Land of (Equal) Enchantment

OK, we knew it was overdue. Today, New Mexico's high court made it official. The state will widely allow same-sex marriage.

It had been a nether world, or rather a neither world. Its statutes neither forbade nor allowed marriage equality. Meanwhile, various country clerks had taken it on themselves to be American. That is in contrast to the old Soviet Union's cliché of whatever is not allowed if forbidden, ours was whatever is not forbidden is allowed.

Regardless, unlike the many states that panicked when first Hawaii's court noted that its non-discrimination laws implied homosexual couples could marry, then New Hampshire enacted civil unions, and wham, pow, Massachusetts started enabling gay marriage, New Mexico sat and watched. There were no paranoid constitutional amendments nor no homophobic legislation. It waited.

In that sense, it was easier for NM. It didn't have to undo humiliating evidence of hate and stupidity. Good on them.

Hawaiian Anti-Gay Death Twitch

Sure, we knew they'd try. As threatened/promised, anti-marriage-equality sorts ran back to Hawaiian courts to try to block implementation of same-sex marriage after it became law yesterday. No dice, guys.

The AG had already said that the amendment passed in 1998 gave the legislature the power to define marriage. They did just that and came down for marriage equality.

Now the likely last word came from Circuit Court Judge Karl Sakamoto. He refused to issue a temporary restraining order. Instead, he plainly remarked, "After all the legal complexity of the court's analysis, the court will conclude that same-sex marriage in Hawaii is legal," SS marriages are set to start December 2nd. 

Hawaii Done Deal

Moments ago, Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed same-sex marriage into law in Honolulu.

Sure, sure, the anti-forces — anti-gay/anti-equality — will make a stab at getting a court to stay the Dec. 2nd start date of marriages. Just as certain, there must be plug nasties ready to start a drive for a new constitutional amendment with the sole intent of reversing it. I don't see either of those happening.

Much more likely, the anti-LGBT sorts will be reduced has they have here in MA. They'll be a dwindling party of bitter types, fewer each month, each year. As the state sees the lies about disaster that heard a decade ago, people will know (almost to a one) that SSM helps many, harms no one, and is, as the Hawaiians call it, pono.

We can hope for a quick healing of the hearts and a resetting of the minds of those who would harm, hinder and hurt homosexuals.

Hawaii = 16 = marriage

Hawaii passed same-sex marriage today, making it the 16th of 50 states and DC. Gov. Neil Abercrombie has been eager to sign and should this evening.

We saw the same hackneyed, even bigoted, emotional and personal-religion based rants by legislators and 1000+ who testified to the Senate and 5000+ before the House (much overlap). Many were opposed to equal marriage rights. They used identical whines, non-intellectual arguments, and even threats of election retribution as we heard here in MA.

Same-sex marriage starts Monday, December 2nd.

The good guys prevailed. The law is pono — righteous.

Post-vote update: Listening to many hours of testimony and speechifying by voters and legislators, I was moderately surprised. The anti-equality arguments were replays of those a decade ago here in MA. So many of the anti-SSM voter made it plain that because people heard their emotional pleas, somehow that should mean agreement. Not so in MA nor in HI.

Update update: The Star Advertiser got around to a full recap.

What Were We Thinking? Hawaiian Version

Marriage-equality legislation staggers along in Honolulu. Yesterday, after many (I think 29) amendment attempts, the House approved the bill, 30 to 19. Next it goes back to the Senate, who had previously voted for it...without these amendments.

The Senate should take it up Tuesday and will almost certainly make it law. Gov. Neil Abercrombie has pens screaming for him to use them and he's ready.

The few amendments that did pass are mostly silly, with one exception. The process in Hawaii mirrored the Connecticut debates and compromises five years ago.

The troublesome change is a fair capitulation to anti-gay clerical types and church pols. It gives loosely religious-institution groups the right to continue discriminating. Even in their for-profit activities, like facility rental, that are open to the public, they can use the we-don't-like-homosexuals trump card. This in effect alters the state public-accommodation laws to allow this.

The other amendments are benign and redundant. The gist is a triple-pinky-swear for clerics. The bill already let them say no to officiating at same-sex weddings. They can play the faith card at will. The amendment specifies that no one can bring any charges or lawsuits if this happens.

Watching hours of testimony before the House committees was stunningly familiar. The queue of several thousand who spoke in opposition did so too predictably. The gist of most was that their personal religious feelings should determine public policy. To the endearing credit of the moderator legislators, they did not ridicule or even point out the illegality and irrationality of those two-minute anti-gay tirades and whines.

Yet in the version tossed back to the Senate, the influence of the haters ("Don't dare call us haters!," they say) and bigots ("I am not a bigot," they say.) is obvious. As it was in CT and elsewhere, when the concessions that moderately impinge on gay rights in order to deliver some equality become part of the law, the anti-gay nasties appear largely placated.

I assume serious control issues here. They had called for defeat of the bill; no. They wanted to go back to the start and do another task force to delay everything for a year or more; no. They wanted every business operator to be able to discriminate as churches still can. In amendment after amendment, they did all they could to weaken the bill; with these few sops as exceptions, no.

Now their death twitch will be a lawsuit to overturn the law as soon as it gets the governor's sig. They simply cannot tolerate democracy. It's every procedure and trick in the book when they don't get to harm and hamper homosexuals. They'll eventually go away wailing. Who knows, they may try what they did here in MA, a ballot initiative and court challenge. Unfortunately for them, Hawaii only allows initiatives on constitutional amendments.

The anti-equality sorts thought they had done that with the vote to give the legislature the right to define and specify who could marry. Well, now that actually happened. They don't like that either.

