Box Turtle Bulletin

Maryland Legislator Calls Anti-Gay Bluff

The main argument against allowing gay couples the same civil benefits and obligations as hetero couples is that “Marriage is a Religious Institution”.

So State Sen. Jamie B. Raskin proposed legislation that would entrench just such a notion. The state would cease to recognize marriages at all and replace them with domestic partnerships that would be open to both gay and straight couples. The if you wanted to “respect a religious institution” and get married you could do so in a religious place, your church. The Washington Post reports:

Under their proposal, all couples — straight or gay — would be on equal footing with secular unions. Religious marriage in churches, synagogues and mosques would be unaffected, as would existing civil marriages.

The word “marriage” would be replaced with “valid domestic partnership” in the state’s family law code.

“If people want to maintain a religious test for marriage, let’s turn it into a religious institution,” said Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery), the bill’s Senate sponsor.

Naturally, the anti-gays do not support this idea. It turns out that, surprise, they didn’t really mean what they were saying. What they really want is preferential treatment for heterosexuality.

“What they’re talking about is an even more radical departure from traditional marriage than even advocates for gay marriage are talking about,” said Del. Christopher B. Shank (R-Washington), the minority whip. “They’re creating a situation for one special interest group that basically diminishes the value of marriage for everyone else.”

As I have said before, the Democrat majority in Maryland has an obligation to find some method of providing protection for their gay citizens. Considering their overwhelming control of the state and the support that Democrats demand and receive from the gay community, it is unconscionable that no provision be made.

Pragmatically, civil unions may be the best that can be hoped for. But I believe that Raskin’s proposition has the potential to remind some legislators that secondary status – civil unions or domestic partnerships – are something they would never ever accept for their own relationships.

Let’s hope and pray that decency and integrity will rule the day and that Maryland’s elected leaders will come to believe that all persons, gay and straight, are equal and entitled to equal protection under the law.

See also:
Blade Asks What Happened In Maryland
Maryland Passes Limited Rights for Gay Couples
Maryland Balances Budget by Taxing Gay Widows
Maryland Senator Muse Champions Bigotry
Maryland AG Endorses Marriage Equality
Maryland Legislator Calls Anti-Gay Bluff
Maryland Introduces Bill to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage – Are Democrats Committed to Equality?
Maryland Marriage Poll

New York Recognizes Out-Of-State Same-Sex Marriages

A New York appellate court in Rochester ruled Friday that same-sex marriages from out-of-state must be legally recognized in New York, even though gay couples cannot marry legally in New York. Lawyers for both sides said the ruling applied to all public and private employers in the state under that state’s “marriage recognition rule.” The court notes that this rule has applied for more than a century for married couples generally, and there is no provision in law to exclude same-sex couples who hold a valid marriage license.

The five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court indicated that it is not the place of the courts to change laws relating to public policy. That falls to the legislature, who can change the law if they want to (PDF: 20KB/5 pages):

As the Court of Appeals indicated … the place for the expression of public policy of New York is in the Legislature, not the courts. The Legislature may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad. Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York.

It’s unclear whether Monroe County and Monroe Community College will appeal the decision.

Florida Anti-Marriage Initiative “Barely Meets Deadline”

First it was on, then it was off. Now it’s on again:

After four years of signature gathering, backers of a measure to deny family benefits for unmarried Floridians barely met the requirements to place the so-called “Florida Marriage Protection” constitutional amendment on the November ballot, according to state election officials.

Demographically, Florida has much in common with Arizona, particularly a large Senior Citizen base. And Florida’s proposed amendment, like Arizona’s would strip unmarried seniors from local protections and benefits due them because of their unmarried status. Seeing how difficult it has been to get the required number of signatures in such a socially conservative state, Florida looks like it will be shaping up into a very interesting battle.

Oregon Civil Unions Get The Go-Ahead

Just a few days before Oregon’s civil unions law was to go in effect on January 1, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman issued a temporary injunction bringing the plans for countless couples to a halt.

Judge Mosman acted on a suit brought by opponents to Oregon’s civil unions law who sought to overturn the legislature’s action by placing a referendum on the ballot. Their petition drive however drive fell 96 signatures short of the 55,179 needed put the measure on the ballot. The lawsuit, brought by the Alliance Defense Fund, claimed that signatures were wrongly rejected.

Yesterday, Judge Mosman, a 2003 Bush appointee, lifted his injunction and ruled for the lawyers for the state and Basic Rights Oregon. The Alliance Defense Fund promised to appeal, and anti-gay activists said they would start another petition drive.

