What About Those Married Gays?

Just in case you wondered what would happen to the 6000-plus same-sex marriages if the newest DoMA amendment version passes in 2008, the short answer is nothing. They would get grandfathered. The anti folk would then hope they would wither and disappear, much like the Shakers.

The actual wording of this week's one is:

When recognizing marriages entered after the adoption of this amendment by the people, the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall define marriage as only the union of one man and one woman.

Of course, that would be confusing, legally and culturally. Yet, in the unlikely event this occurs, it would make plain the intent of the anti forces —— to limit the freedoms and take away rights from homosexuals. (Judge for yourself how anti-American stripping existing rights from citizens is.)

This might be a good time to recall that unlike other colonies and then states, Massachusetts kept a clear line between church and state, as described here. Marriage here was always and remains a civil contract. Ministers and other clerics were not originally allowed to solmenize marriages, only government officials could. It is fascinating to see how groups are trying to twist this into a religious issue.

Sure, Mitt Will Respect You

Gov. Mitt Romney is out of here. He made one big move yesterday and will do another today. After endorsing a DoMA drive locally, he's touring other states to kiss up to conservative groups.

Along the way to get the GOP POTUS nomination, he's already using the local anti-same-sex-marriage folk. He'll let them fail to get a civil-union-instead-of-gay-marriage amendment, then fail after he's gone to get a DoMA amendment, and stew in their own juices. Meanwhile, he can go to California (today) and Michigan and South Carolina to thump his chest. "Me anti-gay-marriage. Grunt. Look how hard me fight!"

You can read detailed analysis of his ploys in today's Boston Globe. It leads with his use of the Mass Family Institute and its allies here, although this is straight news. It gets down a little bit with its analysis of his new PAC that will shamelessly reframe his wavering politics as steady conservative leadership.

So far, the wires and other newspapers have just the facts. More analysis will follow and the Washington Post has yet to weigh in on this. The California papers may get a giggle out this too; they have their own Republican governor theater.

It really shouldn't be funny, but the Massachusetts anti forces have so clumsily and flagrantly used the sincere, religious and confused (or combinations of those) that Romney jumping up and down on their backs to raise his profile is sweet.

So, we can get a whiff from Orange Country today when Mitt lays it on at the Flag Day fund raiser for the California GOP. That should be rich, in every sense of the term.

Romney for Something

And speaking of Mr. Mitt, the .08 Acres blog has an insightful analysis and commentary on Romney's horizon. See the top June 14th entry Senatorial Approval Ratings.

He compares the approval ratings for Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. Then he dissects Kennedy's fundraising mail after the Wall Street Journal urges Mitt to run for Kennedy's seat. Pretty much like Mitt's posturing on same-sex marriage, that could be another meaningless way to puff himself up politically.

In Snit, Mitt Bit

Our governor, Mitt Romney, has likely killed the replace-gay-marriage-with-civil-unions amendment trying to wriggle through the constitutional-convention process. Shortly after the predictable group of anti folk announced today that they did in fact intend to try to get a DoMA amendment before the voters in 2008, Mitt said that's what he had in mind all along.

It looks like surrender clothed in bravado, shouting, "We'll get you now!," as they run away.

Putting the most positive spin on it, Mitt's man at the mic, Eric Rehrnstrom said, "Gov. Romney believes that voters should be given a straightforward amendment to decide the definition of marriage and not one that muddles the water by creating civil unions that would be equivalent of marriage in all respects but name."

It is to laugh.

From here it looks like:

• The anti folk figured they were not going to win the second vote to get their civil-union amendment on the ballot.
• Mitt wants to be POTUS or VP and was not about to leave the state soundly defeated by both same-sex marriage and failure to downgrade it to civil union.
• The bar to get the new amendment on the ballot in 2008 is half as high as the current one, so that even this group of clowns should be able to pull it off.

However, legislators and voters here are losing what light taste they had for this blood. Same-sex marriage works as smoothly as the old kind, letting homosexuals have equal rights has hurt no one and no one's estate of matrimony, and none of the dreadful plagues predicted by the naysayers and nigglers has befallen us.

