More from Lexington

The Article 8 Alliance folk (director Brian Camenker) did not disappoint on the mad dad who staged a sit-in at a Lexington, Massachusetts, school. While David Parker himself has little to say and his court appearance for refusing to leave the school after two hours of requests is June 1.

However, look to the Article 8 Website and the MassResistance one for the tropes and illogic. The former site fairly screams, as much as online type can:

Read the Massachusetts Parental Notification Act which the school is ignoring. In this case, the Superintendent claims that homosexuality is not about "human sexuality issues" but "real life" that must be taught to kids.

Unfortunately for the argument, the law is pretty specific. They link to it, where the school is "implementing or maintaining curriculum which primarily involves human sexual education or human sexuality issues" that it must notify parents and let them opt out.

Not only does the school do that, the education here involves those picture books. The offending images are of a two-mom family in the yard, kids playing, one mom washing a dog and the other carrying towels on the other side of the picture. Likewise, the other image has two dads preparing dinner in the kitchen. The daughter reads, while one dad sets the table and another cooks.

So to the Parkers and Camenker, that's sexuality. You gotta wonder what their idea of foreplay and sex is.

For more good stuff, go to the MassResistence site for Lexington's New "Captain" Parker. It flames about "homosexual curriculum materials and possible discussions in his child'’s kindergarten class" and whips out Bible quotes. There's Ephesians 6: 10-18. If you've forgotten, sample verse 11: Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. (Actually the King James is a tiny bit more poetic. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. I prefer that one.)

MassResistence included an exhortation for our moral guy — "Yes, David, you are a soldier! Suit up..."

Note: That is "suit up" not "shut up."

Think of the Children: Last?

Oh, shucks, the mad dad in Lexington, Massachusetts, who sat in at his kindergartner's school to protest a diversity picture book may not be as much fun as he first appeared. David Parker seems more like a singer with a one-octave range.

Today's Boston Globe has details about his thinking. Key points include:

• He chose to spend the night in jail on the trespassing charge rather than accept bail.
• Parker (63) and wife Tonia (34) recently moved her from New Jersey (not a sin; I went to high-school there).
• They oppose same-sex marriage, but swear "(t)his is not about creating a forum for hate...We are not intolerant. We love all people. This is part of our faith."
• The diversity packet he fustigated was no surprise. The school notified them in September that these would come home, what they included and when. The contents were displayed at a back-to-school night, and parents could have refused for kids to bring them home.
• Tonia may have nodded off that those meetings. She claims ignorance of what the other parents heard.

The point of the packet was informational. The design was for parents to discuss families and diversity with their kids, which is what Parker claims he wants to do.

He somehow decided that two non-judgmental illustrations in a picture book saying that some families had two daddies or two mommies were both sexual in nature and promoting homosexuality rather than stating the obvious.

Alas, David Parker...claiming to be a victim when he had the choices all along,,,finding slights in the breezes...denying his hate while calling it love...refusing to accept his responsibility to teach his child his values and morals when handed the materials...

The only chance for good rhetoric is if the fringe sort at places like the Article 8 Alliance hold forth about this. We can only hope.

Crews Gets Blues

The current Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) president, Kristian Mineau took over when Ron Crews went on leave. Crews, who uses the Dr. honorific because of a divinity degree and not Rev., stepped down as head of the MFI to run for U.S. Congress from Massachusetts’ third district last year. He went toe-to-toe with Democratic incumbent Jim McGovern, a very strong supporter of same-sex marriages and civil right in general.

In a very heavy-handed campaign, Crews used the marriage issue, and such votes and positions as McGovern’s call to finally stop the Cuba embargo. Crews’ campaign site has his colorful and puerile rhetoric, such as the Cuban-issue statement, “VOTE FOR RON CREWS: HE WILL WORK FOR HIS DISTRICT, NOT FLY AROUND THE WORLD TO SUPPORT COMMUNISTS!!!”

Crews earned his extreme positions. He was a Georgia state rep for six years, an Evangelical Presbyterian minister, a chaplain for the Army’s 82nd Airborne, and colonel in the Massachusetts Army National Guard. One would have to have extraordinary intellect and maturity to come out of such a background and not have simple-minded responses to complex issues.

