Same-Sex Marriage Update

[SuperFemme]

Uh oh: Wyoming gay marriage case a con?

By Jennifer Vanasco, editor in chief, 365gay.com
08.30.2010 6:00pm EDT

The Billings Gazette is reporting that the two men who are suing for gay marriage in Wyoming have troubling backgrounds.

The couple, who are representing themselves, may not have actually applied for a marriage license; LezGetReal says they may not, in fact be gay, though it’s not clear what benefit they’d get from pretending to be, or from filing this suit.

From the Gazette:

For one thing, there’s a dispute over the basic facts of the case.
In the suit, Shupe-Roderick and Dupree allege that they went to the Laramie County Clerk’s office on Aug. 9 to apply for a marriage license, only to be turned down because they were a same-sex couple. In a subsequent media interview, Shupe-Roderick said they went to the clerk’s office two additional times and spoke with Laramie County Clerk Debbie Lathrop.

However, Lathrop, a defendant in the lawsuit, said neither she nor any of her staff has any recollection of the couple applying for a marriage license from her office.

Then there is the shady background of David Shupe-Roderick:

Gay-rights proponents are also concerned that the plaintiffs aren’t exactly a poster couple for their cause – especially David Shupe-Roderick, a convicted felon with a history of mental illness.
Shupe-Roderick, 25, served 4 years in the Wyoming State Penitentiary after he, his brother, and their two girlfriends left Cheyenne in a rental car in January 2004. When they didn’t return the rental car on time, the rental company contacted police. Two days later, Shupe-Roderick – then known as Gerald Shupe — was arrested in Arkansas after being pulled over for an illegal lane change.

After being sentenced, Shupe-Roderick unsuccessfully requested a reduction in his prison sentence on the grounds that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and wasn’t taking his prescribed medication when he took the rental car.

Shupe-Roderick is currently being prosecuted for falsifying state documents. Last October, he applied to become a notary public, and he allegedly certified on his application form that he wasn’t a convicted felon. The lawsuit also alleges Shupe-Roderick used a fake same-sex union certificate from Massachusetts to obtain a Wyoming driver’s license.

Shupe-Roderick has also been a plaintiff in court as frequently as he has been a defendant. Besides the gay marriage case, he’s filed five other lawsuits in the past three years. In one, he accused prison guards of sexual misconduct, and in another, he accused a would-be business client of assault and breach of contract. He has also sought $16,398 in loans and debts from his former employers/roommates and asserted that Bank of America unlawfully refused to release $5,107 from his bank account. All of those cases were eventually dropped or dismissed.

The Gazette says that Shupe-Roderick expected this to be a quiet lawsuit and has been surprised at the attention it has received.

Do you live in Wyoming? Do you have more information on the couple? Let us know in the comments…

[SuperFemme]

NOM's ugly ad:



A point by point takedown of NOM's ad:

[Jess]

http://www.freedomtomarry.org/blog/e...ity-steve-jobs

[Corkey]

BREAKING: Pacific Justice Institute DENIED by court; Schwarzenegger, Brown will not be forced to defend Prop 8
September 2, 2010

By Eden James
A few days ago, the right-wing extremists at the Pacific Justice Institute went to court to try to force Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to defend Prop 8 before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
No dice, PJI. This breaking news just came in from the California Appellate Court (h/t Kathleen):
Beckley v. Schwarzenegger et al.
Case: C065920, 3rd District
Disposition date (YYYY-MM-DD): 2010-09-01
Disposition description: Petition summarily denied by order
Disposition status as of 2010-09-02: Final
Notes: Scotland, P.J. (BRo)
For more information on this case, go to:
http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...doc_id=1953899
More will be added to this post, as news develops.

[iamkeri1]

SuperFemme, I'm not criticizing you for posting this - it is interesting info to have, this is just my take on the situation.

The only thing that would disturb me about the background of either of these men would be if their case was dismissed because of their being frequent law suit filers. One way or another, filing the case brings attention to the inequity of the situation in Wyoming.

Jane Roe, the un-named plaintiff in Roe vs Wade (the case that made abortion legal in the United States,), later became a right-to-lifer and worked to get Roe vs Wade rescinded. I'm sorry if she later came to regret her choice, but in my very pragmatic viewpoint, she served her purpose in that case. What she decided to do later did not matter.

