobic U.S. pastor find grace in Montreal - The Globe and Mail

[Irvine511]

and now Illinois:

Illinois House Votes to Allow Gay Marriages - ABC News

the country's three largest cities -- NYC, LA, and Chicago -- now have marriage equality.

[PhilsFan]

I have a feeling numbers four, five and six are going to be a little tougher based on the states they're in.

[Irvine511]

hawaii is a done deal. new mexico will happen. oregon as well.

[PennyLanePHINS]

Hawaii will probably cap off 2013.

It's a given it'll be legal in Oregon & possibly New Mexico in 2014. Michigan, Colorado, Ohio may have it on the ballot.

Virginia could be likely since it seems like they're electing a supporter as Governor tonight. Wouldn't be surprised if Florida did soon as well.

[LuckyNumber7]

Florida... will be late to the party.

[LuckyNumber7]

Keep in mind our 60-40 requirement, and question whether we will even see the measure voted on...

Florida will be the last of the swing-states, despite its progressive nature in some respect.

[PhilsFan]

I think Florida will go before PA. Everything between the cities is a red nightmare.

[LuckyNumber7]

Same deal here. We've got some of the gayest cities in the country -- Key West, Tampa, and Orlando -- much like the election though, the outskirt population is pretty strongly voiced.

This state is gonna have to do better than a 50-49 blue-red if it honestly plans on cracking 60-40 for gay marriage.

[PhilsFan]

The GOP has destroyed politics in PA. We just slash everything we need (education especially) in order to avoid taxing any industry that's willing to buy a GOP candidate for office.

[Pearl]

Hooray for Ireland! I mean, its a step for a country heavily controlled by the Catholic Church until recently.

Referendum on same-sex marriage in 2015 - RT� News

[Galeongirl]

Great news for the people in Chicago and other Illinois cities then.

I'm actually honestly surprised about Ireland. It's great that they're even considering it, given their conservative catholic views in general. Shows how much the climate's changing, and how much grounds the churches are losing when it comes to these matters.

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by Galeongirl

I'm actually honestly surprised about Ireland. It's great that they're even considering it, given their conservative catholic views in general. Shows how much the climate's changing, and how much grounds the churches are losing when it comes to these matters.

I'm surprised too. But it makes the enthusiasm all the better!

[Irvine511]

the state that started it all looks posed to pass. a nice little history of the movement that started in one of the most beautiful places in the world:

HONOLULU — When, as most everyone expects, Gov. Neil Abercrombie signs into law same-sex marriage here in the coming days, it may almost seem like a routine event. Hawaii is poised to be among 16 states to approve gay marriage, along with Illinois and shortly after Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

But the step in Hawaii has special resonance because the contemporary battle over same-sex marriage was born here two decades ago. Such marriages existed nowhere when Ninia Baehr and Genora Dancel, along with two other couples, filed what seemed like an utterly quixotic lawsuit seeking a marriage license. To near universal shock, Hawaii’s Supreme Court granted them a victory in 1993, ruling that a refusal to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry was discriminatory and illegal.

It was the first judicial expression of an idea that soon caught fire across the country and the world.

The ruling prompted a national backlash, with Congress barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage and dozens of states amending their constitutions to define marriage as between a man and a woman, and it was even overruled by Hawaii’s voters. But it also opened a huge new front for the gay rights movement, laying the groundwork for scores of legal and political battles ever since.

So when it became clear this week in a raucous special session of the State Legislature that same-sex marriage would finally come to Hawaii, it was the closing of a circle.

“I’ve got what we Hawaiians call chicken skin — goose bumps,” said Daniel R. Foley, now a state judge. As a private lawyer in Honolulu in 1990, he took on the case of same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses after national rights groups had declined it as far-fetched.

On Friday, hundreds of gleeful advocates of same-sex marriage waved rainbow flags at the Capitol while hundreds of opponents shouted “Let the people decide” and sang “God Bless America.” Friday night, after a day of emotional debate, the House of Representatives passed the bill to expand marriage rights, making its final adoption next week a near certainty as it heads to the Senate before being signed by the governor.

The 1993 Hawaii ruling spurred advocacy groups to make marriage equality a prime goal. It energized campaigns that would bring the country’s first civil unions in Vermont in 2000 and the country’s first same-sex marriage vows in Massachusetts only nine years ago.

“The case in Hawaii launched the global movement for the right to marry,” said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, based in New York, and a longtime strategist on the issue who became co-counsel with Mr. Foley in the follow-up litigation.

