Lose the Shame

Writing on The Huffington Post, blogger Lane Hudson notes how quiet the White House has been regarding the progress of marriage equality.

Money quote: "Here's the problem: Everybody knows the Democrats are for equality for the gays. The Republicans have spent a gazillion dollars telling everybody that for the past 18 years or so. So when a Democrat back tracks and falls all over himself to answer a 'gay' question, it shows fear. It shows dishonesty. And nobody's buying it."

So Washington should get over it, do the right thing and embrace equality. Is that so wrong?

Hyperbole on Parade

As I predicted, the Christianists are attacking marriage equality by raising the specter of a country without freedom of religion.

Money quote: ""If you don't care about this campaign, don't want to get involved, you can go to jail and start a wonderful prison ministry," Garlow adds. "But if you want religious freedom, we're going to have to win this thing.""

Talkin' About A Revolution

Orson Scott Card, a Mormon science fiction author with wide crossover appeal, has put to paper his thoughts on the same-sex marriage issue. He's agin it. So much so that he thinks it will ultimately result in the overthrow of the US Constitution. Money quote:

"What these dictator-judges do not seem to understand is that their authority extends only as far as people choose to obey them.

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn."

Hitchens was right: religion poisons everything.

Stop Those Activist Judges!

Well, the Supreme Court has done it. They've overturned the DC handgun ban, which was voted in by a clear majority of the people. Someone has to stop the black-robed tyrants from overruling the will of the people! What has happened to this country when we actually follow the Constitution? First it's equality in California (which the majority doesn't want), now it's handgun control (which the majority wants). Where will it all end?

Religious Freedom vs. Marriage Equality

As I posted here a week or so ago, I'm worried that the religious right may be successful in their attempt to conflate marriage equality with a diminution of religious freedom.

Fortunately, here comes someone both smarter than I, and MUCH more informed about the legal issues surrounding the balance between the freedom to hold certain religious beliefs (and to act on those beliefs) and current laws forbidding discrimination based on sexual orientation. It's a longish post by Dale Carpenter but you can read it here.

Money quote: "While marriage and religious belief are one creature in the minds of many people, they are separate things in the law. Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism, for example, refuse to recognize secular divorce. But few argue that we should refuse to let people divorce for this reason. One can be divorced under the law but married in the eyes of the church. The statuses can be separated without a diminution of religious liberty. And nobody thinks that this de-linking of the two constitutes official oppression or the obliteration of religious freedom. Similarly, in principle, it should be possible to have a regime in which same-sex couples are married under the law but not married in the eyes of a given religion — all without extinguishing religious faith."

Aspire to More

A story in today's Marin Independent-Journal put it more positive spin on the day's potential effects, drawing on family experiences to make an excellent point. Half of one of the first couples to marry in Marin County believes there many reasons - both legal and social - why acceptance of marriage equality is important. When she came out to her parents, she said, the reaction was not what she'd hoped for. She said when she came out of the closet to her parents, they were saddened because they didn't think she would get married or have children.

"For a person just coming to terms with who you are, the last thing you need is to have your family upset," said Karpay-Brody, 48. "For young relationships it gives people goals just like with heterosexual relationships - do you aspire to a higher commitment through marriage?"

This is an important aspect of the debate that is being ignored.

It's Here. Will It Last?

Today, just moments after 5:00 p.m., Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, two women whose relationship has lasted 55 years, took an important step toward full civil equality for all Americans. What was the phrase? "If we are not all free, we are none of us free"?

There is no remaining argument against same-sex marriage except one that assumes the existence of a literal God. And his Word passing through many translations -- without ever losing its literal Truth. And since I have the same amount of verifiable evidence to support MY idea of god as they do to support THEIR idea of God, the Constitution has to treat that evidence equally. Even if they capitalize their god.