By the bye, the 2004 Election Results for the Massachusetts District 3 U.S. House Race were:

• Jim McGovern (D): 71% (191,397)
• Ron Crews (R): 29% (79,948)

Think of the Children: 3

Oh, goody, it looks like a self-righteousness fest, with the emphasis on right. In Lexington, Massachusetts, that David Parker character will fight his trespass charge for sitting in at the local school because he can't get the right to be notified when homosexuals are mentioned, even if the kids bring it up.

Yesterday after a night in jail, he was arraigned in neighboring Concord, where he pleaded innocent. The judge released him on $100 bail and ordered him to stay off school grounds.

Immediately, the Article 8 folk already played a victim card on their Website. The twist is, "Father brought to court Thursday in handcuffs, scolded by judge. Had been refused opportunity to call a lawyer, so did not have legal counsel at hearing!!"

The dad wants privileges no one else gets from public or private schools. There is only one way this can end, but the rhetoric should be a series of keepers. (Unfortunately, the local paper in his town hasn't paid much attention. One teen girl slashed another with a bottle and that's keeping the main reporter hopping.)

Think of the Children: 2

It seems David Parker's interests go beyond picture books. The local paper, the Lexington Minuteman, reports that he also was put out with the Day of Silence for tolerance, or perhaps he couldn't tolerate it, two weeks ago at Lexington High.

At the school committee meeting the day before he staged his sit-in after not getting his petulant demands for selective education, he held forth. The Minuteman reports he and another parent don't need no stinking diversity. To wit:

"[Schools] have unfettered ... access to children's psyches," he said, adding he resents being denied the role of gatekeeper of the information his son is exposed to.

Parker said the accepting of homosexuality is inextricably linked to the sexual element of the lifestyle, something he felt the schools should not foster.

Lorraine Fournier of Cedar Street said she finds "what's happening in the school system appalling," attributing the efforts to the "liberal agendas of the school system."

She protested that words which demean students who are homosexual are banned from the schools but other words like "bigot" and "homophobe" are still used, making students who are exercising their rights feel threatened.

Ah, threatened with ridicule for their bigotry...is this a bad thing?

Think of the Children

You'd best not mention gay couples or gay marriage around a David Parker in well-to-do Lexington, Massachusetts. He was willing to be arrested at his 6-year-old son's kindergarten rather than leave when he didn't get what he wanted -- a promise of censorship rights on what his kid will see and hear.

You can read his statement here. He is backed by the anti-same-sex-marriage Article 8 Alliance, the folk who want to fire the judges who voted to legalize gay marriages.

One would suppose that he is defending his boy against sex education. But wait, there is a requirement that schools get parent approval and give an opt-out form for that. So, what do you suppose twisted the stalwart steward of morality's knickers?

It turns out that it is a picture book, Who's In a Family?, that arrived in a diversity package. Amusingly enough, the Article 8 site shows this probably copyrighted book, apparently to support Parker's case.

In fact, it undermines dim dad. It simply cites the obvious reality that some families have two fathers or two mothers. Parker clearly doesn't like this truth. He seems particularly offended that these normal families are drawn as though they are, well, behaving normally.

I don't like our nation's nuclear arms programs, but I don't demand that schools notify me when they plan to discuss this with my kids. I know it is my obligation to give them a moral framework at home, in church, and particularly by example. Which of those issues would you suppose is more a moral one?

Of course, schools can't cater to every parent's neuroses and prejudices. On the other hand, you have to note that Parker was willing to do one honorable thing, protest and bear the consequences. Thoreau would have applauded his willingness to take his lumps...but surely would have derided the basis for his protest.