Assuming the low-bar version gets on the ballot, it looks like a loser. Politicians are seeing that the majority of voters are either in favor of equality or indifferent to this non-problem. It's possible that in three years the only voters who will go for the amendment will be bigots who say they aren't bigoted and discriminators who say no one wants discrimination. Let us be thankful that they are the minority.

By the bye, no one other than Mass News paid much attention to the anti folk's announcement. That stalwart source listed, "Holding Thursday's press conference are Massachusetts Family Institute's Kris Mineau, Maria Parker of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, Dr. Roberto Miranda of the Congregacion de Judah, Bishop Gilbert Thompson from the Black Ministerial Alliance, and Rep. Philip Travis (D-Rehoboth)."

New Jersey Decision Available

LAMBDA Legal has made the decision of the New Jersey Appeals Court rejecting same-sex marriage available online here. (This is in PDF and you need an Adobe Acrobat compatible reader to view or print it. It runs 75 pages of decision and dissent.)

We'll take a look through it. Meanwhile, for a taste of the 31-page dissent, consider its conclusion:

While the Domestic Partnership Act gives, at some cost, many, but not all, of the benefits and protections automatically granted to married persons, we have learned after much pain that "separate but equal" does not substitute for equal rights. Plaintiff Sarah Lael describes the difference in this way:
For me, being denied marriage, despite how hard we work and support each other and our children, it is demeaning and humiliating. These feelings are part of my daily life ... because of constant reminders that we are second class.

What Sarah Lael and her partner lack and seek may be summed up in the word dignity. But there is more they will gain from lawful marriage. That something else goes to the essence of marriage and is probably best left to poets rather than judges. It is the reason that people do get married. For marriage changes who you are. It gives stability, legal protection and recognition by fellow citizens. It provides a unique meaning to everyday life, for legally, personally and spiritually a married person is never really alone. Few would choose life differently.

With great admiration for the wisdom, logic and eloquence of my colleagues, I must dissent.

Judge Donald Collester

Equality v. Schadenfreude

For those still wondering what more do those queers want, several poignant examples appear in a piece by AP reporter Geoff Mulvihill. The Bridgewater, New Jersey, Courier-News has it here with pix.

The differences between what New Jersey's domestic-partnership law can offer and what married couples routinely get is probably best illustrated by the case of Marilyn Maneely and Diane Marini. They are among the plaintiffs in the three-year-old case suing the state for Massachusetts-style full same-sex marriage.

Four months ago, Maneely found that she had Lou Gehrig's disease. As the article notes, not only would Marini not be eligible for Maneely's Social Security were the latter to die, but:

Health-care coverage is a big issue for the couple. For 13 years, Marini, who owns a construction business, had been on Maneely's health insurance plan as a domestic partner. But Maneely can no longer work as a nurse and is forced to buy into her current plan. Without being married, Marini cannot be insured that way and must find private insurance.

The New Jersey law doesn't help at all. Of course, with Federal DoMA procedural restrictions, agencies are forbidden from extending marital benefits in such cases.

What Marini gets from the state is the right to visit her long-term partner in the hospital and the same inheritance exemptions for personal property that a spouse could claim.

Among the other theoretical benefits would be freedom from being compelled to testify against a spouse in court. New Jersey is one of five states that offer these minimal partner benefits.

Down Not Out in Newark

By 2-1, a New Jersey appeals court ruled against permitting same-sex marriage. The plaintiffs will take it to the state Supreme Court.

The Star-Ledger has a report online here.

The majority judges wrote that the legislature would have to change the marriage law first to permit same-sex marriages. The dissenter, Judge Donald Collester, had a strongly worded commentary, including that the right is "effectively meaningless unless it includes the freedom to marry a person of one's choice." His dissent included a comparison to race-mixing prohibitions.

The lead attorney, LAMDBA's David Buckel, said, "We are disappointed but not discouraged, because we always knew we were headed to the high court, and so, we'll be trying to get there as soon as possible and we are hopeful the high court will agree with the better-reasoned dissent."

