Gay Rights, the Law and Politics

[Mr Spinkles]

In order that there isn't a huge backlog of individual requests, pre-approved 'templates' will be made, so when I want to be with a girl forever, I'll get down on one knee, and present a contract and say, "Will you make me the happiest man in the world and sign civil union 16B with me?" And then her lawyer will get together with my lawyer and work out the details. *sigh*... so romantic...

I can tell you're having fun with this :lol:

 

[Pohdaddy]

I've heard and read a lot of arguements for and against same-sex marriages. I must admit, most are meaningless and homophobically based. Try this approach! Will same-sex marriages have any affect or in any way interfer with my basic rights? The answer, NO! I can find no way that same-sex marriages will adversly affect my family, lifestyle or way of life.
Do I have the right, to tell anyone whom they may or may not fall in love with and marry? No! Whether majority rules it or not, noone has the right to take anyone's rights away without just cause. "Destroying the institution of marriage" is not just cause! It's an opinion, that has yet to be substantiated.
As for the polygomous arguement. There really isn't any just cause why a man, or a woman for that matter, can not have multiple spouses. It may not seem ethical or even moral, but it is biblical. Take a look at the old testament. It is full of biblical heroes who had multiple wives.
You may also want to take a look a Deuteronomy 21 and 22. You'd be surprised what the Bible says about marriage.

 

[painted wolf]

*sigh*

I have some bad news... it seems that the Cherokee nation of Oklahoma has banned gay marrage. So much for tradition. mg:

looks like they didn't want to go agianst the state government.

wa:do

 

[Pah]

*sigh*

I have some bad news... it seems that the Cherokee nation of Oklahoma has banned gay marrage. So much for tradition. mg:

looks like they didn't want to go agianst the state government.

wa:do

I understand the Crow, the Navajo, the Zuni, and the Cheyenne have traditions of "two spirited" people but I am unsure whether the "two spirited" were transgendered or homosexual. At any rate, these were great warriors, I'm told.

 

[Pah]

I was reading about the repeal of the 18th Amendment (the Prohibition of Intoxicating Liquors.) and the cases arising under the 21st Amendment (the Repeal of the 18th)

It seems to be that the 21st would have precedent in regard to today's lawful same-sex marriages. My untutored reading seems to say that those that have occured would still be valid in spite of an amendment narrowly defining marriage.

Of course, the proposed amendment is not certain to be passed and a lot of water can flow over the dam while it is being ratified. But there is hope that with a valid marriage, there will still be recourse to acquire the benefits denied by federal law. Given a federal "victory" the states must fall in line. The "sticky wicket" is that it may take years.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

pah, do you think an amendment to ban gay marriage will pass? I think it would be unlikely.

 

[Pah]

pah, do you think an amendment to ban gay marriage will pass? I think it would be unlikely.

Truthfully, I don't know. It depends of the political strength of the religious right. That power must be first used in Congress to get an Amemndment out of the door. Then it must be active in each state during the ratification process.

The current proposal is flawed and has opposition to the scope of the wording apart from anti-homosexual feelings

They have enoough power to defeat an equal rights amendment but I don't know that they can muster 38 states to appove one. Of course, the state constitutions being changed would be an indication of what they can accomplish but those actions are not complete.

As long as the marriages continue in Massachusetts, the more difficult it will be for the religious right to put the issue to rest. Those that marry will have ample time to mount a federal challange and state challanges to existing benefit and recognition laws.

 

[Bastet]

Well, John Howard's anti-gay marriage and adoption laws are looking like passing uncontested. I love my country, but my future isn't here anymore, and is looking less and less like it will ever be. :roll:

"Government legislation to prevent same-sex couples from marrying or from adopting overseas children passed the lower house of parliament on Thursday.

The Liberal government wants the bill proclaimed into law before the country heads into an election. It was announced last month by Australian Prime Minister John Howard."

Taken from http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/06/061704ozMarr.htm

 

[Pah]

Well, John Howard's anti-gay marriage and adoption laws are looking like passing uncontested. I love my country, but my future isn't here anymore, and is looking less and less like it will ever be. :roll:

"Government legislation to prevent same-sex couples from marrying or from adopting overseas children passed the lower house of parliament on Thursday.