Unfortunately for the public view of Parker's position, he let the Alliance 8 folk publish his strident email exchange with the school. One extract includes:

Discussions concerning homosexuality issues will not take place in front of our son, [son's name] (5 yrs old), at Estabrook. This includes material given to [our son] to covertly transport into our household (i.e.- diversity book bag). Such doctrine is against our Christian family beliefs. We will be notified when there are plans to have homosexual material discussed with the students - when [our son] is present - so that we can take action to ensure his spiritual safety. You are not permitted to infringe upon our religious beliefs and parental rights or obviate our freedom of choice, to exclude our son from material that would expose him to beliefs contrary to the Word of God in our Christian faith. Our parental rights and Christian belief system will be respected in this diversity- oriented, anti-biased school community. We know other parents, of various faiths and values, that endorse this position. This is not solely a Christian assertion of rights.

May God bless everyone who reads this to be shown his Love and truth of his Word.

In Christ,
Dave and Tonia Parker

PS- It is requisite that our assertion of rights be documented to teacher/staff; since, there were previous examples of less than adequate communication within the Lexington School system.

It is wonderful to behold the human in civilization asserting rights with no legal basis. This may be akin to rioters telling news photographers they have no right to photograph them doing evil.

Of course, the Parkers have no legal basis here. Perhaps they'll hie their kids to religious schools that offer only a scripted reality. No queers there. Thank you very much.

Red-faced-mond

Do check the new issue of the Stranger, Seattle's alternative weekly. It broke the Microsoft-caves-to-bigot-on-gay-rights story last week. The lead for the April 28th-May 4th issue breaks down the he-said/they-said on it.

It's not often that a big-city weekly gets to run ahead with stories. Bless `em. I hope they have fun for a few more weeks with it.

Bilious Bill Gates has been reacting to news from this tiny rag. That has to be tough for a spoiled rich kid, who blossomed into filthy rich. His legendary arrogance and sense of entitlement do not welcome criticism.

Regardless, the gist of the tale is that Dr. Ken Hutcherson called Microsoft Number 2, Steve Ballmer, on his assertions about gay-rights support. The anti-gay, very anti-gay-rights minister detailed the two meetings he had with MS Senior VP and General Counsel Bradford L. Smith.

According to Hutcherson, Microsoft caved after the meetings. The bit pushers swear that they had already decided to back off supporting gay rights before the meeting. "They're lying," Hutcherson told the Stranger's Sandeep Kaushik. He added that it was only when he promised a nationwide boycott of MS products that the company decided to go neutral on the bill.

The dailies and other media are picking up crumbs from the Stranger's coverage. I recommend heading right to the source to get the details. The spins by all involved are breathtaking.

So whom are you to believe – the homophobic, self-promoting evangelical or the honest-as-any-capitalist megacorp?

Bashing/Marriage Coincidence

The dreadful timing of increased anti-gay violence suggests a strong tie to the same-sex marriage debate. The data in a new national report don't prove it scientifically, but it is easy to infer when the bashing soared during the two months of the hottest Massachusetts Constitutional Convention debates.

A third of the 105 incidents reported in the commonwealth occurred in February and March 2004, the months that the anti-same-sex-marriage and general anti-gay demonstrations, oral, print and online rhetoric were strongest and most frequent. "The fact that hate incidents increased during these two months is not coincidental,”" said Emily Pitt, Violence Recovery Program Coordinator of Fenway Community Health Center. "“These numbers bear out what the LGBT community has known for some time, that hate speech leads to hate violence."

You can read the press release on this here. You can get the whole national survey in PDF (an Acrobat-compatible reader required) here. The whole survey is ANTI-LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER VIOLENCE IN 2004: A Report of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

Overall, this area saw a 30% increase in incidents from 2003 to 2004. Disturbingly enough, serial incidents against the same victim increased 240%.

The Fenway Community Health Center collects the data locally and works with the police among others.

The Massachusetts section of the national report includes:

In the last edition of this report, it was noted that while a number of other programs and regions were charting increases, Massachusetts which was a hotspot of both pro and anti-LGBT attention during that state's same-sex marriage battle showed an overall decline in anti-LGBT incidents.

