Posts tagged “Gay Stuff” from longer posts

TAPPED's Adele Stan gets it right on marriage:

[M]arriage is a religious institution in which government has no business, except for the enforcement of the contract inherent in that sacred institution. I say, civil unions for everybody -- straights, gays, transgendered, omnisexuals, whomever -- and let the religious institutions determine on which couples they will confer the blessing of marriage.

Though I know we can never be together, I have a deep and abiding love for Rep. Frank. My latest favorite Frankism, on gay Republicans: "The right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy."

Hey -- vote Democrat, and that guy could be our next House Financial Services chairman. (via Andrew Sullivan)

We need to have a little perspective, folks. This smells like a victory, and from my layman's perspective, probably a sound way to go about getting to full equality. Marriage is both a legal and cultural construct. The court said yesterday that the state has no business telling any adult couple in New Jersey that they could not have the full and complete slate of rights and responsibilities given to what has for a very long time been marriage. Read Adam Bonin for the details on what was gained.

That's huge to me. That's huge for me. They also said that the cultural side of the question -- whether to call such unions "marriage" -- is properly decided by the legislature in Trenton. Maybe it's because I have a reverence for legislature, dunno, but the people's representatives do have their place in making these decisions at the pace right for the state. We want a lasting, enduring standing on marriage equality, so that we're not still arguing it 50 and 100 years from now.

I remember the dark old days where just support for equal rights for committed adult couples made a Democratic presidential candidate a raving leftist. That was way back in 2003. Today we've got civil unions in Vermont, marriage in Massachusetts, now this in New Jersey, so on and so forth. The arc of history is bending toward justice, and quickly.

I haven't had a chance to digest the New York decision on marriage equality or to solicit the thinking of smart legal minds. But it's clear that I can put off that decision on whether engagement rings from Tiffany's are a bit much for a while longer.

Here's a quick roundup of interesting stuff on the decision I've read from around the Web:

• Republic of T's Terrance Heath talks about the recent American American Academy of Pediatrics study that cited "ample evidence ... that children raised by same-gender parents fare as well as those raised by heterosexual parents" and found that marriage would benefit the children of same-sex couples. Terrance also talks about his own happy, healthy 3 year-old son being raised by him and his husband.

• Raw Story has the goods on Howard Deans response to the justification used in the court's ruling. Dean called it "bigoted and outdated."

• SCOTUSblog considers whether the New York decision and a marriage-equality ruling in Georgia raise federal questions. (Short answer: no, they don't.)

• Glenn Reynolds favors marriage equality but wants it to happen through the political process -- an idea I want to hear more about.

• And finally, this old piece from Washington U. anthropologist Lisa Stone gives one take on the historical and cross-cultural fluidity of marriage.

When I read Paul on Further Ramblings of a N. Irish Magyar talk about this past weekend's Gay Pride Parade in Budapest -- and the march organizers' advice on how to remain incognito ("basic camouflage techniques: hats, sunglasses, or even a costume") -- I couldn't help but think of the pride events we had this past weekend in New York City. The unofficial "dyke march" was on Saturday afternoon. Hundreds if not thousands of women strode down Manhattan's streets on the way to Washington Square Park. Gay. Proud. Several women ran ahead of the front of the group and locked arms to block cars, protest-style, from crossing their path. But they didn't really need to because New York City police officers blocked traffic for them. As flow of people pooled around the arch at the entrance of the park, a big burly cop pulled out his bull horn and called out, "this is a great day, enjoy your march." I know it sounds like I'm making it up, but I swear that as he lowered his bullhorn he was on the verge of crying. I can be as cynical as the next gal about the state of gay rights and such in this country, but damn Bill Frist. Damn Jerry Falwell. We're lucky, we are.

This little quip from Clinton may have been more humorous were he not the man who (1) came up with the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, (2) signed the Defense of Marraige Act, (3) advised John Kerry to come out in support of anti-gay marriage amendments in the 2004 election, and (4) said of his opposition to gay marriage: "This has been my long-standing position, and it is not being reviewed or reconsidered." But he did all those things, so no laugh for Bill from me.

Tonight's A&E movie "Flight 93" reminded me of a fact that I had forgotten -- Mark Bingham, one of the passengers who resisted the highjackers, was a proud gay rugby-playing man. I wish that it wasn't even worth mentioning. But we are of course living in the age of James Dobson, a time where those who demonize homosexuals are embraced by the establishment. (I'm talking about things like the White House's vetting of Harriet Miers with Dobson, a man who routinely makes statements asserting such things as that gay marriage "will destroy the earth.") Pointing out that gay men and women are human and occasionally even heroic seems sadly necessary.

Heard at last night's candidate forum for the open seat in New York's 11th Congressional District:

"I can't get my mind around a society that would deny those basic rights."
- NYC Council Member Yvette Clark, on hospital visiting rights for same-sex couples

Great, a few hundred medical professionals kicked out of the military for their propensity toward homosexuality. Add that the scores of linguists and translators (26 of them speakers of the really rather unimportant languages of Arabic and Farsi) discharged for the same sin over the last several years. Well, the Defense Department has managed to rid the world of one evil -- the highly-trained-and-mission-critical-but-queer military specialist. Fabulous.