Maryland Introduces Bill to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage – Are Democrats Committed to Equality?

Legislators in both the State Senate and the House have introduced bills to remove the gender requirement in state marriage law.

More than a fourth of state lawmakers have signed up to sponsor a bill that would legalize same-sex marriages in Maryland, the measure’s proponents announced today.

Although the bills have substantial support, they are unlikely to succeed. The leadership in both houses oppose the bills.

Gov. Martin O’Malley and House Speaker Michael E. Busch have said that they prefer civil unions. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller opposes both same-sex marriage and civil unions.

Maryland’s legislature is predominantly Democrat with a 33 to 14 advantage in the State Senate and 103 to 36 in the House. The leaders of both chambers are Democrats, as is the Governor.

The efforts today can probably best be viewed as an inter-party squabble, an effort on the part of some Democrats to force the hand of their leadership.

Although in control, the Maryland Democrat Party has done nothing to advance the rights of gay couples. They sat back after the state Supreme Court declared that gay persons are not equal under the Maryland Constitution and decided that it was just too soon and they are just too busy to find some measure of protection that they could put in place.

This will be an interesting case to watch.

The AP is currently reporting on the frustration that many gay individuals are feeling over the lack of courage on the part of Democrat Presidential candidates to stand up for equality. They quote Bay Windows editor Susan Ryan-Vollmar.

“They’ve merely settled on what the Democrats have staked out as a safe, consensus position, just far enough ahead of where the party was in 2004 to give a sense of progress but not so far as to threaten Middle America,” Ryan-Vollmar wrote. “That’s not leadership, it’s poll-tested and party-approved pandering, pure and simple.”

And some gay writers are starting to question whether Barack Obama’s flirting with the anti-gay black vote by embracing ex-gay Donnie McClurkin was all that accidental in light of his endorsement by Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell. Even his language used on Martin Luther King’s birthday which was often described as supportive of gay people spoke of “embracing” gays but not necessarily supporting their cause. Those of us familiar with anti-gay religious dogma are weary of “embracing” and “loving” that is not coupled with support for civil equality.

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee is being sued for anti-gay discrimination. Documentation released seems to suggest that the DNC may assume that it own the gay vote while showing contempt for the gay voters. (Queerty has a good synopsis)

As we told you earlier, a poll of Marylanders by the Baltimore Sun demonstrated that they overwhelmingly support civil unions or marriage for gay couples. So the legislature leaders cannot claim that the will of the people is not behind couple recognition.

In is into this sense of uncertainty that this bill is being introduced. And the Maryland marriage vote may well become a ‘put up or shut up’ moment. If the Democrats in the Maryland legislature defeat marriage equality without putting in place civil unions, gay men and women may become so disheartened that they question how much energy they wish to place in advancing candidates of a Party that takes them for granted. Gays may begin to ask if being “a bit better than the Republicans” is enough.

See also:
Blade Asks What Happened In Maryland
Maryland Passes Limited Rights for Gay Couples
Maryland Balances Budget by Taxing Gay Widows
Maryland Senator Muse Champions Bigotry
Maryland AG Endorses Marriage Equality
Maryland Legislator Calls Anti-Gay Bluff
Maryland Introduces Bill to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage – Are Democrats Committed to Equality?
Maryland Marriage Poll

New Mexico Moves Forward on Domestic Partnerships

The Las Cruces Sun-News is reporting that the New Mexico state House of Representatives voted to establish domestic partnerships.

The House approved the measure on a mostly party-line 33-31 vote. Two Republicans supported the bill and seven Democrats opposed it.

The state Senate has a Democrat majority (24 – 18) and if the vote mirrors that of the House, the bill could become law. It has the backing of Governor Bill Richardson.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the Senate would approve the proposal.

Although the legislature has chosen to use the language of “Domestic Parner”, a practice most common on the West Coast, the language of the bill provides that:

A. Domestic partners shall be entitled to the same legal obligations, responsibilities, protections and benefits as are afforded or recognized, now or in the future, by the laws of the state to spouses, former spouses, widows or widowers, whether they derive from statute, administrative or court rule, policy, common law or any other source of civil or criminal law.

However, Domestic Partners do have to file state income tax returns under the same provisions as their federal income tax returns, i.e. as legal strangers.

Al Gore on Same-Sex Marriage

Former vice-resident Al Gore has released a statement calling for the legalization of same-sex marriage:

Gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women — to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage. … Shouldn’t we be promoting the kind of faithfulness and loyalty to ones partner regardless of sexual orientation?