However, it was also pointed out in that edition that there was some evidence of an 'Eye of the Storm' effect in locations at the center of LGBT focus that may depress anti-LGBT violence at the height of attention, but allows such violence to increase once the spotlight is removed and to that end, though Massachusetts showed and overall decrease in anti-LGBT incidents for 2003, and even a 36% decrease in incidents in the last half of 2003, that decline had slowed to 9% in the year's final quarter. That apparent reversal of the significant declines in reported anti-LGBT violence in Massachusetts indicates that as attention moved from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decisions specifically, to the broader issue of same-sex marriage as a national issue, anti-LGBT violence in Massachusetts began to creep up. Additionally, the experience of anti-LGBT violence in Massachusetts clearly changed throughout 2004, resulting in the dramatic increase in incidents throughout the year.

Pro and Con-necticut

The reactionary’s protest of Connecticut’s new civil-union law met in Hartford yesterday. While they only managed 3,000 – less than 1% of the population, the folk there were plainly unhappy.

As claimed by the Family Institute of Connecticut (the leader of the anti forces), the law is pretty much marriage in all but name. It provides the same rights and obligations of a married couple to those in a civil union. This takes effect October 1st.

If polls are reliable, Connecticut is ambivalent. The voters’ will seem to vary considerably by who is asking what question. The Family Institute got a 78% favorable when it asked whether a marriage should be only between a man and a woman. On the other hand, an academic poll by Quinnipiac University this month found that 56% to 37% favored civil unions, while only 42% to 53% favored same-sex marriage.

At the protest, state Senate Minority Leader Louis DeLuca, said, "I never heard any hate and bigotry from those who support marriage. I heard it from the other side."

He must not have been able to hear the other speakers, many of whom spewed bile and made tabloid-sensational scare claims.

• The word of God tells us to speak against homosexuality. The word of God tells us to speak against bestiality. Homosexuality is an aberration. – Bishop LeRoy Bailey Jr., The First Cathedral, Bloomfield
• Calling same-sex struggles for rights a civil rights issue are an "affront to the civil rights movement" as well as "an affront to nature." – Bishop Jay Ramirez, Kingdom Life Christian Church, Milford
• Show me the evidence that people are born this way. What's next? Marrying your sister? Polygamy? – Ramirez
• Even the animals respect their boundaries. We are not homophobics. We love all people. But we don't love practices that are out of place. – Rev. Moses Mercedes, Greater Bridgeport Clergy Council

Well, it’s a good thing there was no bigotry there. Thanks to all the men of God who showed us how they love others.

Marriage Insecurity

It is really to easy to make fun of the Massachusetts Family Institute’'s statements and press releases. They tend to be simultaneously reactionary and emotionally based. That doesn'’t mean that they aren'’t sincere. One of the most risible and most quoted MFI-related comments was:

"This is affecting me immediately because my children are in conflict. It's putting my children in turmoil," said Kris Mineau, leader of the conservative Massachusetts Family Institute. "I've always argued that from May 17 onward, my heterosexual marriage was no longer unique, no longer a standard for the culture, and that's an affront to me and it grieves me."

Wags were quick to ask what part of the U.S. or Massachusetts constitutions guaranteed “uniqueness” to individuals. Yet Mineau'’s remarks do illustrate that basic reactionary conundrum. They seem to have a very bad feeling that somehow same-sex marriage is doing something terrible to heterosexual marriage. Now if they could only have some intellectual basis for this...

In contrast, the many legislators and other who support same-sex marriage rights tend to be straight, married and secure. Same-sex marriage doesn'’t threaten or demean their own marriages in any way, they typically state.

MS #2 Dances

Well, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, supposedly has the guts of the management team. At least he permitted publication of his response to the furor of his company dropping support for gay-rights legislation. It lost by one vote right after this, as described here.

Ballmer let his memo to 35,000 MS folk hit the Web. It's widely available, including here.

It is less than convincing or satisfying. It reads like what it is, huge company PR. He wrote:

When our government affairs team put together its list of its legislative priorities in Olympia before the Legislative Session began in January, we decided to focus on a limited number of issues that are more directly related to our business such as computer privacy, education, and competitiveness. The anti-discrimination bill was not on this list and as a result Microsoft was not actively supporting the bill in the Legislature this year, although last year we did provide a letter of support for similar legislation.

