Comments on: Rhode Island civil unions pass the House

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Sun, 22 May 2011 21:05:23 +0000

Hey Virginians, don't give up dreaming. A new WaPo poll shows that our message is being heard in Virginia and that we are actually winning the battle there.

Forty-seven percent of Virginians say gay couples should be allowed to legally wed, and 43 percent are opposed, according to the poll. Fifty-five percent of Virginians say gay couples should be able to legally adopt children.

By: ZRAinSWVA

ZRAinSWVA — Sat, 21 May 2011 15:28:31 +0000

JohnAG wrote, “Meanwhile, here in Virginia we can only dream of having civil unions…”

I’ve given up on dreaming about equality in Virginia. Our current Attorney General and Governor are homophobic jerks, the democrats are weenies, and the republicans are gun-totin’, very right-wing fundamentalist tea baggers.

Time to move…

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 20 May 2011 21:58:44 +0000

Give me a civil union that is recognized federally over a ‘marriage’ that means nothing much where it’s legal beyond being able to have a pretty ceremony.

And yes I’m married. And if you haven’t gone to the trouble of going to Canada or wherever to solemnize your union I don’t want to hear ‘separate but equal’. In NY it means nothing. And I’m sick to death of having to listen to the crap from NOM, et al. I don’t even want to be married any more. I want to have nothing to do with such disgusting people or such a trashy institution. Give me a dignified civil union and make it available to everyone. I’d be a happy man.

By: JohnAGJ

JohnAGJ — Fri, 20 May 2011 21:48:17 +0000

Meanwhile, here in Virginia we can only dream of having civil unions…

By: Theo

Theo — Fri, 20 May 2011 20:46:51 +0000

Tim:

Great. Looking forward to reading your thoughts and typically insightful analysis.

BTW, today Gallup came out with a poll showing a 9-point increase in support for SSM in the last 12 months – an increase that exceeds even the surge in IA. Gallup now puts support at 53-45, bringing it in line with PRRI, CNN, and ABC/WaPo. I believe that PPP also came to the same result using their telephonic survey method, which has been shown to be more accurate in polling on this issue. But for the reason stated above, I still can’t buy it, no matter how many times the result is replicated.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/First-Time-Majority-Americans-Favor-Legal-Gay-Marriage.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics%20-%20Social%20Issues

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:36:22 +0000

Theo,

Thank you. I do want to cover both issues, but I am swamped at work today.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:14:45 +0000

A total of 8 Democrats voted no?? On civil unions?? Until they suffer the political consequences of that vote our progress is going to be stalled for some time

By: dave

dave — Fri, 20 May 2011 13:32:38 +0000

It’s a joke. Give this to the queers to shut them up. We’ll keep what’s ours and give them this. We’ll let them use the bus but make them sit in the back. We win but we’ll make them think they have something.

By: Tina Wood

Tina Wood — Fri, 20 May 2011 07:45:21 +0000

Richard Rush: the votes were not there in the Senate for marriage by my count, but I know of several senators who wouldn’t support marriage but will support civil unions.

By: Tina Wood

Tina Wood — Fri, 20 May 2011 07:42:56 +0000

Amicus: no, RI did/does not have full recognition of out of state same-sex marriages. The state never passed any legislation granting that, and our courts also have not granted that. (Our previous attorney general issued a vague statement about it which had no legal weight. Our new attorney general had a longstanding anti-LGBT voting record when he was a legislator.) Some couples have found some success in certain cases with having their relationships recognized. But there have been two particularly egregious situations which have illustrated that we have no guarantee of recognition: the case a few years ago where a gay man legally married in Connecticut was not allowed to claim his dead partner’s body, and a case before that which went to our state’s Supreme Court which ruled that RI same-sex couples who legally married out of state cannot get a divorce in Rhode Island (still an ongoing problem.) There is a lot of confusion around the recognition issue because the law is unsettled, so advocates say what they want, and the media repeats it. But these terrible situations carry more weight in my view than unsupported statements by advocates.