Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyPosts Tagged As: California
May 29th, 2008
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t the only one hoping for an economic boom as gay couples go to California to get married. Macy’s is celebrating marriage equality in California as well — the same way they celebrate President’s day and Christmas:
First comes love. Then Comes Marriage. And now it’s a milestone every couple in California can celebrate. Let Macy’s Wedding Gift and Registry help you start your new life together.
And now all the LGBT blogs are spreading Macy’s latest ad around the internet, effectively giving Macy’s tons of free advertising. Smart move. Ah, the magic of Macy’s…
May 28th, 2008
Contrary to last week’s Los Angeles Times/KTLA poll, a new Field Poll released yesterday (PDF: 49KB/8 pages) shows a historic shift in California voters’ support for same-sex marriage. For the first time in history, a majority of California voters now say they support same-sex marriage and oppose a proposed anti-marriage state constitutional amendment.
The poll, taken after the California Supreme Court decision to allow same-sex marriage, asked two groups of voters differently worded questions about same sex marriage. When they were asked about “barring marriage between gay and lesbian couples,” they opposed the ban by 54 to 40 percent. When voters were asked whether they favored or opposed “having the state constitution prohibit same-sex marriage,” they opposed the ban, 51 to 43 percent. The margin of error for these two questions was +/- 5.0%. The maximum margin of error overall was 3.2%.
There were some interesting generational differences:
| Age Group | Percent Supporting Same-Sex Marriage |
|---|---|
| 18-29 | 60% |
| 30-39 | 58% |
| 40-49 | 51% |
| 50-64 | 47% |
| 65+ | 36% |
And there were some religious differences as well. Born-again Christians opposed same-sex marriage by 68% to 24%. Protestants in general were opposed, 57% to 34% , and Catholics were were narrowly opposed, 48% to 45%. Voters from other religious groups favored same-sex marriage by 61% to 33%, while people with no religious affiliation supported same-sex marriage by 81% to 12%.
May 27th, 2008
The LA Times took a poll on public response to the California Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate the ban on same-sex marriage. The response was:
And as to whether they would support an amendment to reverse the decision (registered voters)
The Times found this to be inconclusive
the poll suggests the outcome of the proposed amendment is far from certain. Overall, it was leading 54% to 35% among registered voters. But because ballot measures on controversial topics often lose support during the course of a campaign, strategists typically want to start out well above the 50% support level.
However, if we compare the polling to the vote on Proposition 22 – an anti-gay marriage legislative initiative on the Spring 2000 ballot – it is hard to maintain a rosy view of the future. Seven months before the election, polling showed support at 57%, opposition at 39% and uncertainty at 4%. The month before the election, 5% had moved from support to uncertain. But on election day, 61% of those who went to the polls voted to restrict the rights of their gay neighbors.
If the same pattern holds, in November this new anti-gay amendment will also pass by significant numbers.
But there is one card we hold that we did not have eight years ago. Unless the court issues a stay, Californians will not be asked to prohibit possible future marriages, they will be asked whether lives that have been joined should be put asunder. It ceases to be abstract and becomes personal.
So I ask this of you fellow gay Californians who are considering taking this step: Invite your friends and relatives. It may break your budget to double your guest list but do it anyway. Even if you have to limit yourself to cake and punch in the church’s rec hall. Even if you really don’t want to see Aunt Edna and hear her snide remarks on your special day, invite her anyway. Invite everyone and anyone that might be even slightly happy for you.
And be certain that your minister tells those present that “forever hold your peace” means that they have to support this union, in person and at the ballot box, and they are obligated to do what they can to keep it together, happy, and legal. Marriage is not just a commitment between two people. It is also a commitment between the couple and the community.
Aunt Edna may not like gay marriage. But make sure she is invested in your gay marriage. Make your marriage matter to your friends, your family, and your neighbors. Give them a reason to vote against this discriminatory amendment.
May 22nd, 2008
May 20th, 2008
The Sacramento Bee reports
The governor appeared at an Environmental Defense Fund event to discuss products and practices that can help businesses become more environmentally sound.
One practice?
In the wake of the state Supreme Court’s recent legalization of gay marriage, the Republican governor said Tuesday in San Francisco he wants gay couples to flock to California for wedded bliss.
“You know, I’m wishing everyone good luck with their marriages and I hope that California’s economy is booming because everyone is going to come here and get married,” said Schwarzenegger, prompting laughs and applause.