The Liberal government wants the bill proclaimed into law before the country heads into an election. It was announced last month by Australian Prime Minister John Howard."

Taken from http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/06/061704ozMarr.htm

Perhaps Canada? They seem to be much less contentious than the US. They even have laws against hate speech which I understand is in some places in Australia

Off topic:
I have to admit, as liberal as I am and a "friend" of sexual minorities, I have the American tradition of free speech - which would allow the "worst" kind of expressed thought. You may know of Phelps, the anti-homosexaual Christian that is an embaressment to other Christians - his speech I allow as I do "skin-head" rhetoric and that detestable NAMBLA.

 

[Pah]

Tying the Knot: Civil Contract or Holy Matrimony?

by Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service




WASHINGTON —- Are 10 little words — “By the power vested in me by the state of ...” — the most crucial phrase in the culture war involving gay marriage?

They are some of the most significant powers delegated to a member of the clergy, when acting for both God and country, he or she pronounces a couple to be married as husband and wife.

But any couple who has ever filed a joint tax return will tell you it is the civil marriage license, not the minister or rabbi’s blessing, that entitles them to the legal benefits of marriage.

So if marriage is essentially a civil contract, shouldn’t a couple be singing — the Dixie Cups’ 1958 standard notwithstanding — that they’re going to City Hall, and not the chapel, if they are “gonna get married?”

“We don’t ask the state’s permission to do confirmations, baptisms or funerals, so why should we ask the state’s blessing to do weddings?” asked the Rev. Christopher Webber, vicar of Christ (Episcopal) Church in Canaan, CT.

Since 1994, when he published Re-inventing Marriage, Webber has argued for a separation of church and state when it comes to marriage. There is no good reason, he said, to confuse civil marriage with holy matrimony.

Proponents of gay marriage agree. Long ago they set aside dreams of church bells and flower-covered altars to focus instead on the legal document that conveys the rights and responsibilities of marriage.

They also point to places like Sweden, France and Japan, where newlyweds pursue both sacred and secular nupitals as a matter of routine.

Defenders of traditional marriage, meanwhile, argue that marriage will be forever harmed if either church or state is granted sole custody.

“One of the strengths of marriage is that it combines the two,” said Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. “To have this kind of splitting off weakens our understanding of what we have held marriage to be for centuries.”

A small but growing number of clergy — mostly from liberal mainline Protestant churches — say they feel uncomfortable granting state approval to marriages, especially if they cannot also bless gay unions.

“There are many people, myself included, who feel uncomfortable acting as an agent of the state when we as pastors are asked to sign marriage licenses,” said the Rev. Lois Powell, a team leader in the Justice and Witness division of the United Church of Christ.

“A marriage is a legal, civil agreement between two people. The role of the church is to offer blessing to relationships.”

Back in 2000, Episcopal Bishop Mary Adelia McLeod of Vermont said the church should relinquish its role in weddings unless it was given equal jurisdiction in granting divorces.

“The clergy of our church should be agents of God’s blessing,” said the now-retired bishop, “and not agents of the state.”

In San Francisco, Unitarian Universalist the Rev. Margot Campbell Gross recently signed her first marriage license in seven years — to a gay couple — after she joined several dozen UUA ministers in boycotting marriage licenses until gay couples can legally wed.

Just where did this church-state marriage of convenience come from? The answer, it turns out, has been after a tumultuous courtship.

Historically, churches did not get into the marriage business until the Middle Ages. But in the 16th century, Protestant reformer Martin Luther argued against marriage as a church-approved sacrament, and threw it back into the civil sphere.

America’s earliest pioneers were church-state purists. The Rev. Peter Gomes, pastor of Harvard University’s Memorial Church, noted that the Pilgrims who arrived in 1621 didn’t authorize religious marriage until 1692.

“The civil law is just that, and the distinction between it and ecclesiastical law is as important as the necessary distinction between church and state,” he said in a recent op-ed published in The Boston Globe.

