Box Turtle Bulletin

Wyoming rally

As Jim informed you, on Monday the the House Corporations Committee will hear testimony on the marriage equality and domestic partnership bills followed on Wednesday by a hearing in Judiciary for the non-discrimination bill.

Equality Wyoming is holding a rally on Monday in support of all three bills.

When: Monday, 9 AM on the front steps of the Capitol Building in Cheyenne.

Come dressed for business because we mean business for Wyoming!

Our rally will be calm, cool, and collected with slick black and white signs. If you’d like to make your own signs (encouraged!), go for simple, clear messages that lend themselves to black and white photography.

Check out the Action Alert for more information.

Wyoming Lawmakers To Consider Marriage Equality Legislation

Timothy already covered this in his state-by-state rundown, but I think it deserves a bit more visibility. Wyoming lawmakers will consider two bills on Monday, one granting same-sex marriage and the other providing domestic partnership benefits. There is also a non-discrimination bill under consideration. From the National Center for Lesbian Rights:

At noon on Monday, January 28, the House Corporations Committee will hear testimony on the marriage equality and domestic partnership bills. If one or both pass committee, they will proceed to a vote by the entire House of Representatives a few days later. On Wednesday, Jan 30, at 8 a.m., the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on the non-discrimination bill.

The legislation has bipartisan support, including, as Timothy noted last week, “Catholic Republican Chair of the Judiciary Committee (Keith) Gingery, who did not support marriage in 2007, 2009, or 2012.” NCLR urges Wyoming residents to call or email their legislators today, and provides contact information.

Russian Military Has Foolproof Method for Finding Gay Soldiers

I’m not sure what it is, but it somehow involves tattoos:

The new guidelines, based on a psychology textbook published by a military university in 2005, call for carrying out a physical examination and recommend checking for tattoos in intimate places on the new recruits’ bodies, Izvestia reported, citing a copy of the guidelines that it obtained.

Special attention is recommended for tattoos near the face, sexual organs and buttocks, as the author believes that such tattoos reveal possible sexual deviations.

“The reason for getting tattoos could indicate a low cultural or educational level. If an influence by external factors is determined, for example, persuasion or direct coercion, this indicates the malleability of the young man, his disposition to submit to another’s will,” the text says.

The guidelines also include a wide range of warning signs indicative of mental instability, including early sexual experience and ‘uncontrolled sexual behavior,’ both of which are included in the same category as alcohol abuse, running away from home, suicidal tendencies and theft.

NARTH Counselor Admits Failure in Changing Sexual Orientation, Blames Patient, Sues California for the Right to Try Again

The American Medical Association’s publication American Medical News has a very good article about efforts in California and New Jersey to regulate Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE). The article opens with a vignette about a patient who has undergone SOCE, failed to change his sexual orientation (predictably), and now has to come to terms with that failure:

After attending a religious-based therapy six times a week and experiencing no change in his sexuality, the patient was left feeling ashamed, depressed and suicidal, Dr. Drescher said.

“I felt sad[ness] and also anger, because sometimes a therapist would say things that were very hurtful to the patient,” said Dr. Drescher, an author and medical expert on gay conversion therapy. He also is president of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, a think tank that analyzes issues in the field of psychiatry. “It’s distressing when you see professionals, regardless if they are well-meaning or otherwise, deliver intentional or inadvertent harm to a patient.”

For an example of just what kind of harmful statements, the article points to Psychiatrist Anthony Duk,  who is a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits challenging California’s ban on SOCE for minors:

“With this bill, what’s really at stake is the definition of masculinity as well as the entire basis of civilization,” he said. “When men don’t act like men, you have a breakdown of traditional family roles and weakening of the entire human race.”

Dr. Duk said he sees about three patients a year who he said need help fighting same-sex attractions. His treatment of such patients has not resulted in the desired outcomes, he said.

“I was not successful with the ones I had because they did not stay long enough,” he said. “The major factor is whether the patient really wants to heal. The ones who want to get better, those are the ones” able to change.

What you will notice is 1) Duk has been unsuccessful in trying to change the sexual orientation of his patients 2) he blames them for their failures, and 3) he wants the State of California to allow him to continue to inflict this same harm onto others — I guess in the vain hope that some day he might get it right?

Marriage Bills Introduced In Hawaii

A flurry of bills addressing same-sex marriage have been introduced into Hawaii’s House and Senate yesterday. One version of bills introduced simultaneously in both houses by Sen. Mike Gabbard (D-20) and Rep. Faye Hanohano (D-4) would grant full marriage equality to Hawaii’s same-sex couples.

Gabbard is a former Republican who campaigned against gay rights in the 1990s and pushed for the 1996 Constitutional amendment which overturned a state Supreme Court ruling granting marriage equality and reserved the power to interpret what constitutes a legal marriage in the state to the legislature.