Whether these guys are gay or not, I don't care. I also don't care whether they lied about applying for and being turned down for a license (is the clerk alleging that she WOULD have issued them a license had they applied? - I don't think so.) I also don't care about their mental health status, as long as neither of them have been declared incompent. The point is, same sex marriage is illegal in Wyoming, and they are working to get that changed. They may not be the perfect couple to take on this challenge. I'm sure the state of Wyoming would try to besmirch the reputation of Jesus Christ himself if he was a litigant in this suit. By the way, did he and John the beloved apostle ever file for domestic partnership? - can't seem to remember, LOL)

If we can welcome support from Ken Mehlman, then we should be able to welcome it from a guy with a history of manic depression. Are other folks with manic depression denied marriage licenses? If not, then they should give one to this guy no matter how shady he is, as long as he is single.

As Christian like to say..."we're not perfect, we're just forgiven", I want to be able to say "We're not perfect either, but we do have the right to get married"

That's my take on it any way.
Smooches,
Keri

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

Uh oh: Wyoming gay marriage case a con?

By Jennifer Vanasco, editor in chief, 365gay.com
08.30.2010 6:00pm EDT

The Billings Gazette is reporting that the two men who are suing for gay marriage in Wyoming have troubling backgrounds.

The couple, who are representing themselves, may not have actually applied for a marriage license; LezGetReal says they may not, in fact be gay, though it’s not clear what benefit they’d get from pretending to be, or from filing this suit.

From the Gazette:

For one thing, there’s a dispute over the basic facts of the case.
In the suit, Shupe-Roderick and Dupree allege that they went to the Laramie County Clerk’s office on Aug. 9 to apply for a marriage license, only to be turned down because they were a same-sex couple. In a subsequent media interview, Shupe-Roderick said they went to the clerk’s office two additional times and spoke with Laramie County Clerk Debbie Lathrop.

However, Lathrop, a defendant in the lawsuit, said neither she nor any of her staff has any recollection of the couple applying for a marriage license from her office.

Then there is the shady background of David Shupe-Roderick:

Gay-rights proponents are also concerned that the plaintiffs aren’t exactly a poster couple for their cause – especially David Shupe-Roderick, a convicted felon with a history of mental illness.
Shupe-Roderick, 25, served 4 years in the Wyoming State Penitentiary after he, his brother, and their two girlfriends left Cheyenne in a rental car in January 2004. When they didn’t return the rental car on time, the rental company contacted police. Two days later, Shupe-Roderick – then known as Gerald Shupe — was arrested in Arkansas after being pulled over for an illegal lane change.

After being sentenced, Shupe-Roderick unsuccessfully requested a reduction in his prison sentence on the grounds that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and wasn’t taking his prescribed medication when he took the rental car.

Shupe-Roderick is currently being prosecuted for falsifying state documents. Last October, he applied to become a notary public, and he allegedly certified on his application form that he wasn’t a convicted felon. The lawsuit also alleges Shupe-Roderick used a fake same-sex union certificate from Massachusetts to obtain a Wyoming driver’s license.

Shupe-Roderick has also been a plaintiff in court as frequently as he has been a defendant. Besides the gay marriage case, he’s filed five other lawsuits in the past three years. In one, he accused prison guards of sexual misconduct, and in another, he accused a would-be business client of assault and breach of contract. He has also sought $16,398 in loans and debts from his former employers/roommates and asserted that Bank of America unlawfully refused to release $5,107 from his bank account. All of those cases were eventually dropped or dismissed.

The Gazette says that Shupe-Roderick expected this to be a quiet lawsuit and has been surprised at the attention it has received.

Do you live in Wyoming? Do you have more information on the couple? Let us know in the comments…

[Toughy]

If we can welcome support from Ken Mehlman,

I dang sure don't want a big fat hypocrite like Ken Mehlman supporting any LGBTQI cause. He is a traitor. I don't welcome anything from him. I know I am not the only one in this community who feels this way.

I could care less about manic depression and marriage licenses. I do care that folks who are not gay are applying for marriage licenses. It just provides fodder for the right wing nuts. It sends a message that this is not about equal rights. In my mind it borders on mockery of equal rights.