Raised as a Christian, I remain confused when any religious types, particularly Christians contort to hurt people. They'll very selective go to Leviticus in the Old Testament and Torah to find scripture that supports their bigotry, while ignoring much scripture that would lead them to support equality. Particularly for Christians, they have a whole New Testament and a Messiah who preach against what they are about.

I am pretty sure in a few years and certainly within 10 or 20 that Hawaiians will be proud of their inclusive equality, almost to a person. That's happened elsewhere, as here in MA. When they come to and ask, "What were we thinking?," don't ridicule them. Just be glad they arrived at the right place.

Hawaii Anti-Gay Types Play the Game

Astonishing still how the anti-gay folk would harm, hamper and hinder homosexuals. As we saw a decade ago here, we now hear and see in Hawaii. With the special session to consider same-sex marriage in full, tedious hearings, debate and readings, the same shtick is on stage.

Those who don't like gay folk (or much stronger than don't like) go through the same scripted skits. Those include:

• Catch-22 logic — SSM mandated by courts fails due to activist judges, passed by legislature is not representative democracy rather somehow unfair, passed by plebiscite requires a second or third public vote, approved by multiple ways circularly turns back to court appeal
• Personal religious views trump all — ignoring state and federal constitutional and case law, anti-gay sorts say their feelings overrule rights of homosexual couples
• Time-out — despite years of discussions, hearings and trials, they claim there is not need to pass this law without restarting the whole process
• 1st Amendment paranoia — forget contradictory history proof and history in 15 US states, Canada and numerous European and Scandinavian nations, enabling SSM will absolutely force clerics to conduct SS weddings, force teachers to describe and condone gay sex acts, that parents rights will be crushed and blah blah

There are numerous other lunacies, but they are along the same lines.

One would think that Hawaiian legislators and voters would have at least a passing knowledge of SS info on the net, in papers and on TV over the two decades. Every one of their objections are total jive. In countries and states that have enabled marriage equality, no one is harmed and many are helped. Even the total disingenuous lies about the mad-dad (David Parker) case are so blatantly false that only the willfully ignorant would begin to accept them.

Yet. it has come to this again and again and again. The anti-gay folk know they are dishonest and dishonorable. They simply don't care.

Aloha. Who's pono here?

Hot times in Honolulu, as the legislature is finishing passing marriage equality in a lengthy, highly contentious special session. Tomorrow morning, the House is certain to hand off its moderately amended version to the Senate, which already passed its. The latter will almost surely pass it. Gov. Neil Abercrombie has his pen ready.

There are both reasons and excuses for anti-gay sentiment there. This process stains our fantasies of the loving, peaceful paradise way out there. Several of the print and broadcast media show heavy anti-SSM bias. Moreover, the anti types made much bigger displays in demonstrations and in testifying before both Senate and House committees.

As the very conservative and obviously anti-SSM Hawaii Free Press tabulated it:

The unofficial count found that of 10,749 unique pieces of written testimony submitted to the House, 8,556 (80%) were in opposition and 2,193 (20%) were in support. Of 1,032 oral testifiers, 895 (87%) opposed the measure and 137 (13%) supported it.

Both pro- and anti-equality types often used Hawaiian terms. One particularly pointed and poignant here was pono. That is right or righteous. Numerous pro-testifiers said equality was pono, and some on the other side claimed their religion trumped such civil rights, that rejecting the bill was pono.

What we saw and heard there is very familiar to folk here in MA and elsewhere on the mainland. That included:

• Non-stop calls for a plebiscite on these rights
• Vast majority of those testifying citing personal religious feelings
• A few threats that (blah, blah) anyone who supported this would lose in the next election

In addition, as we see in one of the tweaks to the bill, there an extra, a racial component. The original SB 1 allowed for married homosexual couples where one is considered by blood (that word figures frequently in Hawaiian laws and programs) to be Hawaiian, they can claim Hawaiian ancestry for a child they adopt or conceive.

That was too much for some of those who testified. I recall vividly one young woman at the point of tears decrying the unfairness were a child with no Hawaiian blood to get access to government education and other benefits provided to descendants of the original people, pre-contact. Sure, that's pure racism, but consider how the native Hawaiians were subjugated, their monarchy replaced and on an on. Pride of genetics is a big deal there. I had heard that years ago from friends who grew up in Hawaii.

The bill itself started out straightforward enough. It slightly revised the main marriage statute to broaden it for same-sex couples. It did have the exemptions the legislators knew clerics, church politicians, and the most serious laypeople have needed elsewhere. That would be such as no penalty for legal solemnizers who refuse to officiate at SS weddings, and no penalty for religious institutions that refuse to allow SS weddings or receptions in their religious buildings.

Among the red herrings dragged around on the issue are the baseless contention that ministers and priests will either be forced to perform SS marriages (or face fine or jail or both) and that when this passes, all textbooks will have to include and teach homosexuality in the most positive light. Those and similar ones are sacks of crap, but ones some religious loons can't put down.

Instead in this process, they had most of their craziest demands shot down, while winning a few. For example,  they also got the effective date pushed out three weeks.

More substantially, non-profit wording came out of the religious institution exemption. In Hawaii as in MA other most places, public-accommodations laws and regulations do not allow discrimination by a religious organization when they run both a church and say a rental hall open to the public. Now in the form that this law is most likely to pass, religiously affiliated groups can pull their church card and discriminate willy nilly.

What the anti-folk did not get here was the same right for ordinary citizens running small businesses. Think bakers who weep at the idea of decorating queer wedding cakes. Lackaday.

So, Hawaii's version will be a little weaker than ours and most of the other 14 states'. Still, this is a big step.

A huge lesson learned here and elsewhere is that once SS marriages begin, people see that there is nothing but good coming from this slight expansion of equality. Sure, the most dedicated anti-gay types continue to fume or fulminate, but the vast majority go on. They become or return to being, as the local expression goes, hau‘oli — happy.

