Same-Sex Marriage Update

[Nadeest]

IF we are going to make polygamy legal, shouldn't we also make polyandry and polyamorous marriages legal? After all, why shouldn't women have multiple husbands, if men can have multiple wives? Nor do I see anything wrong with polyamorous relationships. Why shouldn't they be legal, also?

[Nadeest]

I found this article from "The Atlantic" interesting, when I was looking things up, just now. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...-sense/272726/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...e-sex-marriage

New Zealand legalises same-sex marriage
Cheers and applause ring out in parliament building after 77 of 121 members vote to allow gay couples to wed

[MsTinkerbelly]

French lawmakers approve marriage equality bill



By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 11:47 EDT




French lawmakers on Tuesday extended marriage and adoption rights to same-sex couples, making France the 14th country in the world to legalise gay marriage. The 331 to 225 vote was preceded by months of bitter –and sometimes violent– exchanges on the subject in parliament and in the streets.

The National Assembly first passed the so-called “Marriage for All” law in February. It had to give it a second and final reading on Tuesday, after the upper-house Senate approved the same bill with some amendments on April 12.

The landmark legislation was greeted by wild cheering from some and boos by others gathered outside the National Assembly. Opponents were scheduled to converge outside the building to protest the reform at 7pm, as they have been doing for the past several days.





“I hope people across the country will celebrate this moment,” said Martin Gaillard, a 31-year-old advocate of gay marriage, who admitted feeling stressed during the past weeks because of all the attention garnered by the law’s detractors.

“This remains a joyous day,” added Gaillard, whose “Projet Entourage LGBT” has sought to build support for gay marriage on the Internet for over two years.

He remembered that gay marriage had little political traction at the start of his project, but then became a hot topic of the 2012 presidential campaign. President François Hollande came to power last May promising to legalise marriage and adoption for same-sex couples.

Recent opinion polls show that a majority -between 53% and 58%- of people in France support gay marriage.

According to Yves-Marie Cann, of the French polling firm CSA, those figures have remained constant throughout months of controversy. However, he noted that the number of people against adoption by same-sex couples has risen in recent months, with 56% now opposed to the measure.

Violent confrontations


The months-long legislative process was closely followed by supporters and opponents of the bill, who staged massive rallies in Paris and around the country to either defend or try to defeat the historic bill.

The anti-gay marriage camp –a motley mix that includes traditional Catholic families, some members of the opposition UMP party and far-right groups– organised some of the largest marches seen in France in recent years.

CSA’s Cann said the issue had revealed a sharp ideological divide in French society, with more than 72% of right-wing sympathisers saying they were against the law.


As the bill neared a final vote, some opponents adopted a hardline approach, leading to violent confrontations with police on Paris’s iconic Champs Elysées in late March.

Meanwhile, rights groups said they had documented a significant rise in attacks targeting gays and LGBT-friendly businesses, and accused the so-called peaceful protests of trivialising hateful homophobic speech. On the eve of the vote, National Assembly president Claude Bartolone received a letter filled with gunpowder warning him to delay it.

Frustrations also spilled over inside parliament, where quarrelling MP’s allegedly threw punches and had to be separated by security last week.

An evolving process

Opponents pledged to keep fighting the marriage reform despite its passing. Just hours before the vote, opposition MP Henri Guaino told France Inter radio that he would continue joining protests until Hollande called a referendum on the issue.

Guaino nevertheless admitted that it would be very difficult to reverse the law once it went into effect and after same-sex couples began to wed.

French stars come late to gay marriage fight

Other lawmakers said they would immediately request that the law be scrutinised by France’s Constitutional Council, while others said they would repeal it as soon as conservatives regained a majority in parliament. Leaders of the anti-gay marriage marches announced they would consider running in mayoral elections next year.

Gaillard, the gay-marriage activist, said the legislative victory was somewhat anticlimactic. “I feel like this is part of an evolving process; this is clearly the direction France needs to move in. The impression I have is that we are finally catching up.”

France is now the ninth European country to legalise gay marriage, joining Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Portugal, as well as neighbouring Belgium and Spain.

Questioned as to what would become of Projet Entourage LGBT –now that gay marriage was no longer an idea but a reality– Gaillard said his group was considering turning its attention to championing access to in vitro fertilisation for same-sex couples or supporting teen victims of homophobia. For now, he said he was only sure he would be catching up on some hard-earned rest.

[Kobi]

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island is on a path to becoming the 10th state to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry after a landmark vote in the state's Senate on Wednesday.