Mary L. Bonauto, another legal advocate for same-sex marriage, said that “Hawaii really encouraged people on the marriage issue; it showed that a court can get it.”

Today, more than 30 lawsuits in at least 20 states are testing marriage restrictions in what Ms. Bonauto, a project director of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, in Boston, called an “explosion in litigation.” They include challenges to state amendments barring same-sex marriage in Nevada and Virginia, demands that Texas grant divorces to same-sex couples married elsewhere and a suit to be decided soon in New Mexico arguing that same-sex marriages are permitted by state law.

For Steven H. Levinson, the State Supreme Court justice who wrote the 1993 opinion in Baehr v. Lewin, it is a moment of reckoning. He looks back on his failure to grasp the forces that were unleashed.

The few previous suits pushing for same-sex marriage in other states “had been laughed out of court,” Mr. Levinson recalled. “I soon realized that this opinion was going to be major.”

“But I was naïve about how the Baehr decision would be received,” he said between meetings this week at the State Capitol, where in retirement he has helped campaign for the long-elusive legislative victory.

The counterattack was more powerful than he could have imagined. In Washington, the specter of Hawaii spurred the 1996 passage of the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of same-sex marriage and allowed states to ignore such marriages from states that allowed them.

As it endorsed the bill, the House Judiciary Committee warned in July 1996 of “an orchestrated legal assault” on traditional marriage emanating from Hawaii.

“Just as it appears that judges in Hawaii are prepared to foist the newly coined institution of homosexual ‘marriage’ upon an unwilling Hawaiian public,” the committee declared, other states could “be forced to follow suit.”

This June, the Supreme Court overturned a major provision of the Defense of Marriage Act, finding no compelling reason for denying federal benefits to same-sex couples. Governor Abercrombie, in calling the special session, said that decision had made marriage equality in Hawaii an urgent priority, so couples could marry and file joint tax returns for 2013.

The shift here within the Democratic Legislature since the 1990s has followed a sea change in public opinion. But resistance from religious conservatives remains strong.

Bishop Larry Silva of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu warned in a letter to parishioners that allowing same-sex marriage would open the door to incest and polygamy and cause poverty and juvenile suicides.

To allow a full airing of views, the Legislature said any citizen could comment. In what some called a “public filibuster,” religious opponents mobilized, accounting for most of the more than 1,000 people who testified for two minutes each, during 55 hours of hearings over five days this week.

Both sides claimed to represent the true “aloha spirit.” Some ethnic Hawaiians tearfully said the bill would destroy their culture, and the opponents’ television and radio ads described as endangered the Hawaiian heritage of “ohana,” or family, of “mothers and fathers caring for each other and their keiki,” or children.

But ethnic historians noted that the pre-European island culture did not have marriage in the modern sense and accepted homosexuality.

Once passage of the bill appeared likely, opponents demanded broader exemptions for churches and people with religious objections to same-sex marriage. Churches and pastors already had the right to refuse weddings, but the House added provisions saying that churches and affiliated nonprofit groups would not be forced to rent facilities or provide services related to a same-sex wedding.

But legislators refused to go further and say that private businesses, such as florists and photographers, could refuse on religious grounds to take on same-sex clients.

When Hawaii does finally license gay and lesbian marriages, said Ms. Dancel, now a technician at a wastewater treatment plant here, it will bring “a sweet sense of mission accomplished.”

After the court decision in 1993, she and Ms. Baehr became public faces of the marriage fight, even demonstrating outside the Capitol in Washington when the Defense of Marriage Act passed. Soon afterward, they split up, though they remain friendly.

Both women, now 53, are in long-term relationships. Ms. Baehr lives in Montana, an assistant director of the American Civil Liberties Union in a state where marriage still seems distant.

Ms. Dancel said that she and her partner of 15 years, Kathryn Dennis, an editor, plan to marry and that she is thrilled by the prospect.

“But we’re not going to rush out and get a license the first day,” she said. “We’ve waited all these years, and we’ve got to be in the mood.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/us...pagewanted=all

[PennyLanePHINS]

Just saw on Twitter that it has just passed in Hawaii and officially begins on December 2nd.

[Galeongirl]

Awesome!



Getting married in Hawaii sounds pretty damn spectacular. Should keep that in mind!

[Axver]

Great news in Hawaii.

Meanwhile, New South Wales came agonisingly close: Same-sex marriage bill defeated by one vote in New South Wales | Society | theguardian.com