Aloha Equality, 20 Years Late

Yes, yes, Hawaii should have been the first state in our nation to legalize same-sex marriage. Now they are finally finishing the equality task. Obvious has not been simple.

In 1991, the state Supreme Court ruled in Baehr v. Lewin that denying same-sex couples marriage was unconstitutional discrimination. Well, they weren't ready to pioneer. The case bounced through appeals while the anti-gay forces gathered in a panic and led to a one-man/one-woman amendment forbidding equality in 1998.

Eventually, they got to a civil-unions law but no farther. Until this the past two weeks...

As I write this, 5,181 locals have signed up for their two minutes each to testify, in all senses of the term, before a House committee considering whether to concur with the Senate. The latter body has already passed SB 1 in special session to legalize SSM by 20 to 4. The tally in the House is that there will be enough votes to pass it. Progressive Gov. Neil Abercrombie has his pen ready. In fact, it was his call for the special session.

Baseless Fears

The basis of the Senate version was the bill never acted on during the regular session, its draft is here. Those accustomed to the per-state fights will recognize the skeleton. The actual change to law is plain — homosexual couples will have the same access to marriage as different-sex ones. Then there is the placating overlay, iterating in excruciating detail that:

• solemnizers (a.k.a. marriage officiants) don't have to perform SS weddings if they don't want to
• religious organizations don't have to permit same-sex weddings in their facilities if they don't want to

Such protections, already on top of US and Hawaiian constitutional religious protections are never, ever enough for the anti-gay sorts. Without any reason or proof whatsoever, they go on and on about how they are just positive that permitting SSM in their state will force their ministers to consecrate queer marriages. That is a a really tiresome rap and one the Senate in its 1-minute speaker slots and now the House in its 2-minute ones heard repeatedly.

Having spent parts of my life in West Virginia and South Carolina, the stupid and bigoted talk coming out of Oahu in the last few days is not what I associate with the island paradise, rather rural backwoods hicks. It's the same old dreck we heard here in MA a decade ago. Hawaiians have fair less excuse though, being able to look at many states with successful SSM implementations, all where religious freedoms are more than observed and only good accrues to the citizens.

The wrinkle comes with its mandatory irony as well. The anti-forces are of course screaming, "Let the people vote!" That's the call when either representative democracy (a.k.a., the legislature) and the courts mandate equality. Suddenly, the nasties demand a plebiscite on other folks' civil rights. Honk. Wrong.

Special Rights

The other part of the humor is that they want special rights (what they falsely accuse homosexual couples of wanting). In this case, they are calling for amendments to the bill to legalize discrimination that is presently against the law in Hawaii. Specifically, they want a conscience clause exempting any private, for-profit, business of public accommodation. That would be if you run say a bakery or photography biz or rent your hall to the public, you'd get the religious exemption if you don't like them homos. It's like suddenly making every business into a church and making every for-profit side business of a church into a religious institution.

Of course that would be a Pyrrhic victory if passed. If you want to be a for-profit biz, you have to obey federal and state public-accommodation statutes and regulations, including non-discrimination ones. A challenge would wipe those away pretty quickly if the House was dumb enough to include them and the Senate acquiesced to the blackmail just to pass the larger bill.

However, the anti-gay types are not going to get their plebiscite and if they can delay passage by a few days by loading BS amendments onto the bill, they'll fee smug and briefly righteous.

Back in the capitol in Honolulu, the House committee has amazing patience. Why they would listen to the iterative, repetitive snippets pro and con SSM almost eludes me. I have to keep in mind that they are letting the nasties vent and rant. Loading this vitriol upfront is a great prophylaxis. Both chambers have also been open-minded in letting the dumbest of their legislators carry on.

As it is, the several thousand testifiers could go on until Tuesday or even Friday. This is truly from MacBeth — sound and fury signifying nothing. Yet, the drama plays on and on, hour upon hour and day upon day.

In the end, apparently, Hawaii will finally manifest its two-decade-old promise of marriage equality to match its constitution, and now to bring up the wagon of states embracing SSM. They are not quite what Le Tour riders call la lantern rouge, the slowest rider, in an allusion to the red lantern hung on the back of a train caboose. They sure have lost their shot at leading though.

Pic note: Thanks to Jeff Polston's site for the lantern image.

In Hawaii, Aloha Ipo (Maybe)

It could be "Hello, lover," on the shiny beaches if the special legislative session in Hawaii finally seals the deal.

Our Pacific paradise was was early (1996) with a court decision that forbidding same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. As became the pattern in the rest of the U.S., winger and anti-gay panic kicked in quickly. The court put its decision on hold and within two years, the now familiar one-man/one-woman constitutional amendment passed. [Subsequently, public opinion went from 70% for the amendment to about 54% for SSM and 37% opposed.]

As the public noted civil unions and gay marriage working well in other states, the panic subsided. By 2010, both houses of the legislature passed a civil unions bill, but the conservative, Republican governor vetoed it.

The next year, with a new, Dem, progressive governor (Neil Abercrombie), the bill returned, passed and became law.

Now, he is pushing for the real thing. Over the objections of Roman Catholic and some Protestant clerical pols, he wants a special session just to do that. His marriage bill goes straight to the artificial scare tactics of the anti people. In excruciating detail, it iterates and reiterates what state law already covers. No one empowered to solemnize marriages will be compelled to perform same-sex ones nor suffer any criminal or civil penalty for declining. Moreover, churches and religious institutions won't have to rent or give use of their religious facilities to same-sex couples for weddings or receptions.

It doesn't say, but federal and state law also comes into play here. Where a real or nominally religious organization operates its facilities for-profit and rents to the public, they have to obey anti-discrimination rules. They have a choice of making as much money as they can from all comers or limiting their facilities to just their religious types.