The majority opinion of Judges Stephen Skilman and Anthony Parrillo compared the plaintiffs' arguments to those that could be made for polygamy. In contrast, Collester noted the circular reasoning of the majority — "...plaintiffs cannot marry because by definition they cannot marry."

A wrinkle in the New Jersey case is that while this suit was proceeding, the legislature passed a domestic-partnership act that went into effect last year. This grants same-sex couples limited rights. I bet the legislature thought they had side-stepped this issue.

Hardline DoMA Effort

According to today's Globe, the farthest right of the rights in the legislature will buck the current compromise effort to get a full marriage = 1 man + 1 woman amendment to the commonwealth constitution. They are supposed to announce the effort tomorrow.

Logistically, this try would be easier than the one underway to replace same-sex marriages with civil unions. Realistically, it seems doomed.

As for law, a DoMA initiative petition would still take a cycle of three years, getting on a ballot in 2008. However, instead of needing twin votes of a majority of the combines legislature, it would require only a quarter of the lawmakers to get before the voters.

Ironically, the effort would give voters two more years of seeing that there are no negatives to homosexual marriage. Already polls show that a majority (56% in the most recent) favor same-sex marriage. More people gay and straight are marrying, staying married, and increasing marital stability in Massachusetts.

The odd state Rep. Emile Goguen has his name attached to the latest effort. More on this when they, if you pardon the expression, come out.

Marriage Law Ref Guide

There is a pretty up-to-date and complete marriage/relationship law directory on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation site.

A spot-check shows it to be timely. For example, the Massachusetts section provides the background of the effort to put a civil-union amendment before the voters, but it does not have the latest legislative moves in the past few weeks. On the other hand, the issues with out-of-state residents trying to marry here is current as of the governor's May 205th announcement

Maine-ly Discriminatory

Slicing and dicing reason exceedingly finely, the repeal-the-homosexual-equality laws folk must still have a hard time making their case. In the following link to the law, you can read the 12 short pages or skip to the summary on the last, which reads:

This bill ensures that all citizens, regardless of their sexual orientation, have the same civil rights protections now guaranteed in employment, housing, public accommodations and credit to citizens on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin and physical or mental handicap. A religious organization that does not receive public funds is exempt from the prohibition against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The bill makes it clear that this change in the Maine Human Rights Act does not confer legislative approval of or special rights to anyone or any group.

As background, see the law 1365, An Act to End Discrimination, here in HTML. The talking points in the petition effort to defeat it are on the main Maine anti site here.

The repeal people seem to be largely fundamentalists, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. Whether they really believe their talking points is debatable. Yet, they seem to want others to buy into their doublespeak.

For example, the ballot question they want to present to voters reads simply, Do you want to reject the new law that would protect people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and credit based on their sexual orientation.

So in response to the quite obvious query from people they want to sign, they suggest:

Q. Isn't this all about discrimination? Why would anyone want to discriminate against gays?

A. Everyone is opposed to discrimination, but the law goes far beyond legitimate forms of discrimination. It is written in such broad terms that it covers behavior which is contrary to God'’s laws, and offensive to common decency. For example, the law would allow a man who believes that he is a woman to use a woman'’s rest room. There are many other examples of this sort. By preventing citizens from speaking out against outrageous and immoral behavior, the law effectively discriminates against people with traditional religious beliefs about homosexuality. The law also grants special privileges to homosexuals, which would allow many unscrupulous individuals to gain an unfair advantage over their fellow citizens through frivolous lawsuits. To say that the law is merely about discrimination is an over-simplification which is intended to be deliberately misleading.

That's a big "Huh?" You want to discriminate, protect those who discriminate, and overturn the anti-discrimination law, but I'm supposed to believe this is not discrimination.

Likewise, the talking point about the sin states to the south reads:

Q. Why do you claim that this is about same-sex marriage when the law mentions nothing about same-sex marriage. Didn'’t the Governor and the Legislature say the law has nothing to do with same sex marriage?

A. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, the actions which made same-sex marriage and civil unions legal took into consideration, or specifically cited, existing gay rights laws as reasons why same-sex marriage laws were needed. The ultimate goal of the gay rights movement has always been same-sex marriage; and they have stated this repeatedly in their own writings. Gay rights activists call this strategy of hiding the ultimate goal of same-sex marriage "“incrementalism."”

I suspect most Mainers will distance themselves from these anti folk. Certainly recently, both voters and lawmakers have shown they don't want to punish and discriminate against folk, no matter what you pretend it's about.

Mad Dad Becomes Maine Gimmick

With four days left to gather 50,000 verifiable voter signatures, the deceptively named Maine Coalition for Marriage is in the second day of its two-day Wake Up Maine tour. They want enough support to get plebiscite on the next ballot to overturn the state's anti-discrimination law covering sexual orientation.

If you want to catch the dog-and-pony show, you have until 6 p.m. EDT today in Ellsworth (Family Bible Church, across from Wal-Mart) for the last one. It's likely a short-lived link, but right now New England Cable News' opening page has a video clip of the story.

It shouldn't be funny, but our Lexington head-in-the-sand guy David Parker seems a bit caught up in his reactionary celebrity. He drove downeast to appear with the group. In a piece in Kennebec Journal, the aggrieved agonist played sidekick to the loathsome Brian Camenker of the Article 8 Alliance.

Parker urged Mainers to work to overturn a Maine law that gives gays and lesbians protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

"These laws will be used and have used been in Massachusetts to expose small children to these lifestyles," Parker said to about 25 supporters in the Statehouse Hall of Flags.

Parker and Camenker spoke at the invitation of the Christian Civic League of Maine, which recently launched a "Wake Up, Maine" tour to generate enthusiasm for its people's veto signature drive and to alert Mainers to what's happened in other states with progressive gay rights laws.

It doesn't look on the face of it like even these Traveling Spite Brothers can help amass 50,000 signatures. Yet, there are shopping malls and petition initiatives are very popular, particularly in New England.

More Folk Less Skin Pride Parade

Coming up on 35 years of Gay Pride parades in Boston, this year's version was big – about 8,000 walking, 200,000 watching on Saturday. There was less effort to shock and make personal physical statements. There was more political talk.

This year's organizers themed it Pride in Progress...What's Your Fight? The idea is that while same-sex marriage is in place here, "Gays are still discriminated against in the workplace, children of gay parents are discriminated against," said Pride Committee Director Aandre Davis. "It's still not legal in the rest of the country to get married and AIDS is still a big issue. Until we resolve these matters, the fight is not over."

The Boston Globe coverage noted that this year's parade had numerous corporate and political sponsors. Its article called this trend "another sign of the parade's increasing appeal to the mainstream."

Up or Down in Oregon

Oregon's hot on Connecticut's tail for civil unions. Its Senate will vote on amending the marriage statutes to permit civil unions. The Senate Rules Committee reported Senate Bill 1073 favorably by 3 to 2.

Not surprisingly, the tally was 3 Democrats for and 2 Republicans against. A full report on the committee action appears in the Salem Statesman-Journal.

Lest you think Oregon is dull, Senate Majority Leader Kate Brown describes herself as a bisexual. She is the unabashed champion of 1073. She is very optimistic that the Senate will pass it.

The dickering could then begin. The House pass its reciprocal-beneficiary bill. That lets unmarried folk get the legal and governmental benefits of marriage.

One senator who won't vote for the unions is Charles Starr, a Republican from Hillsboro. He testified that "Civil unions aren't good for the people who would be in them. The record shows homosexual activity is not normal. Neither the mouth nor the anus were intended for sexual intercourse."

There's the sound reasoning upon which to base your thinking and frame the laws for us all, eh?

No Ban in Maine

It wasn't even close in Augusta, where the Maine House of Representatives defeated a bill to ban same-sex marriages. Despite the state's reputation for stodginess, it might be the next one to legalized them, and by vote rather than court mandate.

The vote on June 8th was 88 to 56 against banning same sex marriages.

Technically, this only kills such a measure for this term of the legislature. However, realistically, the anti forces must recognize that they are nowhere near the required two-thirds votes to add such language to the state's constitution.