He also claimed that "while the company was not taking a position on HB 1515, the company remains strongly committed to its internal policies supporting anti-discrimination and industry-leading benefits for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees." Of course, that's so many words and does not jibe with reality of MS knowing this legislation was up for a vote and that "committed" to anti-discrimination means acting not posturing.

The memo added:

I understand that many employees may disagree with the company's decision to tighten the focus of our agenda for this year's legislative session in Olympia. But I want every employee to understand that the decision to take a neutral stance on this bill was taken before the Session began based on a desire to focus our legislative efforts, not in reaction to any outside pressure.

So, that is supposed to make it okay that the silent sanction MS gave to the anti-rights people was its own decision. It can foster discrimination through inaction – without any outside bigots forcing it to do so.

Sorry about your rights. You have them inside the Microsoft campus. What'd ya want?

If employees wanted to know what Microsoft's commitment means, they should have gotten it this time.

Hush My Mouth in Hartford

Well, I was wrong when I implied that the Family institute of Connecticut wouldn't be able to rally the troops today in Hartford to protest civil unions. They did manage to get about 3,000 unhappy folk, many spouting hateful slogans and election threats against legislators.

The full report is online at the Courant Website.

It should not be amusing but it is to wonder how the nervous legislators who amended the law to put in DoMA wording – marriage = one man + one woman – will take this. They thought they had covered their back pockets. Most voters approved of civil unions and the House members who put in the restriction likely figured they'd placate the disgruntled minority. Well, they did not gruntle them.

The Institute's executive director, Brian Brown, urged voting out the legislators who approved the law. That would be the large majority of the legislature, senators and representatives who tend to a lot more constituent services and bills than this one. Of course that's not going to happen and a few thousand unhappy voters out of millions won't do it.

Yet, it is fascinating to see how hostile and angry the demonstrators are. What is sure is that many senators and representatives in Connecticut will be spending the off-session making nice to small pockets of sore losers.

Same-Sex Timeout

The jolly Catholic Action League of Massachusetts is back at it. Last November, it joined with the odious Liberty Counsel in trying to overturn -- using activist judges to correct activist judges -- the same-sex marriage decision by the Supreme Judicial Court.

Now on May 2nd, its suit to halt these marriages here goes to a hearing before -- ta da -- the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC). The full report appears in the Springfield Republican's site here. A highlight:

C. Joseph Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League, contends that gay marriages are undermining the rights of himself and others to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment that would define marriage simply as the union of a man and a woman. Doyle is asking the court to suspend the marriages, at least until a vote.

This is too delicious. Stop the merry-go-round, I'm feeling dizzy.

The docket entry for this hearing is here. There's nothing juicy in it.

His lawyer, Chester Darling of Andover, had to argue that poor Joey's "ability to vote is being inhibited and interfered with. The court declared an outcome before a vote was taken on the amendment."

GLAD attorney Michele Granda countered in her brief that the suit showed no connection, or as she added, "His argument makes no sense." Hear. Hear.

Last year, Doyle's similarly ungrounded suit for a six-month stay same-sex marriages was denied by an SJC judge because he didn't have any standing to file it. Both that suit and the current one revolve about issues from eighth-grade civics and first-year law-school. You gotta ask whether the Catholic Action League folk are just chest thumping or not too bright.

A calm head, if you pardon the pun on the League's acronym, was Jennifer Levi, co-counsel for the seven same-sex couples in the original action that legalized their marriages. "People have been married. No one has been harmed by that."

Indeed, that may be the highest hurdle, legally and emotionally, for the reactionaries to get over. There I do agree with them – the longer people see that same-sex marriage do not cause problems or undermine anything except to aggravate the neuroses of a few, the less likely they are to object.

"Move along. These are not the droids you seek," worked for the Jedi knight in Star Wars. I wonder if he's available for service in Massachusetts.

Who is Dr. Ken?

Inquiring, perspiring minds want to know, who is this Rev. Ken Hutcherson of the Antioch Bible Church in Redmond Washington, who can melt Microsoft's marshmallows?

He's an affable looking fellow, as you can see on his bio page. Interestingly enough, he wasn't very big for a pro footballer at six feet and 220 pounds. He married a white lady and has cultivated a mulit-racial congregation in the past 21 years of preaching.