Even though the Pilgrims imported Luther’s belief in civil marriage to America, marriage has never been an either/or institution, said John Witte, director of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University and author of From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion and Law in the Western Tradition.

“Marriage is a spiritual association, a natural association, a private contract and a social estate,” he said. “Those four corners were considered to be four dimensions of an institution that was multilayered.”

Don Browning, who headed the Religion, Culture and Family Project at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, said marriage is intimately tied to notions of sexuality, intimacy, parenthood and mutual support that neither side has fully considered.

Browning, who takes a rather dim view of gay marriage, said gay marriage could boost the importance of marriage by expanding it, or belittle it by watering it down. It’s a discussion that he said, until now, has been “abysmal.”

“That’s the underlying discussion that will feed the legal, religious, political decisions that will have to be made,” he said. “But so far, I don’t think it’s happening very well.”

Presbytarian News Service

It seems that marriage was not part of the church until the Middle ages and then Protestantism's birth sent marriage back to the civil arena. Don't let anyone kid you. Marriage is a civil procedure and the history of the Church shows that the "traditional" marriage was not part of the Early Church until the Middle Ages

 

[Pah]

Tying the Knot: Civil Contract or Holy Matrimony?

by Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service




WASHINGTON —- Are 10 little words — “By the power vested in me by the state of ...” — the most crucial phrase in the culture war involving gay marriage?

They are some of the most significant powers delegated to a member of the clergy, when acting for both God and country, he or she pronounces a couple to be married as husband and wife.

But any couple who has ever filed a joint tax return will tell you it is the civil marriage license, not the minister or rabbi’s blessing, that entitles them to the legal benefits of marriage.

So if marriage is essentially a civil contract, shouldn’t a couple be singing — the Dixie Cups’ 1958 standard notwithstanding — that they’re going to City Hall, and not the chapel, if they are “gonna get married?”

“We don’t ask the state’s permission to do confirmations, baptisms or funerals, so why should we ask the state’s blessing to do weddings?” asked the Rev. Christopher Webber, vicar of Christ (Episcopal) Church in Canaan, CT.

Since 1994, when he published Re-inventing Marriage, Webber has argued for a separation of church and state when it comes to marriage. There is no good reason, he said, to confuse civil marriage with holy matrimony.

Proponents of gay marriage agree. Long ago they set aside dreams of church bells and flower-covered altars to focus instead on the legal document that conveys the rights and responsibilities of marriage.

They also point to places like Sweden, France and Japan, where newlyweds pursue both sacred and secular nupitals as a matter of routine.

Defenders of traditional marriage, meanwhile, argue that marriage will be forever harmed if either church or state is granted sole custody.

“One of the strengths of marriage is that it combines the two,” said Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. “To have this kind of splitting off weakens our understanding of what we have held marriage to be for centuries.”

A small but growing number of clergy — mostly from liberal mainline Protestant churches — say they feel uncomfortable granting state approval to marriages, especially if they cannot also bless gay unions.

“There are many people, myself included, who feel uncomfortable acting as an agent of the state when we as pastors are asked to sign marriage licenses,” said the Rev. Lois Powell, a team leader in the Justice and Witness division of the United Church of Christ.

“A marriage is a legal, civil agreement between two people. The role of the church is to offer blessing to relationships.”

Back in 2000, Episcopal Bishop Mary Adelia McLeod of Vermont said the church should relinquish its role in weddings unless it was given equal jurisdiction in granting divorces.

“The clergy of our church should be agents of God’s blessing,” said the now-retired bishop, “and not agents of the state.”

In San Francisco, Unitarian Universalist the Rev. Margot Campbell Gross recently signed her first marriage license in seven years — to a gay couple — after she joined several dozen UUA ministers in boycotting marriage licenses until gay couples can legally wed.

Just where did this church-state marriage of convenience come from? The answer, it turns out, has been after a tumultuous courtship.

Historically, churches did not get into the marriage business until the Middle Ages. But in the 16th century, Protestant reformer Martin Luther argued against marriage as a church-approved sacrament, and threw it back into the civil sphere.

