Same-sex marriage

Let's repeat that:

Gay couples don't have equal rights. Gay people do.

As far as I know, couples are not mentioned in the US Constitution. However, people are. We the people (etc etc etc). So when the mainstream media, stuck in their tired old frames, too stuck in their ways and prideful of their privilege, go on and on about a "victory for gay couples," you need to step back and think about what's really happening.

The court ruled that gay people have equal rights.

And when you think about this, it's a no-brainer.

Example: If I want to marry Jane, and the government says, "No, you can't," what it's really saying is, "No, you can't marry Jane because you are a woman." Of course, if I were a man, sure, I could marry Jane.

That is plain and simple sex discrimination. It's not about gay-ness. It's not about couples. It's about the government requiring that I be of a certain sex in order to marry Jane.

This is why the right-wing hysteria over gay marriage is so misplaced and overblown — all the more so when it's a tea bagger. Tea baggers are big on saying how they're for shrinking government, but they sure want the government to protect them from their own homophobia.

For an eloquent post on this topic, see Derek Powazek's post:

In much of the news coverage today, I’ve seen the phrase “Pro-Gay Marriage” used to describe the people who are celebrating Judge Walker’s ruling. But this rubs me the wrong way.

I’m not Pro-Gay Marriage, I’m Pro-Equality. I’m not Pro-Gay Rights, I’m Pro-Common Sense. I’m Anti-Discrimination. I’m Anti-Enshrining Your Queasiness About Buttsex In My Constitution. I’m Pro-When The Constitution Says We’re All Equal, It Means We’re All Equal.

I’m married, and it matters. It changes the way I look at the world, and the way the world looks at me. It comes with state and federal benefits and rights. Withholding those things from same-sex couples is discrimination, pure and simple. If you support withholding rights from people because of who they are, you’re a bigot. Period.

My grandmother taught me two important lessons. The first was tolerance. Enjoy people who are different from you. It’s the variety that makes life wonderful. The second was to always look out for the rights of others. Because if you sit by and let discrimination happen, you’ll be next.

So if you're against gay marriage, here's the easy solution: Don't do it. Now wasn't that easy? (If not, maybe you should ponder a bit on the source of your opposition.)

[Photo: Happy face of hate, by Burns! (cc)]

The only way.

Pam at Pandagon has good entries up on Kaine, just installed this past week as Democratic governor of Virginia, mantle bearer for Warner (he of high hopes). Kaine, who gay baited in his run, supported always the party line dross about what marriage is (or is not!), then tapped for the SOTU response (get it? the party DOES have a message, and Kaine is the bearer...) - and now will sign the gay marriage ban despite being ''uncomfortable'' with the wording.

Gay rights activists embrace under a flag made up of the Spanish and rainbow flags outside parliament in Madrid after same-sex marriages were legalised despite fierce opposition from the Catholic church.
[Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters]

Washington Blade has a good over view as well. And a troubling over view....

I do believe Mr Israel will be disappointed,

Josh Israel, president of the Virginia Partisans Gay & Lesbian Democratic Club, which endorsed Kaine, said he hopes the newly installed governor will at least work to make the ballot language more reflective of the amendment's wide scope.

"We would certainly hope that the governor will consider using his power to make sure the language and process is fair," Israel said.

I know Kilgore was a horror, I watched (from out in CA) two debates between Kaine and Kilgore, but the party is using the Kilgores of America as an excuse.

Don't let them. The politics and philosophy of non-violent engagement waged by Dr King properly used the violence of the Bull Connors, the whips, the dogs, the water hoses, all of it - to further America and her people.

Don't let the cowards of America use hate to sell hate-lite. They want to take us back and the Democrats, too many of them, have joined with the hard right, the white, christian, male-dominant right.

It is NOT electoral pragmatism. It is hatred and division.

By 1960, four states in the United States had not desegregated their public schools since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1954 had been handed down. They were South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

But! Not to worry, bigots know best - and they never give up:

"It's unfortunate that those that oppose the marriage amendment are using issues like domestic violence as scare tactics," said Victoria Cobb, executive director of the Family Foundation in Virginia.

But gay rights and domestic violence activists point to other states' interpretations of marriage amendments, as well as the promises of amendment supporters before the referendum.

"What we're expecting is that for all these people that said 'the sky is falling' to reverse their position," Phil Burress, spokesperson for the Ohio Campaign to Protect Marriage, told the Columbus Dispatch after voters approved that state's marriage amendment in 2004. "This is not going to affect the elderly. It's not going to affect private contracts. What it's going to do is stop marriage by a different name."

If the candidate and his or her party doesn't represent your interests, if in another era they would block school desegregation, block the Voting Rights Act, block the Civil Rights Act, block Loving v Virginia, which, so late (1967), undid laws against miscegenation: DON'T VOTE FOR THEM.

Dixiecrats, whether North or South (and they are BOTH places), we don't need them!