Yet they trumpet their lack of rationality by continuing to pump out the same old tropes. "It's better for kids." "It's the way it's always been." "Civil unions they can have, but marriage should be for a man and a woman." Oh...wait, that last one is also John McCain's and Barack Obama's position. (Though wouldn't it be wonderful if they decided to change their minds and make the announcement the same day -- letting everyone know that fighting civil equality will always end in defeat, that legal discrimination on the basis of an inborn trait is wrong [no matter how icky it is to you], and that it's stupid to punish rather than reward behavior [entering into the civil marriage contract] that generally increases social stability? Any chance of that?)

Try as they might, none of them are sticking, logically speaking. I'm afraid, however, logic might not be enough. There is a hard stretch of road ahead.

As The World Kerns

Ann Barnett -- the woman who stopped her county from performing ANY marriages rather than performing even one same-sex ceremony -- is in deeper than I think she ever expected to be.

Now
AP has picked up on the story. Others as well, I'd imagine.

Who knows, maybe she planned this as part of a broader strategy to conflate same-sex marriage with the loss of religious freedom. But I doubt it. I just don't think she thought it all the way through. Her only media strategy at the moment is being non-responsive.

This could get complicated.

You can see the video of her smiling denials to comment here.

It gives you a peek at what it looks like when there is no rational reason to deny equality, yet you still do. Maybe someone told you God says it's a sin and you believed them. Or maybe it's just because it feel weird to you and you can't get over the "ick" factor. She is definitely of the school of "God said it, I believe it, that settles it."

Bless her crooked little heart, she thinks she's doing the right thing. She's standing up for a principle. It's just that this principle stands only if you believe that an invisible all-powerful being wants discrimination written into the Constitution.

Sign him up!

A note to any Christianist opponents of same-sex marriage: you can now happily ally yourself with the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Money quote: "I consider all American constitution evil, because it permits same-sexual marriage and many other things that are very bad." I'd love to see the Sheikh and Pat Robertson doing ads in favor of the same-sex marriage amendment, like Robertson and Al Sharpton are currently do for a global warming campaign.

It's Not Your Kern Yet

When I first noticed this story about how Kern County has decided to stop performing ALL marriages at the county courthouse, something didn't sound right to me. The reason given was, "lack of staff and space." I can't imagine the county clerk's staff is busy all day every day performing weddings. And don't they charge for that service? If they weren't charging enough to cover costs, why not simply raise the fee?

It just sounded fishy to me, like a cover up. Turns out, I was right. The Kern County Auditor-Controller-County Clerk, Ann Barnett is morally opposed to same-sex marriage and wanted to find a way to not have her office perform them. She tried to resign as county clerk, but remain as auditor and controller, but apparently the county was having none of that.

So, citing space and budget concerns, she ordered all marriages to stop as of Friday, June 13th, the Friday before the Monday when same-sex marriage will be legal in California.

Knowing that this could result in legal action, Barnett fired off an e-mail to the Alliance Defense Fund, an anti-same-sex marriage organization:

"Sent June 4, 2008 at 11:19 a.m.

From: Glenn Spencer (the Assistant Auditor-Controller-County Clerk)

To: Holly Estes

Subject: RE: Will You Provide Legal Assistance?

Holly, I also left a phone message for Brian, but I imagine he may be very busy right now. Our question is, now that the Supreme Court has refused to stay its decision, will Alliance Defense Fund defend the County Clerk if she ceases performing all marriage ceremonies as of 5:00 pm on June 16th? We have the news media calling for her response, and we need to issue a news release today, but she really needs to be assured of your legal assistance before she speaks to them, as we fully expect to be sued and our own counsel is not being of help. Thanks."

However, according to the story, performing weddings seems like it would be a profit center for the county:

"Records obtained from the clerk’s office for April and May of 2008 shed some light on whether wedding ceremonies are a financial drain on the county, as the press release claims. The county clerk’s office charges $30 for every ceremony it performs. In April and May the office performed 299 marriage ceremonies, according to records. That’s income — over two months — of $8,970. At that rate, it appears the county brings in more than $50,000 a year from performing marriages, before costs are figured into the equation.

An analysis of the pay of the county staff who perform the ceremonies puts the revenue into context. The top average hourly pay for an office services specialist — one of the classifications that conducts the weddings — is around $19.20 an hour, based on county salary charts. A marriage ceremony conducted Thursday took seven minutes to perform.