We can be pretty sure that the fruitbats who have claimed without any basis and perhaps even with full knowledge of dishonesty that churches and clerics will be forced to sanction gay marriages will not ease off. Just because the new version of the law gives them all the exemptions they could ask for, that's not really what it's about.

It's like that inane set of claims (like marriage being only for making children) this is really just about being able to arbitrarily hurt, hamper and harm homosexuals. It appears as though Gov. Abercrombie has no patience for that.

Marriage Tipping Points

Back a decade ago (ooooo) Hawaii said, "Why not?" to marriage equality — to be quickly legislatively stifled — Vermont passed civil unions (now known as same-sex marriage LITE), and then MA's high court rules that constitutional equal rights are just that in Goodridge. As those transpired, regressive legislators state by state, both WWII sorts and boomers alike, over-reacted with panic.

The tipping point then and in all those places was sent the big, honking message to all those queers and queer loving liberal sorts. Laws defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, often backed up by a voter-approved constitutional amendment forbidding hoe-moe-sexual marriage (oops, "marriage" always in quotes of disdain), flourished like garlic mustard poisoning the lawns of liberty. It was a trend amplifying Prez Bill Clinton's Defense of Marriage Act.

The anti-gay, anti-marriage equality forces loved to chant how 30 or 40 states forbade gay marriage, implying that was permanent. Not so fast, nasties.

We have 11 states, D.C., and a few Native American nations who have legalized SSM. Plus, CA did and will almost surely return next month when the SCOTUS stops futzing around.

Today, Minnesota's House approved SSM. The governor is ready to sign as soon as its Senate does it's proforma consent Monday.

By the bye, Illinois is likely to join the equality party this month.

The tipping point is tipped.

When Illinois and California jump in, suddenly we don't have a freak nation of a few areas approving SSM. Rather, a huge chunk of the population — both coasts and in the middle — say they actually believe in and support equality.

If, as expected, the SCOTUS, hedges on full equality nationwide, only letting CA revert to its legislatively passed SSM, we are left with a modern and primitive America. Texas and South Carolina won't want to give homosexuals American rights, dagnabbit.  Short of a Supreme Court mandate, they'll fester with their regressive stupidity as they did with race laws for a bit longer.

The point is that I was wrong. I thought getting this far would take another decade or two. Once I saw that my boomer generation was little better than our parents on gay rights, I feared for the nation until most of us from both groups had died. I, fortunately, was wrong. America is tired of the irrational and emotional crap and its distractions.

Tip that.

Only-a-flesh-wound for Anti-Gay Forces

With the Supremes about to hear the closely linked Prop 8/DOMA arguments in the next two days, the machinations, lies and delusions of the anti-equality types fascinate more than ever. They call to mind the 2012 election night pathos of GOP bigs, like Karl Rove, guaranteeing Mitt Romney's victory as state after state tumbled into the President's bag.

A pathetic but more topical version was yesterday's comments by National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown on a very friendly to him Fox segment. (Screen snag segment of him here. I claim fair use for the altered pic.) He ostensibly debated Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry. In reality the few minutes they had were Solomon detailing the new reality of public support for same-sex marriage, Brown hunkered down in an old anti-gay version, and the host giving him the "last word" that amounted to half the total time.

By the bye, a crisp, revealing piece on his obsession with keeping homosexuals from marriage rights just appeared in the New York Times.

Even with his temporal treat on Fox, Brown showed the sorry state of the anti forces. He represents the dwindling party that want to harm, hinder, hobble and hamper homosexuals. As so many polls show, Americans have come around quickly from not being able to imagine gay marriage to accepting and supporting it. Solomon cited a few of those, the data are everywhere, ranging from a plurality to a large majority in favor, and this happened so fast I have to admit I had predicted a much slower evolution many times. I'm delighted to have been wrong.

Brown's sorry statements are instructive for many reasons:

1. Big proof. He falls back as seemingly all anti-equality types do to 31 states have laws or amendments or both limiting a marriage to a man and a woman. He never mentions that those were almost entirely passed in relatively bygone days of anti-gay panic after Hawaii considered equal marriage, Vermont instituted civil unions and the clincher, the MA Goodridge decision legalizing SSM coming up on a decade ago. That could not happen now, 10 states and DC have instituted SSM and more are headed that way.
2. Mob rule. NOM's prime offense against equality is the same as other anti-gay groups'. Brown says that because CA voters overturned the legislature/governor legalization (a.k.a. representative democracy) with Prop 8, no court should have the right to deny them, even if their action violates state and perhaps US constitutions. 
3. Don't stir the pot. Brown would have it in a meme the media seem to have promulgated that if the SCOTUS makes a big move — ruling to overturn Prop 8 and maybe even that state law against marriage equality are unconstitutional — this will create a culture war. He and other bozos who make this assertion cite Roe v. Wade. In reality, it is the anti-SSM side who turned this into a cultural battle and continue to do so. We have instead seen too many times that pleas to go slowly in granting fundamental rights and freedoms are just attempts to permanently squelch them.

Lackaday for Brown and his ilk, even if the Supremes do not invalidate state laws and amendments on SSM, more and more states, with considerable numbers of citizens will have the option of marriage equality. Those 31 states were the paranoid extreme. Now that the nation sees the benign and beneficial nature of SSM for the couples and children involved, fear recedes and compassion steps in.

NOM and their running dogs have long loved such verbal tricks as "redefining marriage" and "let the people vote." Of course, they were the ones changing the marriage definition to exclude gay couples. Sometimes that was with such straw-man arguments that SSM will necessarily mean all manner of sexual practices long prohibited by federal and state laws. Sometimes it was the bizarre assertion that only those who can and will have children through their married, heterosexual intercourse should marry, denying the elderly, otherwise infertile, and childless by choice. Also, what a huge insult to the millions of adoptive parents.