America’s earliest pioneers were church-state purists. The Rev. Peter Gomes, pastor of Harvard University’s Memorial Church, noted that the Pilgrims who arrived in 1621 didn’t authorize religious marriage until 1692.

“The civil law is just that, and the distinction between it and ecclesiastical law is as important as the necessary distinction between church and state,” he said in a recent op-ed published in The Boston Globe.

Even though the Pilgrims imported Luther’s belief in civil marriage to America, marriage has never been an either/or institution, said John Witte, director of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University and author of From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion and Law in the Western Tradition.

“Marriage is a spiritual association, a natural association, a private contract and a social estate,” he said. “Those four corners were considered to be four dimensions of an institution that was multilayered.”

Don Browning, who headed the Religion, Culture and Family Project at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, said marriage is intimately tied to notions of sexuality, intimacy, parenthood and mutual support that neither side has fully considered.

Browning, who takes a rather dim view of gay marriage, said gay marriage could boost the importance of marriage by expanding it, or belittle it by watering it down. It’s a discussion that he said, until now, has been “abysmal.”

“That’s the underlying discussion that will feed the legal, religious, political decisions that will have to be made,” he said. “But so far, I don’t think it’s happening very well.”

Presbytarian News Service

It seems that marriage was not part of the church until the Middle ages and then Protestantism's birth sent marriage back to the civil arena. Don't let anyone kid you. Marriage is a civil procedure and the history of the Church shows that the "traditional" marriage was not part of the Early Church until the Middle Ages

Even our first prospering colony did not have a sectarian marrige until 70 years after it was founded. Our country did not start with the "traditional" marriage.

 

[godischange]

You people miss the point entirely. This matter is very very simple. There really shouldn't be any problems with homosexual marriage because it isn't any different that of heterosexual marriage. Say what?

The fact is, if the first person every to be married was gay, we would think nothing of it. If the first marriage was gay, WE would be the weirdos with no rights! But since the gay rights has only recently been addressed, you people make it a giant epidemic. It's not like being a homosexual is a disease that will kill someone just because that's the way they are! If we completely disregard any holy book that condemns gay marriage, the best thing we are left with is our opinions. And beside opinions what do we, the people of the state, have against gay marriage? Pretty well only the fact that it's different than what we've all come to know

Do not fear change, embrace it.

 

[retrorich]

Quite frankly, I couldn't give a rat's *** anymore if I were married in (or by) a church, or not. I want a legally recognised union, that will allow me and my partner all the rights and responsibilities that heterosexual couples enjoy. If taking the word "marriage" out of the law and making it purely a religious ceremony that holds no legal weight, and demanding everyone (gay and straight), has a civil union to be legally recognised is the only way to stop this stupid argument, then I'd go along with that. Separate church and state, and be done with it.

Bastet: I think that is one of the best solutions I've heard to the gay marriage issue.

I feel that:

(1) No religious institution should be forced to condone or perform gay marriages.

(2) Marriages performed by religious institutions should have no legal significance.

(3) All consenting adult couples (whether opposite sex or same sex) should be entitled to a legal/civil marriage.

(4) All those who are joined in a legal/civil marriage should enjoy equal rights and benefits under the law.

I think that would work quite nicely.

 

[civilcynic]

Bastet: I think that is one of the best solutions I've heard to the gay marriage issue.

I feel that:

(1) No religious institution should be forced to condone or perform gay marriages.

(2) Marriages performed by religious institutions should have no legal significance.

(3) All consenting adult couples (whether opposite sex or same sex) should be entitled to a legal/civil marriage.

(4) All those who are joined in a legal/civil marriage should enjoy equal rights and benefits under the law.

I think that would work quite nicely.

I wholeheartedly agree with your comments. I do think, however, that the opposition against same sex marriages/ civil unions have less to do with religion and more to do with economics. Personally, I think that religious beliefs against same sex marriages are used because no one wants to admit that if same-sex unions are allowed, it will wreak havoc on the economic structure of our society........just think what it will mean if businesses are required to provide insurance benefits, retirement benefits etc; to same sex couples as they do currently with married heterosexual couples.