By the bye, he preaches less than three miles from a large software maker in Redmond.

Hutcherson Facet #1

He is a literal evangelical. He honestly believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible.

I sincerely doubt that even exegesis by brilliant Biblical scholars offering anything but a straight ahead acceptance of the very faulty King James version would change his mind at all.

An example of his thinking came from a Memphis religious rally. He was widely quoted including this account, as he said, ""God took time out from all of that creation -- stopped, made man, said 'It is not good for man to be alone,' made woman -- and he created man and woman for the privilege of marriage. Do not touch God's creation."

Hutcherson Facet #2

He is a homophobic reactionary, one who wants to convert homosexuals or shun them.

In a Washington Post interview for example, he discussed his attitude.

God, Hutcherson said, condemns homosexuality. "I think it's a choice," he said. When his church members identify a gay person who is unable to change, "you kick them out," he said.

A study on his attitude about how black ministers should ban together to fight same-sex marriage is available on the very conservative Familylife.com site.

Note that this brings up a newsletter in PDF. You need a compatible reader (and tolerance) to view it.

"If the church doesn't come together and fight against the issue of gay marriages, we might as well quite trying to tell the world what's right and wrong," he said. In the same piece, he adds, "Some people have been surprised that I am not afraid to fight the homosexual community, but I have a calling from God. Nothing else worries me."

Well, from the New Testament view, I think he should be pretty worried about such intolerance.

Gormless Gates

Oh stereotypes, where are you now? Just when we all knew that Microsoft was arrogant and powerful, Billy Gates cowers before an evangelical group on gay rights.

Microsoft of course denies all, but the facts speak pretty loudly. They first came to light in the Seattle weekly The Stranger. It produced an article about how after meeting with a threatening minister, the computer coward withdrew his company's decades-long support for anti-discrimination just before a gay-rights bill came before the legislature. The bill lost by a single vote. Read the original report by Sandeep Kaushik here. Read the New York Times take on it here.

House Bill 1515 would have forbidden discrimination by sexual orientation in employment, housing, banking and insurance. Read the text here. Microsoft, with an allegedly liberal management and a good dose of homosexual employees and contractors had long supported such legislation.

Company officials met twice with Antioch Bible Church Senior Minister Ken Hutcherson, who seems to be rabidly anti-gay. Word from inside Microsoft and boasting from Hutcherson's people is that Gates' people folded upon threats of a nationwide boycott of its software.

Former Seahawks linebacker Hutcherson heads a church with 3,500 members. He previously organized Mayday for Marriage that rallied 140,000 anti-same-sex folk in the other Washington (D.C.) last spring. He was one of the most outspoken of black leaders who object to any comparison of gay rights and African-American ones.

The article in The Stranger reported that he not only wanted Microsoft to withdraw support for the legislation, he also wanted two gay Microsoft employees who testified in favor of the bill to be canned. Apparently he got the former but not the latter.

The article cites state State Rep. Ed Murray as saying that "...the company was faced with a 'profound' moral test, which it failed. The backpedaling 'sends an incredible message of weakness and shows a lack of moral backbone. I mean, what is this? Is this the 1930s, and are they Krupps?'"

In Kaushik's judgment:

After meeting with Hutcherson, Microsoft had to make a choice: Maintain its long-standing, progressive support for civil rights or side with reactionary forces advocating discrimination. The company chose the latter. The gay Microsoft employee who spoke to The Stranger concluded, "Microsoft needs to feel the pain of a bad decision here."

What good is it to be a corporate bully if you cave to a petty tyrant and bigot? Ask Bill.

There is much shame tonight in Seattle, both for the bully preacher and the bullied capitalist.

Senator Heavy in D.C.

Apparently, Congress still considers the District of Columbia as its playground. The new chair of the Senate Appropriates Subcommittee on the District has threatened D.C.'s mayor with financial disaster.

Sen. Sam Brownback (D-Kansas) told Mayor Anthony Williams that if the District recognizes same-sex marriages, it will likely lose federal money and domestic-partner benefits. That's serious stuff to the District, which can't tax like a state can. It gets about $8 billion from Congress every year to run the show.