The ballot-initiative ploy had two vicious prongs. First, we long ago concluded as a nation that we should not vote on the rights of any minority. Second, it's just another fallback from failure. Where a state like MA had court-mandated equality, the anti forces wanted a vote to strip the right. Where a state like CA voted in the legislature for SSM, Prop 8 also wanted to take away an existing right. No matter how equality comes about, the NOM sorts will try every trick and scheme to destroy that new freedom. Even coming up to a decade of established law here, the MA anti-equality forces make noises of somehow mounting yet another plebiscite to follow other failed efforts.

The graceless Brian Browns of our world will not go away quickly or quietly. They will not accept defeat . They will not consider embracing the newer, fairer marital world. They simply want to hold back homosexual couples and deny they equal treatment.

The rest of the country is moving on.

Good on Gomer

Were my maternal grandmother alive, would she rejoice in Jim Nabors, a.k.a. Gomer Pyle, getting married...to his love of 38 years, his new husband?

Out to his friends and colleagues, but no one else, the 82-year-old actor figured it was time, while he had time. He and partner Stan Cadwallader flew from their Hawaii home to Seattle, where such doings are legal.

Pic note: Public domain from Marine Corps.

Licit or not, my grandmother 1) adored Nabors on The Andy Griffith Show and other TV, particularly where he'd sing, and 2) was befuddled by and hostile to homosexuality. She was born at the very start of the 20th Century and lived her whole life in the hills of central Maryland and the Eastern panhandle of West Virginia.

Mable didn't consider herself a hick. After all, they lived in Romney, the Hampshire County seat, with a metropolitan area population of over 2,000. The hicks and ridge runners came from the real hills to downtown Romney with its several restaurants, department store, groceries, and menswear shop (run by the mayor, head of the only Jewish family in the county).

Yet the wild, the citified, and sexually remarkable were not an admitted part of her world. Yet, it turns out, gays were about. A very familiar relative by marriage was one, several family members I learned had bi relationships, and my best friend in the town where I summered and spent my holidays my whole childhood and youth was gay. Had she known things I did, she likely would have denied it each and all.

One of her daughters, my mother, was more candid but still befuddled. Two of my longest-term friends are gay men. She knew them both, one from my sandbox days and one from college on. They would visit her on swings through the Southwest, with their partners. She and they all enjoyed their meals and conversations for many years. She would tell me how much she loved the four of them, but always add that she just didn't understand homosexuality.

She didn't live long enough for the full circle. I have solemnized both couples' marriages.; I suppose she would have said she didn't understand same-sex marriage either.

Her own mother though was never in a state of mind to discuss homosexuality. She read her Bible and The Upper Room daily as well as attending and serving in church. Without the obnoxious aspects, she was a fundy, and I have no doubt she knew same-sex love to be sinful.

Gaydar jokes aside, Nabors was fairly plainly gay at least to us boomers. That was fine enough. What I had trouble with was what my grandmother adored, his drama-queen singing. He favored lugubrious ballads, huge, round-mouthed tones and virtually no feeling involved.

Yet, every week, she'd invariably say if Gomer was on with Andy, "I hope he sings." Also, when the Cumberland Times or TV Guide would list him as a guest on some other program, she was elated because it invariably meant he'd do a number or two. She loved the songs even if she would have hated the sin.

She'd be well over 100 now. I have to wonder whether she would have grown at all with the times. Surely she never would have left Romney. What would it have meant to her to know I'd performed several gay weddings, of people she knew and liked? What would the growing national support of SSM meant to her? Could she have talked about it with me?

Grandmother Mable taught several generations to think for ourselves, to speak up at every lunch and dinner on every subject, to be well read and informed. She had her huge blind spots. I have to wonder whether she would have shifted over the decades. In particular, Jim Nabors was a hero of hers. wouldn't that be something fine?

My blessings fall on Jim and Stan, newlyweds.

Moot? Interpretation?

Seemingly parallel and equally weighted to free speech, far too many of us nod like bobble-head dolls in approval of virtually everything being open to interpretation. Whether it's a shared experience or analysis of provable/disprovable facts, we like to extend the right to everyone to be bone-headed wrong.

There's some stereotypical fantasy that unless you cut people infinite slack for the wackiest ideas, you are far too rigid and you don't understand the human thought process. It is true enough that overly rigid literal thinking leads to orthodoxy and exclusion of differing ideals. But letting everyone advance wacky ideas to a group is cowardice.

Cut me a very thin slice of that baloney, Jack. Not all ideas or interpretations of facts are valid or equal. Some of us twist the facts and evidence for our nefarious purposes. Others are too lazy to analyze at all. Still others are not very bright.

Instead of bobbling when you hear, "It's just a matter of interpretation," consider it your moral and intellectual obligation to call foolishness. Ideally, you'll be well-bred enough to avoid doing it self-righteously. Yet, the main goal should be putting the brakes to the wagon-load of crap.

Out of our control are professional loonies and liars, like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. They are highly paid entertainers, masquerading as analysts and commentators. They have no incentive to be reasonable, realistic or honest.

Where you can have an effect though is in the likes of personal conversations and public meetings. Don't yield to those who say their crazy assertions are as valid as yours or anyone else's. Most times that simply isn't true. Say it, say it to them.

Of course, much of this is political and cultural. The most obvious current example may be the birther folk. They have available and most have beheld the POTUS' state-issued proof he was born in Hawaii, as well as seen the newspaper announcement and so forth. For them to hold that Barack Obama is not a native-born American is loony, stupid or both. Yet, some continue to insist this is a matter of interpretation.