If there were any lingering doubts, this makes it official: Al Gore is not running for president this year.

Maryland Marriage Poll

The Maryland legislature may find itself entering into the fray in the great marriage debate. And with that in mind, the Baltimore Sun thought they’d find out what the residents of the state think.

• 19% favor gay marriage
• 39% favor civil unions instead of marriage
• 31% oppose both
• 11% really couldn’t give a darn

Now I predict the anti-gays will claim “81% support a ban on gay marriage”, but interestingly, only about 15% of those polled were in favor of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

See also:
Blade Asks What Happened In Maryland
Maryland Passes Limited Rights for Gay Couples
Maryland Balances Budget by Taxing Gay Widows
Maryland Senator Muse Champions Bigotry
Maryland AG Endorses Marriage Equality
Maryland Legislator Calls Anti-Gay Bluff
Maryland Introduces Bill to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage – Are Democrats Committed to Equality?
Maryland Marriage Poll

Defining “Conservative”

Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee are fighting for the evangelical conservative vote in South Carolina, the first southern state primary. They recently engaged in a little dispute over who is the real conservative.

While Huckabee is an ardent social conservative with close ties to the Christian Reconstructionist movement, and while he favors amending the Constitution to bring it into alignment with “God’s Standards“, other Republican nominees and conservative groups have noted that his positions on immigration, taxation, spending, crime, and free-market issues are not at all conservative.

The Wall Street Journal reported a bit about the exchange of words between Thompson and Huckabee.

Mr. Thompson, in a pitched competition with Mr. Huckabee for the evangelical vote in South Carolina, said he’s the one with consistent social conservative credentials. Of the former Arkansas governor’s record, “liberal would be the word I would apply to it,” he said.

Mr. Huckabee said it’s “ludicrous” to think he’s liberal and pointed out he favors a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and Mr. Thompson doesn’t.

And there you have it. In Rev. Huckabee’s mind, the difference between liberal and conservative is whether one favors a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The rest is all negotiable.

The Florida Miracle?

Just a month ago gay Floridians were gearing up to face yet another anti-gay marriage amendment. Supporters of constitutional discrimination had cheered the meeting of their signature collection goal and disassembled their signature teams. They had met the magic number of 611,009.

But the most peculiar thing has happened. The petition collectors seem not to have kept their own count, relying on the state. And the state made an error by double counting signatures taken before a certain date from a certain county.

And the petition stands 22,000 signatures short. Now the anti-marriage efforts must start anew and get those signatures collected and validated before February 1.

If the tables were turned, we all know that Pat Robertson and company would be declaring this to be the glorious intervention of God. He had befuddled the minds of the enemy and confused their nefarious homosexual agenda.

But I’m not going to make such claims.

Activists on both sides of the issue predicted the shortfall will be overcome in time, though.

Florida4Marriage.org blasted an urgent e-mail to supporters Tuesday announcing the crisis and urging them to “pull out all stops” in collecting signatures during the next two weeks.

But if by some chance they are not able to get their signatures… well, I may be willing to see the hand of the divine.

Salt Lake City Mayor Proposes Domestic Partnership Directory

This morning’s Salt Lake City Tribune reports that Ralph Becker, Salt Lake City, Utah’s new mayor, has announced that his very first action as mayor will be to propose a domestic partnership directory that would include same-sex couples:

Becker’s proposed ordinance, unveiled Thursday, bucks the politics in conservative Utah – a state that rewrote its constitution in 2004 to ban gay marriage.

…The registry, likely to win the support of the City Council in Utah’s left-leaning capital, would serve as a catalog of adult residents – gay or otherwise – who can voluntarily add their names as long as they provide proof that they cohabit and rely on one another as dependents.

I’ve driven through Utah, and I’ve found it to be perhaps the most beautiful and friendly states in the union. But I’ve never been to Salt Lake City, so please excuse me if I show my ignorance. Salt Lake City is left-leaning?

At any rate, congratulations to Mayor Becker for taking this step.

My Question For The NBC Democratic Debate

This question is for candidates who support civil unions for gay couples but not full marriage:

Given the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v Board Of Education which declared that separate is inherently unequal, how do you justify your position of giving gay Americans something less than full marriage?

Submit your own question here.