The Senate passed gay marriage legislation by a comfortable 26-12 margin, following a House vote of approval in January. The bill must now return to the House for a largely procedural vote, likely next week, but the celebration began Wednesday.

Heavily Catholic Rhode Island is the last remaining New England state without gay marriage. Marriage legislation has been introduced in the state for nearly two decades, only to languish on the legislative agenda.

Supporters mounted a renewed push this year, and the Senate vote was seen as the critical test after the House easily passed the bill. Gov. Lincoln Chafee, an independent, called Wednesday's vote historic.

"I'm very much looking forward to signing this," he told The Associated Press as he congratulated supporters.

The first gay marriages in Rhode Island could take place Aug. 1, when the legislation would take effect. Civil unions would no longer be available to same-sex couples as of that date, though the state would continue to recognize existing civil unions. Lawmakers approved civil unions two years ago, though few couples have sought them.

http://news.yahoo.com/ri-way-10th-st...215029420.html

[MsTinkerbelly]

Rhode Island becomes 10th state to legalize gay marriage


Charles Krupa / AP


By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

Rhode Island became the final state in New England and the 10th in the country to legalize gay marriage after independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee on Thursday signed a bill that will allow same-sex marriage.

"I know that you have been waiting for this day to come," Chafee said to the state's gay and lesbian community at a bill-signing ceremony in front of hundreds. "I know you have loved ones that dreamed this would happen but did not live to see it. But I am proud to say that now at long last, you are free to marry the person you love."

In a New York Times op-ed Wednesday, Chafee outlined his support for gay marriage not only on moral grounds, but also economic.

"The talented workers who are driving the new economy — young, educated and forward-looking — want to live in a place that reflects their values. They want diversity, not simply out of a sense of justice, but because diversity makes life more fun," he wrote. "Why would any state turn away the people who are most likely to create the economies of the 21st century?"

As a Republican U.S. senator in 2004, Chafee voiced his support for gay marriage when most members of his party were staunchly opposed to it. He was ousted from his Senate seat in 2006 but won the governor's race in the Ocean State in 2010 as an independent.

Chafee is now calling on fellow governors to push for similar legislation to what passed in Rhode Island on Thursday, and calling for the Supreme Court to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act. Though public opinion continues to turn in favor of same-sex marriage, legalizing it is still a heavy lift for many states.

Even in Rhode Island, which sits in the country's friendliest territory for gay-marriage supporters, opposition from the state's heavy Catholic population put the prospects of passage in jeopardy for years. The legislation has been introduced in the House every session since 1997.

But last fall, more gay-marriage supporters were elected to the state legislature, and the bill's passage was the result of a highly energized and coordinated campaigning from those equal rights groups, business leaders, community organizers and politicians.

The bill overcame its biggest hurdle last week when it passed the Senate by a comfortable 26-12 vote after Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, allowed a vote despite her opposition to gay marriage. The House easily passed the legislation in January but needed to approve the final language in a procedural vote Thursday that passed 56-15. The session was largely a celebration in which legislators reflected on the significance of the bill and thanked those who fought for its passage.

"We are truly social creatures, and that is the essence of this legislation," House Speaker Gordon Fox, D-Providence, said before the bill was signed. "You are free to love and commit to the person of your choice no matter what your gender may be.... And the foundation of that is a very simple, yet probably the most powerful word in the English language: Love," said Fox, who is gay.

Along with the five other New England states, Rhode Island joins Iowa, Maryland, Washington, New York and Washington, D.C., in recognizing same-sex marriage. Minnesota, Illinois and Delaware are also expected to come to decisions about the issue soon.

Opponents to gay marriage argued passing the legislation would lessen religious liberty for churches and certain faith-based organizations

A day before the bill passed, the National Organization for Marriage called on the House to reject the legislation, which they say contains "a shocking lack of religious liberty protections, potentially ghettoizing people of faith unless they compromise and remain silent in the public square."

"When marriage is redefined into a genderless institution, it presents a range of legal conflicts for people of faith and the small businesses and charitable organizations they operate to serve the public," Christopher Plante, regional director for the organization, said in a statement.

The first same-sex marriages could take place Aug. 1, when the new law takes effect. Civil unions, which the state approved two years ago, will no longer be available to gay couples, though existing civil unions will still be recognized.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

[iamkeri1]

Every Time another state recognizes our humanity, I find myself in tears again.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Rhode Island!!!!
Teary Smooches,
Keri