Remember what can be, from Zapatero, elected to lead Spain after Aznar:

"We are not legislating, honorable members, for people far away and not known by us. We are enlarging the opportunity for happiness to our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends and, our families: at the same time we are making a more decent society, because a decent society is one that does not humiliate its members.

"In the poem 'The Family,' our [gay] poet Luis Cernuda was sorry because, 'How does man live in denial in vain by giving rules that prohibit and condemn?'

"Today, the Spanish society answers to a group of people who, during many years have, been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, whose dignity has been offended, their identity denied, and their liberty oppressed.

Today the Spanish society grants them the respect they deserve, recognizes their rights, restores their dignity, affirms their identity, and restores their liberty.

"It is true that they are only a minority, but their triumph is everyone's triumph.

It is also the triumph of those who oppose this law, even though they do not know this yet: because it is the triumph of Liberty.

Their victory makes all of us (even those who oppose the law) better people, it makes our society better. Honorable members, There is no damage to marriage or to the concept of family in allowing two people of the same sex to get married.

To the contrary, what happens is this class of Spanish citizens get the potential to organize their lives with the rights and privileges of marriage and family. There is no danger to the institution of marriage, but precisely the opposite: this law enhances and respects marriage.

"Today, conscious that some people and institutions are in a profound disagreement with this change in our civil law, I wish to express that, like other reforms to the marriage code that preceded this one, this law will generate no evil, that its only consequence will be the avoiding of senseless suffering of decent human beings. A society that avoids senseless suffering of decent human beings is a better society.

"With the approval of this Bill, our country takes another step in the path of liberty and tolerance that was begun by the democratic change of government. Our children will look at us incredulously if we tell them that many years ago, our mothers had less rights than our fathers, or if we tell them that people had to stay married against their will even though they were unable to share their lives.

Today we can offer them a beautiful lesson: every right gained, each access to liberty has been the result of the struggle and sacrifice of many people that deserve our recognition and praise.

"Today we demonstrate with this Bill that societies can better themselves and can cross barriers and create tolerance by putting a stop to the unhappiness and humiliation of some of our citizens.

Today, for many of our countrymen, comes the day predicted by Kavafis [the great Greek gay poet] one century ago:

'Later 'twas said of the most perfect society/someone else, made like me/certainly will come out and act freely.' "

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Let it be...

Not trusting their own predilections, apparently, Texans voted in overwhelming numbers to prevent themselves from entering into gay marriages.

The contest in Texas was lopsided _ the ban was receiving support from about 76 percent of voters with nearly two-thirds of precincts reporting. Like every other state except Massachusetts, Texas didn't permit same-sex marriages previously, but the constitutional amendment was touted as an extra guard against future court rulings.

This result provides much assurance to men especially, who now have the law behind them when they make their choice to be heterosexual.

There was much relief expressed as marriages across the state were saved from divorce for the purpose of making a homosexual marriage commitment. The constitutional amendment, however, is mute about whether married individuals can legally have homosexual affairs.

In a twist that makes unmarried women victims of Ohio's new anti-gay marriage amendment, a judge there has ruled that domestic violence charges can be made only in cases of marriage:

Domestic violence charges cannot be filed against unmarried people because of Ohio's new constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Stuart Friedman changed a felony domestic violence charge against Frederick Burk to a misdemeanor assault charge.

Prosecutors immediately appealed.

Judges and others across the country have been waiting for a ruling on how the gay marriage ban, among the nation's broadest, would affect Ohio's 25-year-old domestic violence law, which previously wasn't limited to married people.

Burk, 42, is accused of slapping and pushing his live-in girlfriend during a January argument over a pack of cigarettes.

His public defender, David Magee, had asked the judge to throw out the charge because of the new wording in Ohio's constitution that prohibits any state or local law that would "create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals."

Before the amendment, courts applied the domestic violence law by defining a family as including an unmarried couple living together as would a husband and wife, the judge said. The gay marriage amendment no longer allows that.

Blinded by hate and bigotry, now the residents of Ohio get to reap the rewards of their righteous indignation. They thought the law was directed against gays, but now they're facing the fact that the law can hurt them in very direct ways.

Because Burk had a prior domestic violence conviction, the latest charge was a felony that could have resulted in an 18-month jail term; a misdemeanor assault carries a maximum sentence of six months.

Now isn't that just lovely? At least the battered unmarried women of Ohio can find solace in the fact that their suffering is for the noble cause of preventing gays from marrying. Here's to black eyes against gays. Here's to broken ribs to support heterosexuality. Here's to rape in the name of straight pride.

Of course, the evangelical conservatives, never ones to pass up a political opportunity, will probably crow about how these women are being punished for living in sin. Isn't that the message coming from their ranks? If you're not a married Christian, then you're not worthy of consideration? These women should be thankful that their homes weren't swept away in a tsunami.

Yes. I heard the buzz. I guess I wasn't paying attention as my home state was the first in the nation to figure out the obvious and overturn the ban on same-sex marriage.

The more I think about it, the crazier it all sounds.

What compelling interest does the nation-state have in preventing two single adults from getting married to each other?

I really can't think of any.