 

[Green Gaia]

civilcynic, I disagree with your statement that the oppostition to same sex marriage is not religious based, but economic based. I believe it has EVERYTHING to do with religion, and the majority religion of the United States, Christianity, and it's attitudes towards BGLT people in general. That being said, when same sex marriage is finally legal (and it will be one day), there will be an economic adjustment for insurance companies and businesses, but that should not be a basis for not allowing the right and fair thing to happen.

Right now, denial of marriage benefits is costing same sex households and families more than if they were allowed to receive legal marriage benefits. Article

 

[Pah]

I'll say this - and something I've recently learned - rights for sexuality is not going to be won or lost in the churches of America. It has to be won on two fronts within the law - the first is in electing officials that understand that it IS an equality issue, a secular issue, a humanistic issue. It will take organization at the political grass root level which means money and hard work proving the issue. It means appealing to those who love liberty. The law must reflect an equality for all. It means educating the GLBTI community to the discrimination practised in forms pertainent to orientation and identity. With an educated constituency, politicians on the fence must be shown where the ideals of America and promises of America and other freedom loving nations the best interest of all nations.

The second area within law will be in the courts where injustice perputrated by homophobic religion must be corrected. It must be shown that those religions and those that hold their faith that do not take action to cure and curb the active homophobe are equally and justifiably labeled homophobic.

If you are not fixing the problem, you are supporting it.

 

[opensoul7]

Legally for Americans we ALL have the right to pursuit of happiness.pursuit:1)The act or an instance of chasing or pursuing. 2)The act of striving. How can we strive for that happiness if it has been preemptively been taken away, because it might be achieved? I find no offense in homosexuality. I believe in love. Once again intolerance and fear of something not understood takes precedence. I am pro marriage for any two people who love each other. I see no reason legally or spiritually why there can not be homosexual marriage .

 

[Green Gaia]

In legal talk, how would you convince your representatives to withdraw support from your state's anti-marriage and anti-equality amendments?

Here is the letter I sent to my reps, through Equality Virigina (they wrote it, I signed and emailed):

I am writing as your constituent to strongly urge you to oppose any attempt to write discrimination into the Virginia Constitution through a "Virginia Marriage Amendment".

The measure currently before you, HJ 23, goes much farther than just defining "marriage" as between one man and one woman. It would prohibit any legal protections for all unmarried couples, gay and straight. Similar measures in Ohio, Utah and Michigan have led to many unintended consequences leading to ongoing litigation.

In addition, Virginia law already prohibits same-sex marriage, civil unions and more. There is no evidence that it is necessary to take the extraordinary step of enshrining this prohibition in the Virginia constitution.

The Virginia Constitution does not need to be amended to protect the religious sacrament of marriage. Churches, temples and mosques have never been, and would never be, required to recognize marriages that are not in line with their faith traditions.

I urge you to vote in favor of fairness and equality, and against the strategies of fear, division and discrimination.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your reply.
​

I've sent probably hundreds of similar emails and letters over the past couple of years. Not just here but when I lived in Kentucky as well. They don't usually reply and it doesn't seem to change their mind. What else can I do? EV has a Lobby Day planned in 2 weeks, but I heard the General Assembly is pushing the vote on this up to possibly today - probably because they know about the Lobby Day and want to pre-empt us. What else can be done?

Thank you Bob for bringing back this great thread. I feel I should remind everyone that this is not a religious discussion/debate. So if your only opinion and thoughts about homosexuality and same sex marriage is we are evil and all going to hell, this is not the thread to express those opinions, we have other threads for that. Thanks.

 

[Pah]

A common citizen has no power of persuasion until the citizen can be shown to be a part of a group that has political power, a group that has acheivements in political action.

It is not neccesarrily important that your voice be heard but immensely important that it be heard in cacaphonous numbers.

 

[Green Gaia]

A common citizen has no power of persuasion until the citizen can be shown to be a part of a group that has political power.....

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? We don't have enough political power... yet.