News reports quote the bristly senator as, "I was hopeful we weren't going to be confronting this issue. But it appears there will need to be a review and a discussion."

That's pretty strong posturing, but not surprising from someone who may run for POTUS in 2008.

From his office, Williams has consulted with each the District CFO and attorney general. He expects to have a decision soon.

New Pope Old Thoughts

It didn't take long for the new pope, Benedict XVI, to show his colors. While he claimed he would try to unify and reach out to diverse groups, like John Paul II attempted, he condemned the Spanish parliament's Thursday vote in favor of gay marriage.

He knew this was pending and that the approval by the Senate and subsequent enactment are almost certain. The Spanish newspapers today run this as the second, third or fourth story. It's a yawner there, even in that heavily Roman Catholic country.

However Pope Benedict used the head of the Pontifical Council on the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, to denounce the vote. The Cardinal spoke to the Italian newspaper of record, Corriere della Sera.

A report in English is available from the Spanish daily Expatica here. You can get the flavor from the lead:

The new pope hit back at a new Spanish bill allowing homosexuals to marry and adopt children, saying Christians had a duty to oppose such 'iniquitous' legislation.

While the Netherlands and Belgium have also legalized same-sex marriage, only Spain so far also allows homosexual couples to adopt children.

Trujillo called for Spanish municipal officials (virtually all of them Catholic) to refuse to conduct same-sex marriages. He said that homosexuals "deserve all our love, our support and our aid." However, his points of practice conflict jarringly.

The municipal officials "should exercise the same conscientious objection asked of doctors and nurses against a crime such as abortion. This is not a matter of choice: all Christians... must be prepared to pay the highest price, including the loss of a job."

There's your reaching out, pardner.

The Curious Emile Goguen: Part 5

Unless Rep. Goguen acts up again, this should be the final post on him.

Most people in Massachusetts don’'t seem to see a connection between permitting same-sex couples to marry and threatening heterosexual marriage. Emile Goguen does. His full letter seeking support for removing five Supreme Judicial Court justices appears here. The part iterating his motives is:

Several in my Party were concerned about my expression of my feeling. They understood that I am a team player and not a crusader. However, this attack on traditional marriage is a huge event for our state, our country and Western civilization. I knew this ruling from Marshall and her colleagues had hit the core values in my marriage, as it would in so many others.

I know many gay people. They know I bear no ill will to them, but they also know that my family is the key to my life, and I knew that I could not allow just one person to make this monumental change to our civilization that had been in place for thousands of years. Certainly it required more discussion than had been allowed by Judge Marshall.

As I learned more about the process that Margaret Marshall had used, I felt my decision even more strongly.

The other three judges on the court, Francis Spina, Martha Sosman and Robert Cordy said that Marshall broke our Massachusetts Constitution, because she did not have the power to do what she was doing. If this were to be done, it must be done by the legislature after long and careful debate. However, there is no doubt in my mind that it must be done only by the citizens after years of debate in the amendment process, but not the amendments we passed last spring, which were a farce. If the citizens do not have the ability to make a decision in this matter, then the whole principle of our government must be discarded.

I do not believe we are ready to jettison our democracy and choose a new form of government just because some are in a rush to proceed.

Have “we” given up on our citizens? And if so, exactly who is “we”?

I believe we must slow up what is happening and take a long, slow look at what has been serving us well since the founding of our country. As I learned more about the removal process that was put into our Massachusetts Constitution by the man who wrote it in 1780, John Adams, I realized this is what we must use in order to be sure we do not act hastily. It was put here just for an occasion such as this. If we remove Judges Marshall, John Greaney, Roderick Ireland and Judith Cowin, we do not do so in anger or to punish. We do so in order to take a long, hard look at what we are accomplishing, instead of rushing it through.

---

Part one of this series is here.

From Hartford, Yes...But

As predicted, Connecticut has enacted civil unions, but with DoMA restrictions. Yesterday, the conference committee's work ground up the unrestricted Senate version with the one man/one woman amendment House one, putting the civil-union sausage on the governor's desk. She signed it.

