From THE NEW YORK TIMES:
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Friday, October 10, 2008 -- 12:17 PM ET
-----
Connecticut Ruling Overturns Ban on Same-Sex Marriage
Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex
couples have the right to marry, making the state the third
to legalize such unions.
COMMENT: Does this make any of you extra-special happy? Let us know if it does.
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54 comments:
Yeah, baby, yeah baby
Amazing! We're completely thrilled here in Connecticut. Our Episcopal church in New Haven has declined to perform marriages at all until we could treat everyone equally. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/14/nyregion/14marry.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin) Now the question is: will our bishop permit same-sex weddings? He currently allows priests to do civil unions.
Only 47 more to go.
I had the same thought, Pseudopiskie. 3 down, 47 to go.
I wrote the same thing, 47 more, on another site when I heard the news.
We progress little by little as a species, but we do.
FWIW
jimB
Yes, but remember, it's only a matter of time before the Catholic, Mormon and other bigots try to reverse this decision by attacking that state's COnstitution.
if you go check out my posts at Friends of Jake's, you will see that California's Proposition 8 now has a chance of passing. This would amend the State constitution to outlaw gay marriage and potentially invalidate my marriage (I'm getting married this weekend).
The Mormons are leading the charge, and over 60,000 bigots have sent money to pass this proposition.
The opposition is losing, with only 30,000 people willing to defend my rights.
So, Great for Connecticut's supremes, but like California's supremes, it may be a short victory.
US citizens can oppose the hatred in CA by making a donation here.
IT, who is very angry and depressed.
I am still amazed that one simple majority vote in CA can change a constitution and grant or take away civil rights. Most civilised countries, including the US on a federal level, make that threshold much higher.
I wish I could donate, but they wouldn't take a credit card with a Canadian address. So I send my good thoughts and prayers to CA.
The road to taking away same-sex marriage in Connecticut is more complicated. First voters have to approve a call for a state constitutional convention (on the ballot this November), then the convention has to pass an amendment to the state constitution allowing for direct initiative in Connecticut. If the voters approve that, the anti-marriage people could THEN propose an anti-marriage amendment for voters to approve. Three steps and I would guess at least a couple of years, and all the while men will be marrying men and women will be marrying women without the sky falling. As happened in Massachusetts, the issue could be a non-starter by then. I hope.
I'm happy..but feeling what IT is feeling..two steps forward..one back.
Oh wow! Michael and I can take a MetroNorth train to get married in the Martha Stewart State!
And we can live happily ever after until the Righteously Bigoted pour bile all over everything.
IT --do not despair. My brother-in-law works in the CA State Attorney Gen's Office, and he said even if it passes, it is quite likely that litigation will succeed to over-turn it again as illegal and discriminatory.
And Dear IT --congratulations!!! Have a wonderful service, and an extra-ordinary day.
This news makes us very happy!! Hope this starts a domino effect for the remaining 47.
As I said on my own post, "This makes me very, very happy!
Yes, I'm very, very happy! And IT, darling, I went, I donated. I sent a plea to people in my circle of friends!
I'm an Episcopal priest in Connecticut, and I am thrilled!
In England, only members of Parliament can vote on laws. This works well here, because parliament has always been ahead of the general public on justice issues such as equality. Also, Europe, which is even further ahead than our parliament can force us to enact human rights legislation. The general public can always vote the mps out at the next election. To be honest, the American system sucks and is a waste of a hell of a lot of money that could be spent on medical treatment for poor people.
Blessings, IT! Enjoy your celebration. God will win.
Mark, if the voters in Conn. pass the measure to hold a Constitutional Convention, then your whole constitution will be up for grabs all at the same time. They could easily embody the definition "one man - one woman" at that moment while they are adding the amend-by-proposition changes.
A good argument to defeat this NOV ballot measure and not allow a convention.
I'm amazed that anyone's rights and citizenship should ever be up for a vote. Minorities, by definition, would always lose.
"Democracy is the worst form of tyranny." -- John Adams
Hells yeah!
Prayers and good wishes in great abundance for IT and her Beloved!
It is glorious news -- and reminds us that these changes are all sort of Darwinian: they take a long, long time evolving.
IT, honey, I really recommend you take a 12 Step "Look for the Good" approach, at least through the wedding (and, I hope, honeymoon?)