Yes, reasonable people can disagree, but one reasonable one and one crazy one are on different planes, unequal ones.

I think of a relative who advances fantasies and lies constantly and has from when I first met her. To put it kindly, I can say she is perhaps the most skilled fabulist I've ever known. She constantly re-remembers, restructures, reinterprets, and retells her life. Although she was an adulteress, an inheritance thief and more, she speaks with great conviction of her blamelessness in all acts and in fact represents herself as heroic and virtuous. She reinvents herself as the lead in her own play.

She has lied to my face, slandered other relatives, and iterated those calumnies repeatedly at increasing volume. In the times that I called her on them and spoke of provable contradictions, she would simply drop the subject and address it no further.

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Don't Accept It

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There too are the behaviors of the worst of these sorts. In what used to be limited to U.S. prep school (UK public schools) and Ivy-League class colleges, the disingenuous learn to shout and badger. The atmosphere includes the elements that if you bellow someone down, you win. Of course, the truth is that if you cow someone by saying the same thing repeatedly at increasing volume, you aren't right. Instead you are loud, repetitive and, well, rude. Unfortunately, this attitude has percolated from the fancy schools into the populace.

Bill O'Reilly certainly fits in that group. Also, although I agree with most of his politics, Chris Matthews does as well. Neither listens to others and both bully their guests far too frequently. I have little doubt it has to do with their home lives and schooling.

So, the call here is plain. When the jive demons pretend, don't accept it. When you know better, tell 'em. Don't accept that everything is a matter of interpretation, that one set of assertions is automatically as valid as another.

Facts are stubborn things. When armed with knowledge, be as stubborn.

Luck of Draw on Prop 8 Appeal

The certain appeal of the ruling that Prop 8 is doubly unconstitutional goes into a complex and iffy world of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Just as I was about to try to figure out the twists and turns, AP's Paul Elias provided great background.

Among the key points are:

• The courts reputation for liberalism is undeserved. The 27 sitting judges range from very conservative to very liberal.
• A computer will randomly pick the three to hear this appeal (like a box of chocolates?).
• Only if that panel seems way off base to a majority of the 27 will a larger panel rehear the case to finalize it.

Geographically, the court is the biggest, covering nine western states, including Alaska and Hawaii. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are tucked in too.

Many of us have made much of the detailed ruling in this Perry decision. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker clearly made it hard to overturn with his 80-plus findings of facts, which any appeals court has to assume are true unless forced by changed information to do otherwise. That would leave the appeal based on finding of law. He described those with great specificity and with numerous citations to precedence all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. That doesn't guarantee the appeals panel will agree with the latter.

That written, the three-judge panel's make-up is unknown, as is the result of the appeal. Elias adds, "Legal experts said the case could easily end with a politically conservative panel of the 9th Circuit reinstating the marriage ban and the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to get involved. " He wrote that a conservative panel might well prefer to hold off on enabling our most populous state to allow same-sex marriages right now, as a bit sudden.

Likewise, this appeals court has the power to let SSM resume in California while it hears and decides the case. That seems unlikely and a stay of up to a year in implementing Walker's order may well happen.

I keep seeing the flares of libertarianism in this as well. Walker, while often conservative, has such a bent and Elias writes that the Ninth's Chief Judge Alex Kozinski does as well. The concept of individual freedoms unless there is compelling reason to restrict them arises repeatedly. My view of fairness and civil rights is not quite the same, even if they end up at the identical destination.

After the three-judge appeals panel rules, the Ninth could take another stab at this. All the judges can review the decision and if a majority disagree with its finding, Kozinski could impanel and sit on an 11-judge en banc subset of the whole court. It would rehear and re-decide the appeal. This happens rarely.

I for one will be fascinated to see which three end up on this panel.

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Tags: massmarrier, same sex marriage, marriage equality, Ninth Circuit, Court of Appeals

Attack of the Slime People!

And so it begins...

In a delicious paradox, Hillary claims her's is bigger than Barack's. Likewise, after seeing Obama skunk the blustering ex-First Lady, GOP-man John McCain waves his hands, while saying to pay no attention to that guy's words.

The former is desperate and the latter about to become so. We have seen the mid-term and longer sleaze bombs begin to land.

Clinton's is the most absurd. After Obama ground her under his wingtips in Wisconsin and Hawaii yesterday, we heard snatches of the strategies — and character — of the key players. Briefly:

• McCain did a Wizard of Oz behind the curtain trick. "I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change ... that promises no more than a holiday from history and a return to the false promises and failed policies of a tired philosophy that trusts in government more than the people"
• Obama was similarly nasty about McCain, but used substance and issues instead of innuendo. "But when he embraces George Bush's failed economic policies, when he says he's willing to send our troops into another 100 years in Iraq, then he represents the party of yesterday, and we want to be the party of tomorrow."
• Hillary was the saddest and much the college freshman lad with, "One of us is ready to be commander in chief in a dangerous world. . . . One of us has a plan to provide health care for every single American -- no one left out. . . . One of us has faced serious Republican opposition in the past. And one of us is ready to do it again."

It will be fascinating to see how that bellicose theater plays in the delegate-bulging Texas. It is amusing of course that she claims I'm-more-of-a-man-than-Barack. It likely makes Republican functionaries hope she's the nominee. McCain can play that game on a much, much higher level.

On his part, McCain's acting is good only from a distance. In pending debates, position papers and speeches, he can only hope that the majority won't really want a change from the Bush failures, that the new terrifies them even more. Good luck with that, flyboy.

Obama's attack has some heft. He can keep that up and score with it.

Blogger note: I was trying not to post this week. They made me do it with those comments.