As of October 1, 2005, Connecticut becomes the third state in the nation to recognize same-sex unions or marriages. In an amusing form of boosterism, the Hartford Courant article differentiates the law, but not by the DoMA trapping or by its stopping short of recognizing marriage. Instead, it reports:

Vermont is the only other state to recognize civil unions. Massachusetts allows gays to marry. But unlike Connecticut, those states were reacting to court rulings.

Similarly the Boston Globe found a local angle. It led page one with the story (probably a welcome relief to readers from Big Dig leaks). Its version reported:

'Massachusetts had a profound impact on the debate here," said Andrew McDonald, the openly gay chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a chief proponent of civil unions. ''People took notice of that -- that a state had adopted same-sex unions and not been diminished one bit."

So sub-regionalism aside, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell considers it a big victory for civil rights. Although she's a Republcan, she shouldn't have any serious problems for supporting this among other homosexual rights. Most of the voters favored civil unions.

Supporters of the law were pleased, to varying degrees. Some took it as a triumph. Others, such as Anne Stanback were understandably angry at the DoMA amendment. She is president of Love Makes a Family of Connecticut. Her group was one of several that initially opposed civil unions, thinking Connecticut had a real shot at a Massachusetts-style same-sex marriage. "It's bittersweet," she said. A supporter in the Senate, Edith Prague (D-Columbia) called the House amendment "belittling."

Make that just bitter for the anti forces and haters. While there were only happy folk at the State House yesterday, the dark side will try to assemble a protest demonstration for Sunday. It will be fascinating to see how many they can muster in such a get-along-go-along state.

In his analysis, the executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, Brian Brown called this law "a sad day for the state." Predictably, he threatened -- the majority -- of legislators with loss of their seats. "This vote will not be forgotten," he blustered. "If the goal was to push this through in a non-election year, they were 100% wrong."

His Website has been advertising the rally as a call for Rell to veto the legislation. Since she already signed it, you have to wonder whether they'll cry in their beers or make more threats against the majority of their legislators. Good luck, eh? At least the rally is at 4 p.m., so that they can go to church and mow their lawns first.

Amusingly, the Republican leader of the Senate, Lou DeLuca, probably has the right map in front of him. He opposed civil unions, wants a plebiscite on the issue, and fears that gay marriage is in the works for Connecticut eventually. As he put it, "This is just one step on the way to what I believe runs contrary to the will of the people of Connecticut."

That is very similar to the Massachusetts rhetoric by the folk trying to roll back same-sex marriage to civil unions with an amendment by ballot in 2006. Yet, time works against the anti folk when they see that neither civil unions nor same-sex marriages cause problems nor do anything but positives. Even in a heavily Roman Catholic state like Connecticut, no one seems to be expecting an Old Testament Lord to appear suddenly to do any smiting.

The Curious Emile Goguen: Part 4

Rep. Emile Goguen has a couple of other marriage-related bills up for consideration this term of the Massachusetts House, as well has trying to throw out the justices who legalized same-sex marriage.

His 653, is a DoMA fill that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. It precludes civil unions as well with its wording. “Any other relationship shall not be recognized as a marriage or its legal equivalent, nor shall it receive the benefits or incidents exclusive to marriage from the Commonwealth, its agencies, departments, authorities, commissions, offices, officials and political subdivisions.” That bill is so nasty and so against the feelings of most voters that civil unions would be okay, that he only got Rep. Philip Travis to co-sponsor it.

His 654 was even worse. Nobody would sign on. It wants to void the same-sex marriages performed since May 17, 2004.

Last year, his bill to can the justices died in committee. “I’'ll keep submitting it until hell freezes over,” he told the Fitchburg area Sentinel & Enterprise.

Incredibly, in comments to that newspaper, Goguen tries to compartmentalize his actions. “He says his opposition "wasn'’t targeted at gays but at the Supreme Judicial Court justices who ruled the state had unconstitutionally banned same-sex marriage...’'I have nothing against gay people. I know I'’ve been accused of not treating people the same. It’'s not true.’”'"

Go figure.

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Part one of this series is here. Part five is here.