There is Only Now. Now, in which same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, California, Connecticut (and New York, sort of) are gloriously legal (and, IMO, even more gloriously blessed)
Be Here Now, IT. {And kiss the (other) bride for me! ;-D}
Congratulations IT, and I hope and pray you have a sun-filled, love-filled day
Marriage is represented mistakenly as a right when in fact it is a special privilege for those who can provide both a mother and a father for a child. It is an agreement with the state to receive benefits from the whole of society for this worthwhile purpose and this structure of benefits shouldn't be diluted in this way. -- AT
And don't forget about Florida's Amendment 2; if you can, please donate to help this amendment be defeated:
http://www.votenoon2.com/
Amendment 2 has a lot of money behind it as well, including $100K donated by the owner of the Orlando Magic basketball team.
I won't be supporting the Orlando Magic any more, that's for sure, not if their owner is one of the anti-gay asshats.
RE: "Marriage is represented mistakenly as a right when in fact it is a special privilege for those who can provide both a mother and a father for a child."
I certainly hope you're not saying that only fertile couples are considered "married."
Because that's sentencing at least two couples I know to an invalid union; one woman in one of these couples has PCOS and is barren. The other had a hysterectomy some years back. Neither of these women can bear children. But they are married. Is their union invalid now, AT?
PPS: Sounds like what you are describing, AT, should really be called "matrimony" as that is the word that specifically refers to one's state as the mother of some man's children.
"Marriage" is simply a union. That is what the word actually means, and it is not the exclusive domain of ANY religion - Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, Satanist, Shinto, etc etc etc.
It never has been. "Marriage" is a completely secular concept - always has been. It's the religions who need to stop claiming that they have the monopoly on "marriage."
It isn't helpful to bring religion into this. And yes, the union of an elderly or childless couple is valid too, and yet the social institution of marriage is primarily to assure that a child has the stability of a mother when he's very young and a father as time goes by. -- AT
It isn't helpful to bring religion into this.
The whole bloody thing is about religion! It is about you shoving your narrow-minded biblical interpretations down everyone's throats by the force of law.
You constantly re-post these antiquated lies about child-rearing, which scientists and mental health professionals among us have refuted countless times.
the union of an elderly or childless couple is valid too
And why do they get a pass on your shitty dictates? Because they have the correct sacrosanct plumbing?!?!
Marriage is represented mistakenly as a right when in fact it is a special privilege
Obviously, a majority of at least three state high courts did not get your memo with this "new" definition of marriage. I say new because for millennia marriage was about men keeping track of their property and which kids were actually theirs for inheritance issues. Nothing so fairy-tale neat as providing the properly gendered role models and a loving child rearing environment.
We've been through this before, AT. In an argument you can't just say something is a privilege or something is the primary reason for something. Basically, you are just offering your own opinion (nothing wrong with that) but you try to give it an authority that it hasn't got by linking it to some universal constant. But privilege is not a constant. So why not say, I think marriage is for the procreation of children and leave it at that. Alternatively, you could try and think for yourself for a change and come up with some proper philosophy to back up your opinion.
The idea that it's a privilege is a constant in the sense that it's been that way throughout history. The gay rights activists often recognize this by centering their appeals on the question of benefits. Marriage isn't so much an agreement between two people as it is an agreement between those two people on the one hand and society on the other in which benefits are at the heart of it all. And there are good and valid reasons to strengthen this, rather than to dilute it by allowing homosexuals or unmarried heterosexuals to draw on these benefits. -- AT
I'm with Crescens here - it sure is going to take a long time people, but the bigots can't hold back the overwhelming tide of reason and fairness forever. In the end, we will overcome.
To the next step....
AT said: "It isn't helpful to bring religion into this."
What religion needs to do is know their limitations. They need to stay out of a certain portion of this. No religion should attempt to butt in on secular law and tell secular law what they should and should not do.
Secular law is not there to make moral judgments. That is not its purpose. That is why it really shouldn't even be necessary to have things like Amendment 2 and Proposition 8 and all that.
So perhaps all married couples should call their unions "civil unions." Maybe this word "marriage" should be completely dispensed with. What kind of effect would that have on the way we see these things, if we consciously decided to use "civil unions" for EVERYONE, gay or straight, etc?
An interesting thought.
strengthen this, rather than to dilute it
WTF are you talking about? A chemical formula?
Our IT and her Beloved Partner, marrying tomorrow, ARE providing a loving home for children. No, IT's not biologically related to them, but how is that any different than if the kids were adopted? Or if BP had re-married an (unrelated) man?
Prejudice, AT: that's ALL you've got.
JCF, my sweet...we all have prejudices. I tend to be very prejudiced in favor of gay marriage, for example. :)
David said something that I hear a lot and that I just can't seem to understand:
The whole bloody thing is about religion! It is about you shoving your narrow-minded biblical interpretations down everyone's throats by the force of law.