Two more bills introduced by Rep. John Mizuno (D-28) appear aimed at countering Gabbard and Hanohano’s bills. Mizuno, who says that he opposes same-sex marriage, proposed two constitutional amendments: one would ban same-sex marriage permanently, and the other would legalize it. Both amendments would go before voters.

The Time Michelangelo Signorile Called the Future Pope Benedict XVI “The Devil” To His Face

It was twenty-five years ago today.

Russian Duma Approves First Reading Of Anti-Gay Legislation

As gay rights campaigners and militant Orthodox Christian nationalists clashed outside of Russia’s Parliament, the Duma voted overwhelmingly for a so-called “anti-propaganda” bill which would prohibit pro-gay public demonstrations and dissemination to minors, with fines of up to US$16,000. The bill passed its first reading by a vote of 388-1, with one abstention. It will require two more readings and President Vladimir Putin’s signature before becoming law. RT quotes one lawmaker as saying she expects the second and third readings to be completed by July

While that was going on, the Associated Press reports that as many as twenty demonstrators were detained by police outside the Duma:

Earlier Friday, three dozen LGBT rights campaigners gathered near the State Duma to protest the law, while militant Orthodox activists started assaulting and pelting them with eggs. Police intervened, but mostly detained the LGBT campaigners.

At a similar rally Tuesday, Orthodox activists violently assaulted and beat up LGBT campaigners, who had gathered to kiss each other in protest against the planned legislation.

…Some lawmakers and public figures have accused gays of contributing to the fall in Russia’s already low birth rates, and have argued that they should be barred from government jobs, undergo forced medical treatment or be exiled.

An executive with a government-run television network said in a nationally televised talk show that gays should be prohibited from donating blood, sperm and organs for transplants, and that their hearts should be burned or buried after death.

Marriage update – North America

It’s getting marriagey all over the place. And it’s also getting hard to keep track of what is going on where. So here is an update to help (which will probably be outdated by the time I hit “publish”).

North America:

Canada – Marriage has been equal since 2005.

Mexico – Marriage is equal in Mexico City, and marriages conducted there are recognize throughout the nation. However, in December, the Supreme Court unanimously found that an anti-gay marriage law in Oaxaca was unconstitutional. Due to Mexico’s complicated legal system, this means that marriages are highly likely to eventually be legal throughout the nation, but the process requires that five same-sex couples in each state file an amparo (civil rights claim) and that the court issue the same ruling on each. It may take some time for the legality of the state by state process to catch up, but the reality is that any Mexican couple wishing to marry probably can, either immediately or through petition.

United States – Several locales provide or have provided marriage equally:

• Massachusetts – 2005 2003
• California – 2008, but rescinded that year
• Connecticut – 2008
• Vermont – 2009
• Iowa – 2009
• New Hampshire – 2010
• The District of Columbia – 2010
• New York – 2011
• Washington – 2012
• Maryland – 2012
• Maine – 2013

In addition, two Native American tribes, the Coquille in Oregon and the Suquamish in Washington provide marriage equally to their members.

Current and upcoming movement on the marriage front includes:

* DOMA3 – several federal courts have found the federal prohibition on recognition of legally married same-sex couples – the Defense of Marriage Act, Section 3 – to be unconstitutional on several grounds. The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to hear one case, Windsor v. the United States, a case in which Edie Windsor was assessed in excess of $300,000 in inheritance tax from her wife’s estate, a tax that does not apply to heterosexuals. On Tuesday, the special counsel for the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (at the direction of House Speaker John Boehner) filed its arguments in defense of the law (I’ll try to get an analysis up soon). It argued that BLAG has standing to support the law, that only rational basis should apply to anti-gay discrimination, that the nation needs uniform recognition, and that states should be allowed to decline to offer equality if they so choose (thus, I assume, vetoing other states in the name of uniformity). Today Professor Victoria C. Jackson will, at the court’s request, filing a brief insisting that BLAG has no standing and on February 26th, Windsor’s team will present arguments as to why she should not be discriminated against. Oral arguments before SCOTUS will be on March 27th, and the Court will likely release it’s ruling in June. Whichever way it goes, it will probably only impact couples in states which allow marriage.