Walking the (Gay Pride) Walk

Two leading candidates for Massachusetts governor include one who talks and one who walks. Supposedly a politician would barbecue with the devil to be seen and heard by voters, but only one is taking the chance this time.

Tomorrow is Boston's gay-pride parade, with accompanying music, party, speeches and effusion. Duval Patrick will march (as well as Boston's mayor and his chief challenger in the fall mayoral race). Tom Reilly is sitting on his thumbs and likely squashing his ambitions instead.

Attorney General Reilly says he is for gay rights and is kinda, sorta in favor of same-sex marriage, but really only because it is the law of the land. In contrast, Patrick says that he, like the Democratic party here, supports same-sex marriage and demands equal treatment for homosexuals.

It's Squishy Tom looking spongier by the minute. Every time he makes a statement, he qualifies it and looks more and more confused.

He had his spokeswoman, Sarah Nathan, quibble for him. She said that he would attend his granddaughter's christening instead. Besides, she added, he didn't march in previous pride parades. The latter is a statement that cuts many ways, all of them to Reilly's harm.

Massachusetts voters love liberal Democratic legislators and reactionary Republican governors. Go figure. Regardless of why, the Democratic challenger would have to be strong and un-Republican to have a chance.

Timid Tom seems intent on knocking himself out of the box.

Michigander Ganders

I wouldn't want to be the answering machine for either David G. Myers or Letha Dawson Scanzoni. Their What God Has Joined Together? A Christian Case for Gay Marriage has already gotten quite a bit of attention in Michigan, where Professor Myers lives and appeared in the Boston Globe "Ideas" section yesterday.

Their book hit the street a few days ago (Harper, ISBN: 0060774614). Scanzoni is a Norfolk, Virginia-based Christian scholar and author. Despite Myers' religious credentials and his slot at Hope College, a Christian liberal school in conservative Holland, Michigan, he won't necessarily be the most popular guy right now. You can read a chapter from his book and a letter from the authors about what they intend on his site

The Globe interview was short but delightfully provocative. While scholars and even casual observers have long known how inaccurate and patchwork the King James version of the Bible is, the authors point out how even the twisted wording from the 17th century Bible-by-committee does not even suggest banning same-sex marriage.

Of course, fundamentalists dare not question, but for the vast majority of us, this is good background.

For example:

IDEAS: But isn't the destruction of Sodom in Genesis 19, after the men of Sodom demand that Lot hand over his male visitors so that they might ''know" them, often cited as God's judgment upon homosexuality?

SCANZONI: God's judgment was upon the lack of hospitality and attempted sexual humiliation of the visitors through gang rape. The judgment was not about the love of two homosexual persons for each other. Ezekiel 16 says, ''Sodom's sins were pride, laziness, and gluttony, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door."

IDEAS: What about the passages in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and First and Second Kings that condemn sodomites or Paul's epistles condemning those men he describes as ''abusers of themselves with mankind"?

SCANZONI: Jewish and Christian scholars agree that the word sodomite doesn't appear in the original language. A Hebrew word for leaders in idolatrous rituals was mistranslated as sodomite in some older English Bible versions. The passages from the epistles refer to exploitative male prostitution practices in St. Paul's time. They don't apply to same-sex marriage any more than admonitions against heterosexual prostitution apply to heterosexual marriage.

That's far too Christian an attitude for many.

Benedict as Predicted

Pope Benedict XVI delivered his first major doctrinal speech yesterday. To no one's surprise, it was anti-artificial insemination and anti-same-sex marriage/civil union.

The gist of his 14-page speech was consistent with his previous statements as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the pope's enforcer of dogma. He didn't need his replacement prefect to speak for him on these issues. In effect, any sexual activity that is for pleasure and not procreation is taboo.

He doesn't get into the messy realities. Many married couples are infertile, at any given moment, probably most. They aren't supposed to have sexual contact. That is also the sin of the active homosexuals and reason to forbid gay unions and marriages. As his speech put it:

The various forms of the dissolution of matrimony today, like free unions, trial marriages and going up to pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex, are rather expressions of an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man.

