Same-Sex Marriage Update

[Mister Bent]

Originally Posted by Heart

Wasn't NY Pride AWESOME? I can't remember last time there was such a huge joyous crowd! Cheryl - you looked HOT! Mr. B - were you there??

I was! I took that photo.

Julie invited me to hang out with her posse, and Gov. Cuomo convinced me I had to go.

[Julie]

Originally Posted by Mister Bent

I was! I took that photo.

Julie invited me to hang out with her posse, and Gov. Cuomo convinced me I had to go.

You were the perfect accompaniment to my posse. The boys adored you and are still talking about their *M* -- I never saw gay men fawn over a guy like they did you. Very cute actually.

[MsTinkerbelly]

The difference between life and death in the Rhode Island civil union bill
By Adam Bink

The Rhode Island legislature just passed legislation legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples.

This was a difficult road. The choice was made to push a civil unions bill through in Rhode Island rather than marriage — a choice that may, to Rhode Islanders, be the best choice based on what they want and need at the moment.

What becomes a problem is language like this in the bill:

15-3.1-5. Conscience and religious organizations protected. – (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, no religious or denominational organization, no organization operated for charitable or educational purpose which is supervised or controlled by or in connection with a religious organization, and no individual employed by any of the foregoing organizations, while acting in the scope of that employment, shall be required:

(1) To provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges for a purpose related to the solemnization, certification, or celebration of any civil union; or

(2) To solemnize or certify any civil union; or

(3) To treat as valid any civil union; if such providing, solemnizing, certifying, or treating as valid would cause such organizations or individuals to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.

(b) No organization or individual as described in subsection (a) above who fails or refuses to provide, solemnize, certify, or treat as valid, as described in subdivision (a)(1), (a)(2) or (a)(3) above, persons in a civil union, shall be subject to a fine, penalty, or other cause of action for such failure or refusal.

Perhaps some legislators looked at the careful negotiation and insertion of religious exemption language in New York State and demanded the same deal. The difference is that pastors deciding who to marry, and synagogues deciding whether to rent out their reception hall for a wedding, is not the same as this.

I’ll give you an example: if I were back home in suburban Buffalo and my partner had a medical emergency and I had to get him to a hospital, Kenmore Mercy hospital would be the closest at just over 3 miles away. I could drive there in my sleep. Unfortunately for me, Kenmore Mercy is a Catholic hospital. If he were treated at Kenmore Mercy, then despite all my civil union paperwork, despite my partner’s wishes for me to make important medical decisions on his behalf, or be at the doctors’ side to tell them important information like what he’s allergic to or that he only has one functional kidney, they can treat me as a complete stranger and it’s legal. They could do to me the same as what happened to Daniel Weiss in New Jersey, one of the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit being filed:

Daniel Weiss, for instance, had to show doctors his civil union ring to show that he could make medical decisions for his long-time partner, John Grant, after Grant was struck by a car and his skull shattered in Manhattan. Despite explaining it to attending doctors, the hospital called Grant’s sister up from Delaware – four hours away – to make medical decisions for him.

“At the moment that we needed civil unions the most to provide equality, it failed for us miserably,” said Weiss. “To this day, the records at Bellevue Hospital do not recognize that I am the next of kin.”

Let’s say I didn’t want to go to a Catholic hospital because of those very concerns. Then the next closest hospital would either be Millard Fillmore-Gates Circle or Millard Fillmore Suburban, both about 6 miles away. That’s twice the distance, more stoplights, more chance for an accident or hitting traffic.

That’s the difference between life and death. And this bill’s language could mean that.

Will Gov. Chafee veto it?

[iamkeri1]

Yikes Tink!
Dang! what a quandry! Under the heading of "something is better than nothing", I would not want this bill vetoed, but (again) dang! it needs a little tweaking.
Smooches,
Keri

[Jess]

As I see it, Civil Unions are never going to carry the same legal weight as "marriage". I used to think they would be fine as long as we got the same rights. However, they will never be the same.

I don't have a problem with religious institutions ( churches, synagogues, mosques) refusing to "cater to" LGBT couples regarding marriage or even individuals seeking religious guidance. I do have issue with an institution that charges for their services and are open to the "public" not adhering to what a state views as a legal marriage.

On the other hand, I also do support the rights of a privately owned business to "refuse service" as they deem fit. I think the harder question is should "hospitals" etc be run by a church? Once a church becomes a "for profit" institution, in my opinion, they become ethically responsible to the larger community they serve and the laws that govern that community.

I am really fine with a church saying to me ( or another LGBT couple): " No, we will not hold your service here because we do not agree with your choices", because I believe MOST LGBT folks would not be attending a church who would not honor them. At least, I can safely say I would not be. As long as the LAW allows us to marry, we can get married ANYWHERE. Churches( that are LGBT friendly) backyard, park, alley beside the justice of the peace, so who really needs to push the issue of being married IN a church?

We seek LEGAL rights, not religious...so by all means, protect your churches! If a hospital denies legal rights however, that hospital needs to become privatized and not open to the general public.

Thanks for the continuing updates! Much appreciated!

[MsTinkerbelly]

Originally Posted by iamkeri1

Yikes Tink!
Dang! what a quandry! Under the heading of "something is better than nothing", I would not want this bill vetoed, but (again) dang! it needs a little tweaking.
Smooches,
Keri

I personally think this one needs to be vetoed.

Sometimes we have to say we are no going to take second best, and this looks like one of them.

[Jess]

This is really very heart warming and shows that some religious groups are on a more open minded path.

