Ask just about anyone. They’ll all tell you they’re in favor of equal rights for homosexuals. Just name the situation, and ask. They’ll all say, yes, gays should have the same rights in housing, jobs, public accomodations, and should have equal access to government benefits, equal protection of the law, etcetera, etcetera.
Then you get to gay marriage.
And that’s when all this talk of equality stops dead cold.
Nearly seventy percent of people in the U.S. oppose gay marriage, almost the same proportion as are otherwise supportive of gay rights. This means that many of the same people who are even passionately in favor of gay rights oppose gays on this one issue.
Why all the passion?
It’s because there is a lot of misunderstanding about what homosexuality really is, as well as the erroneous assumption that gay people enjoy the same civil rights protections as everyone else. There are also a lot of stereotypes about gay relationships, and even a great deal of misunderstanding of what marriage itself is all about.
It is heartening to see Democrats rally for a second charge on gay marriage after their failure to pass the measure in the days before Gov. Chris Christie took charge.
But let’s face it: This is not likely to succeed while Christie remains in office. He will veto it, as promised, and obedient Republicans in the Legislature will fall in line behind him, as always.
That’s the political lay of the land for the next two years, at least. If Christie wins re-election, this stalemate could drag on for six years. To most New Jersey citizens, that is simply not acceptable.
It is clear by now the civil union law has failed to deliver equal rights. And the problem is not just the documented cases of gay couples facing discrimination in hospitals, workplaces or the insurance market.
The term “civil union” suggests that gay couples are somehow not worthy of full marriage, that they cannot be allowed to enter this club, that their sexual preferences make them second-class citizens. Dress it up all you want, that view is offensive on its face. The message it sends to gay couples and their children is toxic.
So what is to be done? Sponsors of the gay marriage bill hope they can win new converts in the next few months, enough to override Christie’s expected veto. Some even hope the governor will change his mind. That would be the ideal outcome.
Remember, too, that supporters of gay marriage have filed suit, so the state Supreme Court could save the day by endorsing full marriage equality, as courts have in several other states.
But there is a third option — to amend the state constitution, bypassing the governor entirely, as suggested here by Josh Zeitz, who served as a senior aide to former Gov. Jon Corzine.
The beauty of this approach is that Christie has no power to stop it. Amendments approved by three-fifths of each house, or by a simple majority for two consecutive years, are placed on the November ballot for final approval by voters. So with just a one-vote majority, voters could decide the issue in the fall of 2013.
Yes, it is a risky business to put minority rights up to a majority vote. How long would Southern voters have held onto the ban on interracial marriage if the Supreme Court had not finally intervened in 1967? If voters rejected marriage equality at the polls, the Legislature and the court would be more likely to reject it in the future.
But if all else fails, a constitutional amendment is worth a try as a last resort. Polls show New Jersey voters are ready to approve marriage equality today. And the tide is clearly moving in that direction, especially among young people. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has shown that it can be a popular cause, even in states with large Catholic populations such as New York and New Jersey.
This fight has been long and difficult, as winning civil rights for minority groups always is.
But the day will come when gay couples in New Jersey won’t have to look across the Hudson River and dream about equal treatment under the law.
Rick Santorum continued his string of antigay pronouncements while on the trail in New Hampshire, saying a man in jail would be a better parent than a same-sex couple.
The Los Angeles Timesreports from Manchester, New Hampshire that Santorum claimed to quote an anti-poverty expert while explaining his case.
“He found that even fathers in jail who had abandoned their kids were still better than no father at all to have in their children’s lives,” Santorum told voters about the researcher, according to the Times.
If a same-sex couple were to raise a child, they would be “robbing children of something they need, they deserve, they have a right to. You may rationalize that that isn’t true, but in your own life and in your own heart, you know it’s true.”