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Tags: massmarrier, election, primaries, Obama, McCain, Clinton, Democrats, Republicans

SSM Trends Out There

So long as Massachusetts remains the sole same-sex marriage outpost of this country, we can play provincial. But grumblings and advances elsewhere just keep coming. Bless 'em.

In a comment on the latest in Wyoming, Harold drew attention to great news in Colorado. Long the home of right wingers and libertarians, they have fostered one of the nation's nastiest anti-gay/anti-SSM politicians, U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave. She not only runs her campaigns on keeping homosexuals down, she has been the leading advocate of a U.S. constitutional amendment forbidding SSM.

She seems, at least this year, to have run out of bile. She and her local buddy U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard announced that they won't reintroduce this amendment this term.

According to the report in the Pueblo Chieftain, it's not so much that they got some humanity and compassion. Rather it's "another sign that Democrats are now in the majority."

This perennial stink bomb has passed the House a few times, but gotten no further. With typical politician's pragmatism, Allard explained their tail tucking. "If we thought there was a decent chance to bring it to the floor for debate, I would, but with the new Congress, I'm not sure we will ever have that opportunity."

Coincidentally, the short-term future for marriage equality seems to be playing out in Hawaii. They have been around and around this bush. Now it appears they are about to enact civil unions.

In 1993, they led the nation with a surprise state Supreme Court requirement that the government explain under what principles and authority it forbade SSM. The voters then approved an amendment defining marriage as one-man/one-woman. However, in 1997, Hawaii a domestic-partner style reciprocal benefits structure for SS couples. Now legislation is in the works for civil unions.

A lead editorial in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin gently upends the tired anti-SSM arguments about this being marriage by another name with the words of New Jersey high-court Justice Barry Albin:

However, it is a distinction with an important difference. As Albin acknowledged in the New Jersey case, marriage has meant the union of a man and a woman through tradition and religious beliefs, and that need not change, at least now.

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Tags: massmarrier, Colorado, Hawaii, civil unions, Musgrave

High Prices for Unwed Partners

In a dispassionate capitalistic monotone, the Financial Times reports on the state of the states on legal and economic effects of preventing same-sex marriage. In that spirit, I'll try to hold down the shrillness and sarcasm. Let me just write that this is the running score in the Hurt the Gay Couples Game.

The Lauren Foster recap concludes that most financial benefits married couples rightly assume are between impossible and difficult for unwed same-sex ones. In the 43 states that have no recognition of any type for SS couples, married couples' financial protections require considerable effort and purchased expertise.

The FT includes the relationship-recognition map from the Human Rights Campaign. What financial protections there are at the state level (none by the feds) some in California (spousal rights to all unmarried couples), D.C. and Maine (domestic partnerships), Hawaii (reciprocal partnerships), Connecticut, New Jersey and Vermont (civil unions), and Massachusetts (SSM).

Our Census Bureau reports that unmarried couples are at 6 million, up from 3.2 million in 1990. For them, as the FT puts it, "In most states, unmarried couples have the same legal status as acquaintances. And that has far-reaching consequences for financial and personal matters."

For example, spouses can give each other unlimited amounts in life or at death, tax free. An estate tax is a one-time event -- death of the survivor -- for marrieds and twice for unmarried partners.

Partners who are not allowed to marry have to arrange such alternatives as testamentary charitable remainder uni-trusts (UCRUTs). Assets can support a surviving partner, but only if in the end the funds go to the pre-named charity.

If an unmarried partner wants to leave over $2 million to the partner, anything over $2 of the estate is taxable. It is not for married people.

For an unmarried couple, adding the other person to a house title triggers a gift tax -- not so if they were married (and could marry).

Alternately, a SS couple might have to set up a limited partnership, which would own their assets and disperse any only in proportion to the partners' contributions. Of course, this is not necessary for spouses.

A tiny bright spot in this mess was last summer when President Bush signed the non-spousal beneficiary law. It lets anyone named inherit some retirement plan (like 401[k]) assets and roll them into an inherited IRA, thus deferring taxes.

Wills become crucial for unmarried partners too, according to Lehman Brothers managing director and wealth advisory group head Holly Isdale. "For a traditional married couple, certain things are ass-umed . . . but for unmarried couples, they have to proactively state how their assets will be divided at death or separation,” she said.

This can mean separate life insurance policies naming each other as beneficiary. It can also take the form of an irrevocable life insurance trust to minimize taxes. Even here, for unmarried couples only, these fold into the estate and are taxed that way, albeit at a lower rate than gifts.

Also, considering the attitude of many potential estate beneficiaries in the family tree, preventing challenges to wills take a particular importance for unmarried couples. Trusts do not go through probate and are harder to challenge than a will.

As for separation, there are both assets and often kids to consider. Holland+Knight partner Tamara Kolz urges a cohabitation agreement. Her legalese on this is a veritable prose fest:

When a relationship dissolves, it is not unusual for an alimony requirement or a transfer of property from one partner to another to occur. Because the relationship is not recognised by federal law, alimony is not deductible as it would normally be, and any transfer of property doesn’t fall under the exception of transfers incident to a divorce, so there may be capital gains or gift tax consequences. So even dissolving the relationship is far more complicated and costly than for heterosexual married couples.

In short, there really is no in short for unmarried SS couples. In the seven states and the federal district that offer some protection, the burden is a little lighter and the undergrowth a bit less dense. However, the federal tax laws are for spouses, not the unwed. State laws in the 43 playing Hurt the Gay Couples mean that preparation is intense, demanding and unforgiving.

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Tags: massmarrier, benefits, amendment, same sex marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships, Financial Times, Lauren Foster

SSM: View from the Cave

Like so many feral critters guarding their kills' carcasses, anti-same-sex marriage forces are in their legal caves. They feast on DOMA amendments to their states' constitutions and reinforced laws that in many cases prevent not only SSM, but also domestic partnerships that benefit heterosexuals and relatives almost entirely.