Boston Law Student Apologizes

Stephen Dunne, the law student who filed a lawsuit last June claiming he was unfairly flunked from the Massachusetts bar because he refused to answer a question on gay marriage, has apologized. Dunne had filed the lawsuit claiming that his Catholic beliefs and First Amendment Rights were violated by being forced to answer a “patently offensive and morally repugnant” question on gay marriage and divorce. Dunne withdrew the lawsuit in September after an outcry from the gay community.

According to the Boston Herald, Dunne apologized in a letter to the editor and an interview in the January 3 edition of Boston’s Bay Windows. (Update: The Bay Windows interview and letter are now online.) According to the Herald:

“By filing a misguided federal lawsuit… in respect to the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, I have regrettably perpetuated intolerance and animosity towards my fellow Americans,” Dunne said in his letter. “My religiously based discrimination of gay people was callous and diametrically opposed to America’s core principles of freedom and equality.”

…In Bay Windows, Dunne called his lawsuit a “lashing out” as a result of failing the exam. “…I am particularly regretful of my actions towards those gay and lesbian friends that I befriended and studied alongside during my three years of law school,” he said. “You are all wonderful people and loving parents…”

An Irish immigrant who’s now a U.S. citizen, Dunne said he came to see parallels in the discrimination of gay people and that faced by the Irish when they first came to America.

California Supreme Court – A Hint at Things to Come?

Same-sex couples who register for Domestic Partnerships in California receive treatment from the State identical to that of married couples. However, as the term “marriage” is denied same-sex couples, there are social inequities and other cultural and societal limits on same-sex couples.

Twice the legislature has voted to remove gender requirements for marriage and twice the Governor has vetoed the bill, citing questions before the State Supreme Court. Specifically, the Court is being asked 1) whether denying same-sex couples marriage is in violation of the state constitution and, 2) if not, whether a referendum passed by the voters in 2000 prohibits recognition of all gay marriages or only those performed in other states.

The California State Supreme Court has now received all written argument and oral argument, and a determination is predicted within the year. Today the court made a decision that may give us some clues as to how they are thinking on the issue.

In 1978 the voters in the state rebelled against the ever increasing property tax burden and changed the constitution (via Prop 13) to limit the increases in annual taxes and to limit reassessments upon the transfer to property to spouses.

In 2003 the State Board of Equalization decided that Domestic Partners were also entitled to transfer rights of property owned by a their partner. This was encoded into law by the legislature in 2005.

Some county assessors sued, claiming that the legislature could not tinker with propositions and redefine the terms of transfer.

The Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento disagreed in October, saying neither Prop. 13 nor subsequent measures barred lawmakers from granting additional exemptions to changes in ownership.

The court noted the Legislature’s declaration that the 2005 law was part of an effort to promote equality for all Californians, regardless of sexual orientation.

Today the State Supreme Court let the decision stand. Without comment or a dissenting voice.

There are several important differences between the property tax decision and the marriage question. Yet I think that this does give us a hint of the perspective of the members of the bench and a clue as to whether they will be welcoming of arguments about the limits to which a populace can restrict the rights of a minority and about the inherent equality of same-sex couples.

On Monday Night, Pop a Cork or Light a Candle

After midnight while the world is celebrating a new year, gay couples in New Hampshire will be celebrating new equality. Civil Unions will become legal there.

Meanwhile those couples in Oregon who were expecting to join in Domestic Partnerships will have a while longer to wait. The state has a peculiar system whereby a law can be delayed in implementation if there are enough signatures collected to force a vote of the populace.

Those who opposed allowing same-sex couples have any rights similar to those granted to opposite-sex couples gathered signatures but fell 96 short of the 55,179 required to stop the law. However they were able to find a judge to put the celebrations on a hold until he can hear their complaints about possible legal signatures that were invalidated.

The surprise ruling comes four days before the law would allow gay couples to gain most of the same legal benefits of marriage. Couples across Oregon were planning to show up at county offices Wednesday to register as partners.

But U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman ruled that they will have to wait. He set a Feb. 1 hearing to decide a lawsuit challenging the state’s methods for verifying signatures on a November 2008 referendum.

Mosman said attorneys for opponents showed that the rights of voters may have been violated if their signatures were wrongly rejected. Setting the next hearing in a month reduces the harm to people who would be affected by the new law, he said.

Those who had hoped to strengthen their families will instead light a candle.

In New Hampshire champagne will flow and tears and smiles abound in midnight ceremonies planned by those who just can’t wait any longer.

Whether you will be lighting a candle or toasting in new freedoms, have a very happy, healthy and sane New Year. And resolve to do your part in 2008 to bring about equality for gay couples across the nation and around the world.