Barnett’s press release also stated that the county does not have the space to deal with increased ceremonies. But her office currently has two separate wedding rooms set aside for the marriage ceremonies."

I don't think this can last long.

The Philosophy of Change

Here is an interesting point of view on the politics of same-sex marriage -- with a decidedly philosophical point of view.

Money quote: "The 1960s sexual revolution advanced the frontiers of liberty into the bedroom. Under the guise of privacy rights, contraception and abortion gained constitutional protection. When the California Supreme Court calls same-sex marriage a right because it is "integral to an individual's liberty and personal autonomy," it is only ratifying a deep cultural change that's already taken place."

What's Keeping Me Awake Nights

Given the history of political tactics used by the right, the Rove-inspired attacks that lack reason or rationality, yet appeal to the less thoughtful (but still electorally-empowered) among us, I've been having some fitful nights concerned over how social conservatives will attack marriage equality. As I stated in an earlier post, the main arguments currently appear to be morality, tradition and the welfare of children. These are either not germane (Biblical morality has nothing to do with civil marriage) or are easily refuted (tradition changes all the time and extending civil equality to same-sex couples won't prevent opposite-sex couples from forming stable families).

For me, the major challenge lies in countering the coming attacks that will contend that the approval of same-sex marriage will result in proscriptions on religious freedom. The right wants the electorate to believe that gay couples will want to force churches to marry them.

Here's their logic: because homosexuality has been classified as a "suspect class" (at least under California law), similar to race, religion or national origin, the GLBT community can now expect similar protection against discrimination. A public accommodation, like a bus line or a lunch counter can't prohibit African-Americans or Jews or Pakistanis from using a public accommodation simply because they are black, Jewish or Pakistani. Now the same is true of homosexuality.

Here's how it's playing out. In New Jersey, a Methodist organization is suing the state because it feels pressured to hold same-sex commitment ceremonies in an open-air building that is used both as a church and other purposes, including weddings. The church owns the property, but receives tax benefits because of its non-profit status.

In Philadelphia and in Berkeley, the Boy Scouts have been forced to pay market rents for spaces they use, rather than the subsidized $1/year rents they had previously been charged. Why? Because the Boy Scouts don't allow gay folks as members and both those cities (rightly, the courts ruled) don't want to subsidize discrimination.

In these instances, however, the case seems clear: you can't have it both ways. If you want the tax benefits, you have to accept the laws of the community charging the tax. If you want to be a private organization and discriminate with impunity, fine. Just don't expect the rest of us to underwrite bigotry.

However clear that seems to me, it may be less so to Christianists.

The most challenging case, however, is one out of New Mexico. A lesbian couple planning a commitment ceremony tried to hire a photographer -- that refused to take pictures of the ceremony, citing religious grounds. The couple sued under the state's anti-discrimination law and the photographer was fined $6000.

To be honest, that one seemed a bit extreme to me. What happened to "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"? Then I thought, what if the photographer was Muslim and refused to photograph a Jewish wedding? Would we feel the same?

So, the Christianists are coming. And they are going to be shouting that the queers are trying to strip them of their religious rights. (Never mind that the Catholics have been denying divorced people the right to marry in their churches for decades without incident or lawsuit.)

Just read. And this. Money quote: "Wilson said that California's faith-based organizations will likely be barred from sexual-orientation discrimination in the use of facilities that are offered to the public, and may increasingly find themselves the targets of discrimination-based civil-rights litigation."

A Sign of Inequality

This may be a bit of good news in the fight for marriage equality. A judge in California has ordered that a man must continue to pay alimony to his ex-wife, even though she has entered into a legal domestic partnership with another woman (and even took her new spouse's last name). This indicates domestic partnerships are not equivalent to marriage, which seems to be what the California Supreme Court is attempting to determine. If the two legal relationships are seen as equal in rights and responsibilities, the court could conclude there is no need to open marriage to same-sex couples. But since they are not equal (at least in terms of alimony, in this judge's opinion), the court may be more willing to order civil marriage be opened to all couples.