United Church of Christ Passes Two More LGBT Affirming Resolutions



Yesterday was a good day for the United Church of Christ. Delegates of General Synod 28, the UCC’s national deliberative body, passed two resolutions Tuesday: one calling for international human rights for all people and rejecting systematic discrimination against LGBT people, and another affirming the support for all families wishing to adopt and raise children.

“All God’s children who are LGBT deserve freedom from fear of torture, freedom from fear of sexual assault and execution, access to education and competent health care, and guarantees of non-discrimination in their professional and family lives,” said the Rev. Emily Heath, a member of the Vermont Conference and the resolution review committee.
The United Church of Christ, a mainline Protestant denomination, has historically been one of the most LGBT affirming religious groups in the United States, and ordained the Rev. William R. Johnson, an openly gay minister, in 1972. In 1985, the General Synod passed a resolution calling on all UCC congregations to “declare themselves open and affirming,” and in 2005, the UCC became the first mainline Christian denomination to officially support marriages for all couples. The General Synod meets every two years to vocalize the UCC’s stance on particular issues to the wider church body. Because the UCC is a covenantal polity, individual congregations can differ from the General Synod on non-constitutional matters.


In order for universal human rights standards to be truly universal, every person, whatever their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, is entitled to the full enjoyment of all human rights;
The use of criminal law, or proposals to use criminal law, against members of sexual minorities creates a legal and social environment that is discriminatory and violates the human rights endorsed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Supporting International Human Rights Related to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, 28th General Synod

Article taken from: http://glaadblog.org/2011/07/06/unit...g-resolutions/

[iamkeri1]

Published on Saturday, June 25, 2011 by FlaglerLive.comWhen Florida, Like New York State, Joins the Ranks of the Civilized on Gay Marriage


by Pierre Tristam

In the early morning of June 28, 1969—just after 3 a.m.—a posse of plainclothes cops raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar at 53 Christopher Street in Manhattan’s Village. The cops’ pretext: the bar was selling liquor illegally. That was bogus. It was just another night of gay harassment. There were 200 people in the bar. They were evicted. On the street, they grew to 400. They’d had enough. They threw bricks, bottles and garbage at the cops. They rioted again the next night. Cops charged the rioters several times, beat and clubbed them as if Manhattan’s Sheridan Square area had turned into a Bull Connor corner of Alabama. The Stonewall Inn’s shattered windows were boarded up and covered in graffiti: “Support gay power.” “Legalize gay bars.”
The gay movement was born. It's not complicated. (Brocco Lee)
At 10:30 p.m. Friday, the Republican-majority New York Senate voted 33 to 29 to legalize gay marriage, making New York the largest state by far to ratify the most important and belated civil right since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. New York joins Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the District of Columbia in that minority of civilized states where gays and lesbians are no longer treated as second-class citizens, and where the religious establishment is no longer allowed, hideously and unconstitutionally, to dictate doctrine and discrimination.
There’ll be a time in the future when people will look back at the barbed-wired bans on gay marriage in place today and wonder how this nation, so big on liberty and rights, could have suffered idiotic bigotry on such a scale for so long. Then again, this same nation was founded as much on the pretensions of the Declaration of Independence as it was on the repression of slaves, the genocide of Indians and the marginalization, until 1920, of women. American enlightenment has at times had the DNA of carob molasses.
So the question isn’t when will Florida and the rest of the union join the ranks of the civilized regarding gay marriage. That’s bound to happen. The question is how unnecessarily late Florida will choose to do so.
In 2004, 14.3 million people in 11 states, with combined majorities of 67 percent, voted in constitutional bans of one sort or another against gay marriage. Florida already had a ban in place in statute. Not content with that much explicit discrimination on the books, voters enshrined their intolerance in the constitution when 62 percent approved Amendment 2 in 2008, putting this medieval verbiage in a 21st century constitution: “Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”
Where can such baseless assertions as marriage being the “legal union of only one man and one woman” have so much as a throb of credibility other than in the harebrained fictions of scriptures and other codes of cults that have, or should have, absolutely no bearing on the civil laws of civil society? Since when do scriptures dictate to constitutional principles? And how long will the U.S. Supreme Court allow these unconstitutional state amendments to fly in the face of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution? Civil unions aren’t the answer. That’s the separate-but-equal standard in play these days that gives gay-marriage opponents cover the same way Plessy v. Ferguson gave institutional racism a half century’s boost with its separate-but-equal slam on blacks. Astoundingly, Barack Obama still clings to the gay version of Plessy v. Ferguson, though he’s retreated from enforcing the crock of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and abolished the folly of the military’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell.
New York State is celebrating. We should celebrate along. There is nothing in gay marriage that offends anymore than straight marriage does, marriage itself—not the sexual nature of its participants—having its issues, often because of the religious shackles imposed on it: if there is a problem with marriage, let’s start with, for example, some churches’ and mosques’ and synagogues’ revolting impositions on women to submit to their husbands, to endure their violence, to defer to their judgments, to persist in the superstitious beliefs in patriarchy, which have as much validity as inherited or divine right.
But let’s also remember that in gay matters, Florida remains closer to Iran than to New York State. Florida pioneered the anti-gay movement with the likes of Anita Bryant and her war on gay adoption, a war finally ended only when Charlie Crist put an end to the charade last year. As the 2008 vote shows, Floridians revel in putting down en entire class of people behind the cloak of religious authority and its sickly, opportunistic twin: tradition. If it’s traditional to discriminate, to hurt, to hate, oppress, and in Florida it still is, it’s also just as traditional, in the American sense anyway, to revolt. New York State just did. Florida will, too, one day, though like a brigand clinging to his loot, Florida won’t do it willingly: the Supreme Court will drag it out of its backwardness, if it can still read the 14th Amendment.