But Christianity IS a religion. I don't get it. Since when is "religion" a "bad" thing?
I've heard some evangelical Christians say "I'm not interested in religion; I'm interested in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ."
Well bugger, if it's just that easy, what does it matter whether someone labels themselves as a "Christian" or an "Anglican" or a "Baptist" or even "Asatru" or "Wiccan" or "Unitarian" or whatever....because any person can have any form of "relationship with Jesus Christ" and no one can then say to the person, "You're doing it wrong; you have to conduct your relationship with Jesus like this," and tell them how to do it.
And thus, the labels make no damn difference whatever.
I'm not explaining my confusion very well, but I just don't get it.
Maybe I should illustrate it this way:
I'm a person who has a very suspicious relationship to Christians and Jesus Christ. I wonder if he ever did exist. I wonder if most of what I read in the Bible is just mythos. That is the nature of my "relationship" with all of these things.
Is this so-called "relationship" valid? Would someone like me, with all my questions and doubts, be considered a "real Christian" and does that phrase have any meaning whatever?
Most of my coworkers would like to see me become what they understand to be a "born again Christian" and start attending one of the numerous charismatic evangelical nondenominational churches around here. Thanks but no thanks. Yet, they would say I am not "saved" until I do things their way.
Yet still others would point to "Love one another" and leave it at that. But you don't have to be a Christian to do that. I have a Pagan friend who is more than capable of truly unconditional love, and she walked away from the RCC many years ago. And if that is the case, as it must be, what then is the point of being this thing called a Christian?
:shakes head:
It's not making any sense to me.
Not only are you not explaining your confusion but now you've gone and confused me.
Jesus definitely existed.
Everything in the Bible is myth.
Some of the myth really happened.
Some of it didn't.
For 99.9% of the stories in the Bible we have no idea which category of myth they fit into.
So, believe what you want, Tracy. Whatever you find useful.
File the rest under crazy nonsense.
Tracie, the trollish AT said that bringing religion into the discussion was not helpful, as if his pontifications are neutral and not related to his religious beliefs.
I think his narrow-minded beliefs are the foundation of everything he dumps upon us. And that if he had his way, they would become the law of the land and force us all to abide by his dictates of what is truth from on high.
My religious beliefs are also the foundation of all that I espouse here as well. However, I do not believe that I have the market on belief. I do not push my beliefs upon others. I do not disrespect others for their beliefs unless they try to push them on me by trying to make them the law of the land.
To each his own. live and let live.
Do you have laws in Mexico, David? In the films I've seen the place appears to be run by bandits with big hats who go around saying :"Hey amigo!" and trying to kill members of the Magnificent Seven. Have things changed?
The reason I don't favor bringing religion into it is because that always winds up favoring the "anything goes" position because anyone is free to have any religious view he wants or no religion at all. There's a secular logic for reserving the benefits and privileges of marriages for one man and one woman who are going to provide maximum stability for a child.
-- AT
that always winds up favoring the "anything goes" position
AT, that IS your position---it's just that the Universe of your "anything" ONLY includes heterosexuals (as long as it's Tab A into Slot B, then who cares about fertility, multiple marriages, or even that a partner has a history of violence: it's all good---for a marriage license---as long as it's "Tab A/Slot B").
Do you agree w/ me, Tracie, that AT's is a particularly irrational prejudice? ;-/
Eh, AT is not going to change his/her mind until he/she is good and ready to do so.
Attempting to force him/her into it just isn't going to work.
AT is a he
and you're quite right Tracie. In fact, it is my belief that there's a pathological element to our friend's obsession that would make persuasion over the internet nigh on impossible. And I'm not being nasty here.
MP, it just reminds me all too much of the years I dealt with an alcoholic mother. There was no changing her until SHE was ready to change. There was nothing I could do to force that process. It had to come from inside her if it was going to have any meaning/value at all.
Although I do have to admit - this is one of the things I rather like about the heathen paths; they don't teach "body = bad/unspiritual" and therefore people are far less inclined to have these psychological hangups about who's doing what to whom in whose back yard for how many cookies and why. I just can't help but notice that almost every single spiritual or religious path that has come out of the East (Far or Middle) teaches that body/matter and spirit are separate, and that spirit is higher than flesh, flesh is low and fallen and icky, and we must strive to identify with spirit above flesh.
:sigh:
No!!!!!!!!