Yeah, he’s kidding.
But I’m sure that the state’s hotels and caterers and wedding planners are taking the change in law very seriously.
May 20th, 2008
We have become accustomed to hearing our elected officials speak a specific language, one utilized by bureaucrats and designed to have no specific meaning. This allows them to sound authoritative (or compassionate or informed) without being held accountable for their positions.
So it can be refreshing when a politician says something directely, clearly, and in language we all speak and understand. I believe that Arnold Schwarzenegger did just that in explaining his response to the California Supreme Court decision to invalidate state law that restricts marriage to opposite sex couples.
From the San Francisco Chronicle
“First, I have always said that for me, marriage is between a man and a woman,” he said.
Then he added: “But I don’t want to make everyone else go in that direction.”
Schwarzenegger said he vetoed same-sex marriage legislation because he felt the Legislature shouldn’t override voter-approved Proposition 22, which had defined marriage as between a man and a woman and was nullified by the high court on Thursday.
However, the governor said he doesn’t necessarily feel the same when it comes to the Supreme Court overturning a statute enacted by a voter initiative.
“When the people vote, people are not legal experts, constitutional experts or any of that,” he said. “I think that’s why we have the courts. People may vote with good intentions, but then the court says, ‘This is not constitutional.’
“It’s not that the court interferes with the will of the people,” he added. “But the court says, ‘You voted for something, but it’s not constitutionally right, so let’s rework this.’ That’s really the idea.”
Oddly enough, that makes sense to me.
Perhaps this is not the most elequent statement, but it is a statement that I think can appeal to the average Californian. And I’m glad to hear it from our governor.
May 19th, 2008
Chief Justice Ronald M. George is an unlikely figure to write such a thoroughly pro-gay opinion as the one released last Wednesday that brought marriage equality. The 68-year-old moderate Republican appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson surprised Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel. “His change from where I thought he would be is baffling,” Staver told the Los Angeles Times yesterday. Nobody expected such a sweeping decision to go even beyond the arguments of same-sex marriage:
The court was poised 4 to 3 not only to legalize same-sex marriage but also to extend to sexual orientation the same broad protections against bias previously saved for race, gender and religion. The decision went further than any other state high court’s and would stun legal scholars, who have long characterized George and his court as cautious and middle of the road.
But as he read the legal arguments, the 68-year-old moderate Republican was drawn by memory to a long ago trip he made with his European immigrant parents through the American South. There, the signs warning “No Negro” or “No colored” left “quite an indelible impression on me,” he recalled in a wide-ranging interview Friday.
“I think,” he concluded, “there are times when doing the right thing means not playing it safe.”
May 16th, 2008
It’s far easier to deny rights to them than it is to you.
Them, those un-named faceless homosexuals out there in San Francisco, are foreign and strange and we don’t care what they want. But you, the person we know and love, well we don’t like disappointing you.
Today Ellen Degeneres made gay marriage personal. She announced that she and Portia de Rossi plan to marry. The response: a standing ovation.
Now some of her viewers may not really approve in the abstract of state sanctioned marriage between persons of the same sex, but how can you not be happy for Ellen?
We all have an audience. We all have people who want to be happy for us.
Take Dan Pinello and Lee Nissensohn. These guys aren’t celebrities. But they found a way to introduce themselves to their neighbors and become a face and a name in the marriage equality debate.
Dan and Lee were arrested for trespassing on April 28 when they refused to leave Oyster Bay Town Hall at closing time after officials politely rebuffed the couple’s request for a marriage license. And now when some New Yorkers think of gay marriage, they think of those two middle aged professionals with a weakness for stray cats.
You don’t have to announce your engagement on a popular talk show. You don’t have to get arrested or even speak to a newspaper. But your grocer and your autorepairman and your dentist all vote. For them you can give marriage equality your face and name.
May 15th, 2008
CNN could not have been more wrong in how it first reported on the California Supreme Court decision today:
May 15th, 2008
The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism has issued a statement in support of today’s California Supreme Court Decision.
The Reform Jewish Movement has long been committed to welcoming GLBT Jews into our congregations, synagogues and communal life and strongly supports legislative efforts to provide equal opportunity through civil marriage for gay and lesbian individuals. As we teach our children, all individuals are created b’tselem elohim, in the image of the Divine; today’s ruling reflects that concept of inherent equality.