This isn’t a new theme for Santorum and it potentially sets him apart from other Republican candidates for president. While in Iowa, where he finished behind Mitt Romney by eight votes, Santorum signed a pledge from the Iowa Family Leader that proclaimed his belief that same-sex parents are inferior to straight ones. Romney and Ron Paul did not sign the pledge, and Newt Gingrich inexplicably ignored that portion in his letter to the group backing only parts of it. (Gingrich’s lesbian step-sister, Candace Gingrich-Jones, toldThe Advocate in December that she and her wife would like to have children.)
This is utterly ridiculous. Christian anti-gay campaigns are really searching for valid arguments at this point. Research and many examples, such as the famous Zach Wahls who stood up to the government on behalf of his two moms, have proven that children of gay parents are no more at risk for sociological or other disorders than those of heterosexual parents. Realistically, Santorum here is attempting to say that homosexuals are of a lower class than convicts, or that they are lower on a moral scale. Ignorance abounds.
Iowa’s top state senator is standing firm on his commitment to block any legislative movement to constitutionally ban gay marriage in the only Midwestern state where it is legal.
Senate majority leader Michael Gronstal, a Democrat, reiterated his opposition during a Thursday interview on…
(Source: advocate.com)
As a lot of you probably know, Rick Perry recently released a campaign video slandering the LGBTQ community. In doing so, he also belittles the Christian community within North America.
Perry suggests that he will “end Obama’s war on religion” if elected as president, an act that signifies many things for the US. In saying this, Perry ultimately suggests that religion- or more specifically Christianity- is negatively impacted by both the LGBTQ community as well as separation of church and state. He is effectively creating a wedge between both communities, and in many ways enforcing social segregation.
This type of policy and bigotry is unacceptable, and I urge you all to report this video, here.
- Gingrich Promises Personal Fidelity in Pledge. I love how this is being reported as “Gingrich finally agrees to fidelity pledge for the first time,” because he had previously refused to sign The Family Leader document.
But, umn, marriage is a fidelity pledge. Granted, some couples choose not to include monogamy in their marriage agreement, which is totally fine, but the default arrangement involves exclusivity. You agree to a fidelity pledge when you say “I do.” So this is the third fourth, not the first time, Newt is taking the pledge.
(via ilyagerner)
The gay and lesbian community of Minnesota has issued a letter of apology to recently resigned Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch for ruining the institution of marriage and causing her to stray from her husband and engage in an “inappropriate relationship.”
“On behalf of all gays and…
(Source: blogs.citypages.com)
Marcus Bachmann has promised to campaign against gay marriage if his wife Michele is elected US president.
Marcus told an audience in Iowa that he will use his position as “First Man” to coordinate a nationwide campaign focused on the conservative traditional family values, including an…
Unfortunately, many who partake in the “pray the gay away” clinics end up extremely depressed (due to self-denial, perhaps?) and commit suicide. If politicians would continue protecting the right of freedom of religion, there would be no legal argument against the right to marry. Republicans, beware: if you elect a candidate who will prevent something on the basis of religion, there is no stopping. If you open the floodgates, the religious riots will come pouring in.
(Source: news.pinkpaper.com)
In truth, marriage is marriage. Presidential candidates like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry would beg to differ, however. That is why this is not a Republican blog. Although many conservatives argue that allowing gay marriage to exist in American culture will alter the definition of marriage (http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=BC04C02), they fail to realize that many definitions of national entities have been changed in the past. For example, until post-Civil War times African Americans were not considered human beings. They were considered property. When the definition of an African American person changed, the world did not end. Plagues did not come upon us.
Speaking of plagues, the Bible is used as the primary argument against gay marriage, or, as I like to call it, marriage. While from a religious standpoint this argument may hold some validity, it has no standing in the political world. The United States were founded with no religious bias. In fact, many of the founding fathers were Protestants or even atheists (http://www.atheists.org/law/founding_fathers). Realistically, what the religious need to realize is that bringing marriage into the country as a legal institution does not require religious cooperation. Gay marriage can be a civil institution without being a religious institution. Therefore, the biblical argument holds no realistic significance from a legal standpoint.