[MsTinkerbelly]

One of the reasons equal marriage is so necessary....me

Kafka and the National Organization for Marriage
(Over my first few weeks here on the Prop 8 Trial Tracker, I’m going to reprint a few — just a few — prior entries from my blog at Waking Up Now. The story of Ron Hanby and Mark Goldberg is one that everybody ought to know. First, because it’s a wrenching story that should open all but the coldest of hearts. Second, because it shows we need full marriage equality on a national scale. And finally, because it demonstrates the nightmare world that NOM wants us to inhabit. — Rob)

by Rob Tisinai

Ron Hanby, struggling with depression, took his own life on October 2, 2008. Mark Goldberg, his partner of 17 years, battled Rhode Island bureaucracy for weeks before the state would release Ron’s body to him. Ron had no living relatives. The couple, however, did have:

wills
living wills
power of attorney documents
and a Connecticut marriage certificate (Rhode Island doesn’t permit same-sex marriage or even civil unions)
None of that mattered in Rhode Island. Mark spent every day of his immediate grief on the phone with state officials, trying to get his husband’s body out of the morgue. Finally, after four weeks, a state bureaucrat took a special interest and helped him get Ron’s body released.

One good thing came out of this: Rhode Island’s state legislators wrote a bill creating funeral rights for domestic partners. They passed it in a bipartisan show of humanity: 63-1 in the House, unanimously in the Senate. And the Republican governor vetoed it.

Now the National Organization for Marriage is urging legislators not to override that veto. Chris Plante (executive director of NOM-RI), has written to them:

[T]he proposed legislation simply is not necessary… The right of any person, without regard to sexual preference or relationship to the decedent, to serve as a designated funeral-planning agent is already expressly guaranteed by Rhode Island Law 5-33.1-4. That statute only requires a simple notarized form naming an agent.

Ah, yes, Rhode Island Law 5-33.1-4. Of course. And what can we say in return except:

Thank you Mr. Plante!

We keep hearing that same-sex marriage isn’t necessary, that we can secure civil equality by visiting lawyers and drawing up contracts. That’s false, but people don’t always understand that. Luckily for us, Mr. Plante has taken this argument into the realm of satire: Mark and Ron had wills, power of attorney, and an actual marriage license? Simpletons! They should have known to go to a notary and designate each other as funeral planning agents, pursuant to R.I. Law 5-33.1-4!

Franz Kafka wrote this kind of satire. The term “Kafkaesque” describes a world in which “characters lack a clear course of action, the ability to see beyond immediate events, and the possibility of escape. The term’s meaning has transcended the literary realm to apply to real-life occurrences and situations that are incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, or illogical.”

Compare that to Mark’s own description of what his life turned into:

I called the Police to our home where the death occurred and in two hours they performed their investigation, offered their condolences, removed Ron’s body and left our house. No one offered any information on what I was to do next. No phone number to contact the detective in charge, no information on where they were taking Ron’s body, no information on what I as his partner for so many years should do next.

Ron had no next of kin other than me. I shared our Wills, Living Wills, Power of Attorney and Marriage Certificate to the Police Department, Medical Examiner’s Office and the Department of Health, but no one was willing to see these documents. The State Law stated that a two week search for next of kin must be done. The Medical Examiner’s office waited a full week before placing an ad in the Providence Journal. After no one responded they waited another week to send paperwork to the Health and Human Services Department listing Ron as an unclaimed body. During this four week process, I was on the phone every day trying to convince someone, anyone, that I was the person claiming Ron’s body. The same response came back to me every time; “It’s State law, our hands are tied, there’s nothing we can do”.

I attempted to place an obituary in the Providence Journal and again, I was denied because we were not blood relatives, and the Journal had to comply with state rules. GLAD, the Gay and Lesbian Advocacy and Defenders could not help me because our bond was not recognized in the State of RI. After four weeks an employee in the Department of General Public Assistance of Human Services took pity upon me and my plight. She reviewed our documentation and was able to get all parties concerned to release Ron’s body to me.

Mr. Plante and NOM look at this nightmare and say, No problem. Because, after all, Mark and Ron could have avoided it simply by following the instructions in Rhode Island Law 5-13.1-4.