This is a historic day, a day to celebrate. Tomorrow, however, is the day to begin organizing against the all-but-inevitable initiatives to amend the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage equality. As soon as we finish today’s victory toast, we are ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Their efforts are more than welcome.
May 15th, 2008
In an interview with the Sacramento Bee the CA Governor spoke against the anti-gay-marriage initiative that may be on the November ballot.
“I think we have bigger fish to fry than do people have a right, if they are gay, to get married or not,” Schwarzenegger said. “I think that we should think about fixing the budget system and think about fixing the health care system and rebuilding California.”
He didn’t commit to a campaign schedule against the initiative
The Republican governor told The Bee’s editorial board he would not commit to campaigning against the proposed initiative, though he said he will make it clear that he is against it in other ways. He called the initiative a “big mistake.”
As many of the Governor’s staff are gay and are in committed relationships, I suggest that one way that Schwarzenegger could make it clear might be to officiate at a wedding.
May 15th, 2008
Whenever I write a post, my worst struggle is with the headline. I’m rarely satisfied with what I come up with. In a word, I suck.
But at least my headlines aren’t as bad as this one:
How Will California Homosexual Couples Consummate their Counterfeit ‘Marriages’?
Poor Peter. His mind really is in the gutter, isn’t it?
May 15th, 2008
The following countries offer some form of recognition to same-sex couples:
Marriage
Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, United States (Massachusetts, California)
Civil Unions
New Zealand, Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul), Argentina (Buenos Aires, Rio Negro), Mexico (Coahuila), Uruguay, United States (Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey)
Registered Partnership or Domestic Partnership
Denmark, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Finland, Luxembourg, , Slovenia, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Italy (City of Padua), Switzerland, Hungary, Australia (Tasmania), United States (Maine, Washington, Oregon)
Other Methods of Limited Recognition
France (PACS), Germany (Life Partnership), Croatia (Law of Same-Sex Relationships), Andorra (Stable Union of a Couple), Mexico (Mexico City – PACS), Colombia (Common-law marriage inheritance rights), Israel (Limited recognition of foreign legal arrangements), United States (Hawaii – Reciprocal Benefits; New York – recognition of out-of-state legal marriages)
Although recognition is in a rapid state of change, this is my best understanding of the current rights provided. Several nations are in the process of adding or revising recognition.
May 15th, 2008
Maggie Gallagher, President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and Board Member of the Marriage Law Foundation, likes to present herself as thoughtful and reasoned. She likes to dance along the edge of deception, implying rather than declaring that which is not accurate.
But the decision of the California Supreme Court seems to have thrown her enough that her innate dishonesty has shown through. Gallagher released a statement saying the following:
“California’s supreme court has just ruled that the 62 percent of Californians who voted for marriage as the union of husband and wife are just bigots. But thanks to the 1.1 million Californians who signed petitions to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot this November, activist judges will not have the last word in California, California voters will,” said Maggie Gallagher, President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.
The problem is that the court said nothing of the sort.
Many of those Californians who voted in favor of Proposition 22 did not do so out of anti-gay animus. We have long acknowledged that there are reasons other than bigotry for persons to be uncomfortable with marriage equality. All the court said was that such reasons are not a compelling state interest for purposes of the equal protection clause.
Further, Gallagher knows full well that the California Supreme Court is not a collection of “activist judges“. The court would be best described as cautiously conservative.
Why then would Gallagher say these untruthful things?
I believe it is because she has invested so much time and energy in opposing equal rights for gay citizens that she would rather try and sway public opinion than tell the truth. It is sad that many of those, including Gallaher, who most loudly claim the authority of morality, have so little personal integrity.
Today The State Supreme Court Ruled To Overturn My Vote
May 15th, 2008
Yes, in 2000 I voted yes on California Ballot Proposition 22 which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. At the time I had recently concluded reparative therapy with Joseph Nicolosi and held beliefs about sexuality largely consistent with Evangelical Christianity. I believed marriage was created by the Christian God and that our society had no choice but to retain God’s definition and voted accordingly.
In reaction to today’s decision the religious-right will no doubt claim this decision is counter to the will of the people. However this assumes nothing has changed in 8 years.
Eight years later I now realize how flawed, hurtful, and destructive my logic was. I wish to apologize for that vote. There are very few things in my ex-gay experience I am truly ashamed of — My vote in 2000 is one of those things. I thank the California State Supreme Court for making right on my error.
I have never been prouder than I am today to be from California.
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