Neither Judaism or Christianity teach that the body equals bad - quite the opposite. Unfortunately, Christianity was hijacked by gnostics very early on and their form of dualism was taken up by the Roman branch and became institutionalised. In true Christianity you die and you're dead until resurrected in a real, organic body to enjoy life in a real organic world with real animals and real trees and all that. In Roman Catholicism when you die those who did what the bishops told them to do all their lives drift off into the sky as ghosts. Not for me, thank you very much. Also, there is no such thing as a soul. That's an invention the Romans nicked off the Greek philosopher, Plato. It's not from Judaism or Christianity.
:reads MP's comment:
Holy crap, MP, one would never know any of that if one talked to almost any Christian here in the American South. I don't think any of them even know anything about the Gnostics.
So how to reverse this....this....nonsense that so many Christians (esp. the evangelical, nondenominational types) have, that "body = bad"? Have things gone too far and there's no changing it now?
This is the kind of thing that keeps me away from anything Christian, but if someone has taught me wrong, I need to know.
This is the honest truth, Tracie. This blog has been bawdy and lusty and bodily since its inception, by deliberate design, because I hate the idea of "body = bad" so much that I wanted to counterbalance it, at least in my own little bit of the universe.
Daveed (way back there)--
I thought the same thing about the constitutional convention, but for some reason the "road map" seems to be to pass a direct initiative amendment, then use that to try and pass an anti-marriage law by popular vote. I don't know the politics that well, but my guess is that anti-marriage folks don't expect to control the convention, but they might be able to persuade others of the benefits of direct initiative. (It sounds like a good thing, right? More power to the people, etc.) Whatever--there will be a lot of us working to educate people about the question in November and keep the train from ever leaving the station.
Mark, I think that one of the saving graces for California is that the Supreme Court may be hiding an Ace in their sleeve.
I am not a lawyer, so I get this from my personal lawyer, my sister Alexa, who holds a JD from National University in CA.
The law for changing the CA Constitution by proposition is very specific. The document can be changed generally, but not foundationally. A foundational change, such as altering the fundamental rights of the people, would require a Constitutional Convention.
This argument was raised to the CA Supremes just after their historic ruling on marriage to try to remove Prop 8 from the NOV ballot, but the Court chose not to presently act upon that argument. Some are hoping that they are "holding" this argument to rule Prop 8 invalid after the election if the point is again raised.
A Convention would be a scary proposition to most Californians and probably would not muster the needed votes to convene one. One can only hope.
Perhaps you lot could keep this in mind if you convene a convention to consider allowing altering your state constitution by direct proposition; general changes, but not fundamental/foundational changes.
More power to the people is the beginning to eroding one of the major contributions you Estadounidense have contributed to democracy, a system of checks and balances. Then democracy becomes the adage of two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for dinner by majority rule.
She's a lawyer, as well?!!!
Get her on that plane. I won't even send Mrs MadPriest to the airport. I'll pick her up myself.
Sorry MP, I have shared our history in so many other blogs I thought that you knew these things as well.
Cut & pasted from the Friends of Jake blog;
"I have a Licenciatura in Human Behavior; psychology and sociology, from the Autonomous State University of Hidalgo and a 4 year Master of Theology from Northwest Theological Union (closed.) My degree is an academic degree and would allow me to study for a PhD or a ThD. I emphasized liturgy & worship and clinical pastoral education in my studies. I am a practicing consulting psychologist in a labor consulting firm with my older sister and a cousin. My sister, Alejandra, has a Licenciatura in Law from the same university in Hidalgo and an MBA/JD from National University in California. My cousin, Pedro, has a Licenciatura in Accounting from Hidalgo and a Master of Accounting/MPA from the University of Texas, Austin and passed the National Board as a Certified Managerial Accountant in the USA.
We consult Mexican businesses in establishing successful Human Resource departments. Many businesses here are still family held corporations. We teach them to operate successfully with their hiring, training, and retention of personnel, as well as their payroll and benefits programs. Our business philosophy is based on the Golden Rule."
Memo is on to you and has forbidden me to take Alexa anywhere near the airport!
David, I'm sure you're a real good catch for the right man, but there's no need to give me all your life history. It's the ice cream making, younger brother smothering, loads of money earning lawyer that I'm interested in.
She hand makes tortillas, and is an excellent cook when it comes to authentic Mexican food; tacos, enchiladas, chilis rellenos, pollo en mole, etc., but alas the British Isles would be a bit cold for her liking. As I recall Pocahontas did not fare well there either.
And, she is a one guy kind of gal.
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