Apparently most Roman Catholics don't take his prohibition of sex for any purpose other than making Roman Catholics seriously. Yet as an absolutist, he stakes out his turf plainly.

He has stated several times he wants a smaller church of more obedient members. He seems intent on ensuring the smaller part.

Safety in Sneaking

School administrators and police in several Massachusetts towns used diversions to avoid confrontations with the Westboro Baptist Church demonstrators. In Lexington, the ploy was to reroute buses around the back of the school and skirt the anti-homosexual picketers. In Dracut, they shifted assemblies to different schools, so that kids were not where the demonstrators were.

Hot Day, Cool Greeting

In a series of sit-com length demonstrations, a small group of damnation threatening homosexual haters did show in Lexington to picket churches Saturday and Sunday. This is not the first time the Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church visited the area to protest. However, this was not in the dreadfully sinful towns of Boston and Cambridge.

They claim that the local churches are going to hell because they have allowed an atmosphere that accepts homosexuality. They were met with the passive-resistance sorts of hand-holding graying and balding sorts, who had been trained in non-confrontational techniques. It was a good day for the upper middle class residents to feel political and righteous.

The catalyst for this visit was mad dad David Parker's control-freak sit-in at a local elementary school. Amusingly, Parker framed even this in terms of himself. He told the Boston Herald that the Kansas protestors should move their demonstrations to his front lawn. "Do they have the courage to face me instead of small children or will they take the coward's way out and ignore me," he said.

We can wonder whether he has a separate garage to house his ego.

Back in Topeka, the locals have long tired of the WBC and its demented leader, Pastor Fred Phelps. There is a great collection of newspaper articles on the church and its founder here, including the locals' opinions of him.

Oddly enough, Phelps was not a general hater. After moving from Mississippi to Kansas, he became a noted and very successful civil rights lawyer. He was a stalwart fighter for the black community. A plaque he received from the NAACP in recognition of his efforts reads in part:

Even though members of the establishment have attacked from every side, you have remained undaunted and never lost your spark and steely determination for justice.

He noted, however, that there is no conflict between his attitude toward black and gay Americans. "God Almighty never said that it's an abomination to be black," he said.

In Lexington, one of his group called out to St. Brigid Catholics as they left, "You're going to hell. Have a nice day."

Today, WBC should wrap up its roadshow with a protest at the elementary school where Mr. Parker has made himself infamous.

Mad Dad at Arm's Length

Oh, shucks, our favorite irate paternal unit, the mad dad of Lexington, David Parker is looking less and less like a principled civil disobeyer. Now he's playing coy with both his tresspassing charge and his affiliations.

Initially, I thought that forcing his arrest at his kindergartener's school was a statement and that he was willing to take his lumps. According to an interview with the Lexington Minuteman, he is not willing to take responsibility for his actions.

I don't agree with his homophobia and his fantasies that the entire educational department has to dance to his fanciful callings. Yet, I thought he might have some principles. It seems from the latest that not only could he use more RAM and a compassion transfusion, but his ethics are somewhat lacking.

Now he and his lawyers claim that they'll pore over town and school phone call records, faxes and radio transmissions. They'll also try to find one or more other cases where parents were in some way accommodated in curricula. In short, it looks like they'll try to find some excuse to claim he should not face charges for his lengthy sit-in demonstration.

Shame.

The Revolutionary War era orators, protestors and fighters knew they were risking fines, jail, life, limb, family and fortune when they stood up for their beliefs. So did Gandhi, Civil Rights era sitters in and countless others worldwide. This quibbling and technicality seeking is unworthy of his town and nation.

Oh, yes, and in the interview, he distanced himself both from his buddies at the Article 8 Alliance, and his supporters from the hate-mongering Westboro Baptist Church. Of the former, he said, "There's a degree of association, but they do not speak for me." Of the latter, he said he called and asked them not to come.

So there we have the modern hero. He won't act heroically. He wants the praises without the wounds. He has a lot of history and philosophy to read.