Their apparent successes seem largely in anticipation of or reaction to the Massachusetts decision legalizing SSM. They had their way in state after state pointing to the horror, certain horror of SSM.

Now they don't let the obvious positive results here deter them or reverse their puerile panic or, God forbid, apologize. Instead, they are reduced to the schoolyard taunt of "Just you wait and see. Oh, boy. Will it be bad!"

For the pro-SSM side, we saw:

• Conceptual rulings and subsequent partnership laws in Hawaii, New Jersey and elsewhere.
• Pioneering civil unions in Vermont, eventually followed by Connecticut.
• Full SSM in Massachusetts.

On the other side, over a dozen states rushed through their anti-SSM amendments to inoculate themselves against this dreaded disease, as they see it. Then recently we have seen a series of state high court decisions in various regions begging their legislatures to deal with the SSM issue. (When they handed out guts, most judges seem to have been at the snack bar.)

Preceding all of this was the 1996 pandering Defense of Marriage Act, one of President Bill Clinton's worst blunders. DOMA would defend heterosexual marriage against equality, civility, civil-rights, and most of all comity. The principle of having states recognize each others' laws is a key basis of our federalism for good reason.

Ironically, a major argument for DOMA is that making states recognize SSMs from other states would force them to legalize and perform SSM locally. Yet, in marriage law, we have had centuries to contradict that. For one example, some states permit common-law marriages, wherein a couple lives together and says they are married. Poof, they're married there. The states that do not accept this as a basis for marriage locally do recognize these couples as married when they move in-state. No changes occur to the laws of the non-common-law state. Thus it would be without DOMA for SSM and civil unions.

Amusingly, we have a similar situation here related to comity. Our governor and attorney general began enforcement of 1913 laws forbidding out-of-state couples to wed here if the marriages would be illegal if performed in their home state. This was originally an accommodation to other states which enforced their own laws forbidding interracial marriage.

It is worth noting that before WWI, other states did not so accommodate Massachusetts laws. Nor has any agreed fully to recognize SSM couples from here as married locally. Massachusetts plants its legal kisses in thin air.

When the executive branch here dusted off the unused laws to apply to same-sex couples, everyone from GLAD to the NAACP screamed. Yet, the Supreme Judicial Court here said in a narrowly focused decision that the laws were okay, in large part because they discriminated equally across genders. Double huh?

Likewise, the befuddled Roman Catholic hierarchy here and elsewhere (including Canada) openly lied that they would be forced to perform SSM ceremonies and bless the fearsome homosexual unions. Of course, this turns law on its head. Our separation of church and state forbid that, they know that, but they had no shame in deceitful fear mongering to sway voters.

We end up asking whether or for how long will there be an upright finger of marriage equality in New England. Rhode Island or even Maine may be next with civil unions or marriage, as well.

So, as we see from the gay and straight media alike some calls for falling back to civil unions and backing off from pushing for marriage. Others suggest that just as straight couples have been fleeing from marriage for decades, perhaps homosexual ones need to get their legal rights in other ways, like partnership contracts. Many in the pro-SSM camp have simply followed the court's index fingers to legislatures.

We at this blog are bears of very little brain. We turn to other sources. In particular, the next few posts will discuss the latest work on the subject by Carlos A. Ball, Penn State Law Professor and author.

He has a well-reasoned take on why anti-SSM forces are so driven as well as what to expect next.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Carlos Ball, same sex marriage

SSM Snapshot

Down at the Village Voice, Kristen Lombardi must have had a slow morning. She (bless her) laid out the current state-by-state status of same-sex-marriage and related legislation and voter efforts.

Her snapshot includes:

• Most recent anti-gay-marriage amendment approved by both the legislature and voters: Kansas, in April
• The 17 other states where bans exist: Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah
• Amendments approved and scheduled for a popular vote: Texas (in November); Alabama, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee (all in 2006)
• Amendments now pending in legislatures: Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Wisconsin
• Amendments requiring a second legislative vote: Virginia (in 2006), Indiana (in 2007)
• Amendments that have failed in legislatures this year: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Washington
• Statutes permitting gay marriages passed by a legislature: California
• Statutes permitting gay marriages pending in a legislature: New York
• Statutes permitting gay marriages that failed in legislatures: Maine, Rhode Island
• Statutes banning gay marriages pending in legislatures: New Jersey, New York
• Statutes banning gay marriages that failed in legislatures: Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Wyoming
• Lawsuits asking for the right to marry: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California, Washington, Maryland
• Lawsuits against some form of anti-gay amendment: Nebraska, Georgia, Ohio, Oregon
• States considering opening marriage laws: New Hampshire, through its Marriage Commission
• States where anti-gay activists are trying to force a referendum: California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Arizona

Changing Laws and Minds in California

In the swath of Monday's California marriage decision, many people squared off pro or con. A law professor who has made this his concentration had a longer view.

The New York Times quoted William B. Rubenstein as saying, "If this were 1975, it would be rather shocking, but in 2005 it is totally consistent with what courts have been doing for the last decade or so." He called Judge Kramer's decision "not out of the mainstream" legally and in line with other decisions, including Hawaii's 1993 ruling. The trend seems to be courts agreeing that marriage is a basic right for all.

Rubenstein is Founding Director, The Charles R. Williams Project on Sexual Orientation Law, at University of California at Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, anti-same-sex-marriage folk are posturing -- appeals, amendments, plebiscites, et alii. On the other side, the Times also got kinder, gentler, perhaps naive quotes from Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

"We have to melt hearts and open minds and that can't be done in the courtroom," Ms. Kendell said. "That is done at P.T.A. meetings, Kiwanis clubs and neighborhood potlucks."