I’ll make a deal with NOM: If they specify every law, every form, and every contract – in every state – that gay couples need to pursue in order to secure their rights as a couple, than I’ll do the same for straights. In fact, I’ll provide a complete and exhaustive list for straight Californians right now:

California Marriage License, Registration and Ceremony Information
Okay, NOM, your turn.

But I doubt NOM will return the favor. They don’t want us to have any rights and benefits of marriage. Mr. Plante is clear about his reasons for opposing the funeral rights law.

[T]he legislation in question is actually an exploitation of Mr. Goldberg’s tragedy by the homosexual-marriage activists in Rhode Island. Despite their claims to the contrary, these bills serve simply as “Trojan Horses” for homosexual-marriage. In California and Connecticut…courts found that when rights of domestic partners, under either that nomenclature or as “civil-unions,” were expanded…that the State must by extension fully recognize homosexual marriage…

As such, NOM – Rhode Island respectfully requests that you vote to sustain the Governor’s veto both to avoid creating unnecessary law and to not move Rhode Island closer to recognizing homosexual-marriage.


NOM doesn’t just oppose marriage equality. They don’t just oppose robust civil unions or watered-down domestic partnerships. They oppose anything that might constitute even the slightest formal recognition of our relationships. They want instead to send us running down a thousand different legal avenues in a labyrinth that they’re lobbying to turn against us.

Franz Kafka won a place in literature by creating a vivid and chilling world of bureaucratic brutality. That’s the world in which NOM wants us to live.

[Soon]

Originally Posted by MsTinkerbelly

[B][SIZE="3"]
One good thing came out of this: Rhode Island’s state legislators wrote a bill creating funeral rights for domestic partners. They passed it in a bipartisan show of humanity: 63-1 in the House, unanimously in the Senate. And the Republican governor vetoed it.

Infuriating.

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by Toughy

I dang sure don't want a big fat hypocrite like Ken Mehlman supporting any LGBTQI cause. He is a traitor. I don't welcome anything from him. I know I am not the only one in this community who feels this way.

I could care less about manic depression and marriage licenses. I do care that folks who are not gay are applying for marriage licenses. It just provides fodder for the right wing nuts. It sends a message that this is not about equal rights. In my mind it borders on mockery of equal rights.

Ditto on Ken DOMA Mehlman.

Your last paragraph is exactly why I chose to post the article. It makes a mockery out of the thousands of us in honest, real long term relationships/marriages that want only one thing: equal rights under the law.

In this crazy mad world, my mind goes places it normally wouldn't. Like two straight men filing this case in hopes of taking it to court and perhaps settling it in a way that is disparaging to same sex couples? Which puts precedent on the law books.

Wolves in sheeps clothing are not imaginary beings.

[Cyclopea]

[Toughy]

mmmmmmmmmm was that ad a production of Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorny (spelling) vs their respective opponents in the last closed primary of either party in CA?

Just wait..........2 years from now we will see two Republicans against each other for the same seat in general elections in CA. No Democrats allowed because 2 Republicans had the two top votes in the primary elections........

I say CA should ban Constitutional Amendment votes by the people until it passes both the State House and Senate and the current Governor signs it. Then it can go to the people for a vote. It works well in MA and many other states.

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by Toughy

mmmmmmmmmm was that ad a production of Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorny (spelling) vs their respective opponents in the last closed primary of either party in CA?

Just wait..........2 years from now we will see two Republicans against each other for the same seat in general elections in CA. No Democrats allowed because 2 Republicans had the two top votes in the primary elections........

I say CA should ban Constitutional Amendment votes by the people until it passes both the State House and Senate and the current Governor signs it. Then it can go to the people for a vote. It works well in MA and many other states.

Yes brought to you by the "lovely" Ms Fiorina- good catch!

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Toughy

mmmmmmmmmm was that ad a production of Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorny (spelling) vs their respective opponents in the last closed primary of either party in CA?

Just wait..........2 years from now we will see two Republicans against each other for the same seat in general elections in CA. No Democrats allowed because 2 Republicans had the two top votes in the primary elections........

I say CA should ban Constitutional Amendment votes by the people until it passes both the State House and Senate and the current Governor signs it. Then it can go to the people for a vote. It works well in MA and many other states.

Right on T. I wonder how many ill-informed voters said yes to the CA open primary initiative passed that REALLY understood what it is!!! As in just plain stupid!