* Proposition 8 – this is the highest profile case, but it could end up having the least legal effect. In 2008, the California Supreme Court found the state’s law prohibiting same-sex marriage to be a violation of the state’s constitution. For several months, same-sex couples could legally marry, but in November the voters approved Proposition 8 by 52%, ending marriage equality in the Golden State. In May 2009, Ted Olson, one of the most prominent Republican attorneys and David Boies, one of the most prominent Democratic attorneys, teamed up to fight for the legal overturn of that proposition. In January 2010, though cameras were banned from the courtroom, the nation was captivated by the reporting about the case – a trial not only on the legality of the proposition but also on its merits. Federal Judge Vaughn Walker eventually found the proposition to violate the US Constitution on broad grounds. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision, but on much narrower grounds: that a state cannot provide a right to all citizens and then take it away from a select few. Last month the Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal, but added the question as to whether the proponents defending the law (the Governor and Attorney General declined to do so) have standing. On Tuesday the proponents of the law filed their brief (I’ll try to get an analysis up soon). Olson and Boies have until February 21st to respond, and oral arguments will be on March 26th with a likely result in June. While the Court could find that the US Constitution guarantees marriage equality across the land, it could also choose to narrow its ruling to the unique issues of the case and only impact Californians.

* Rhode Island – on Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the marriage bill. The full House voted in favor today 51-19. However, the Senate is less certain. Although Rhode Island is virtually a single-party state (the Senate has 32 Democrats, 5 Republicans, and 1 Independent), the Senate President, Teresa Paiva-Weed, is an opponent to equality. She has said that she will allow a committee to hear the matter, but in times past she has made certain that committees were selected to prevent equality.

I have started a petition at Change.org to request that should Paiva-Weed obstruct or block the passage of this bill, that Rhode Island State Senators remove her from power. Please go sign this petition.

* Illinois – a marriage bill was submitted during the first week of the year in a lame-duck session. Due to difficulty in corralling members returning from holiday, the vote never took place.

After the new legislature was is session, the bill was reintroduced. Currently the status is a bit in limbo as the bill is yet to be sent to committee.

However, that does not mean that there is no excitement, just that it’s happening outside the legislature and in an unexpected arena. The GOP chairman has come out in favor of marriage, which has angered social conservatives in the state. Bit though they are demanding his resignation and threatening ouster, the party insiders are lining up behind the chairman. At the moment it seem like the prevailing position may end up, “we may not support equality, but we support those who do.” In any case, this latest public squabble serves our community well.

* Minnesota – fresh off a victory in turning back an anti-marriage bill in November, Minnesotans for All Families is fighting on and will present a marriage bill to the legislature next month. The political strategist who generaled the battle is staying on to finish the war.

Polls are breaking even in the state and the DFL (Democratic) party has a slim lead in each house, so they will have their work cut out for them. But I would be surprised if the state did not take some movement towards couple recognition.

* Colorado – supporters filed an everything-but-the-name Civil Unions bill which is pretty much guaranteed to pass. More than half of each house has signed on as sponsors. This is as far as that state can go at present, as there is a state constitutional ban on equality.

* Wyoming – out of pretty much nowhere and flying way below the radar, lesbian Sen. Cathy Connolly has file both a domestic partnership bill and a marriage bill. Both have significant Republican support.

They may not be attracting much buzz on these bills due to party power; Republicans dominate both houses by overwhelming numbers. But Wyoming Republicans are traditionally pretty libertarian in their thinking and local papers are mostly quoting the bills’ Republican cosponsors. It may be early yet, but so far there doesn’t appear to be any visible organized opposition. I would not be altogether shocked if one of the bills passed or, at least, got a decent vote.

* New Jersey – the legislature of this state has already passed a marriage bill which was vetoed by the governor. However there are the paths to equality that might be achievable.

One is to take it to the people. But though a supporter brought such a bill, it was quickly dismissed due to the inherent insult of voting on a minority’s civil rights. (Personally, I’d rather win at the polls that fight over whether its an insult to do so.)

The second path, the one favored by equality leaders in the state, is to continue building support one by one until we have the numbers to override a veto. That would require substantial Republican support and this would be held off until after the next primary to minimize conservative backlash.

The third possibility doesn’t appear likely, but it shouldn’t be written off. Governor Chris Christie is a politician, and politicians are susceptible to evolution.

Christie made his mark in the Republican Party by being hard nose on fiscal issues but being more progressive on social issues. He was the poster boy for supporting civil unions, a position that made him seem ahead of the curve. As the Party moves away from anti-gay hostility, he may find it necessary to move as well. It’s not a bet I’d take, but it’s not outside the realm if possible for the Governor to hold to his views but still find some way to allow marriage to become law.

* Hawaii – I’ve no idea why marriage hasn’t already become law.

I think it can be hardest sometimes in states in which one party dominates. In mega-red states, we have little hope (though i just made a case for Wyoming). But in all-blue states, its not always much better. There’s no reason for Democrats to show the voters the difference between them and Republicans, so they fell less pressure to live up to their potential.

I’m sure I’ve missed some state in there. And, of course, you have to always expect that something completely unexpected will happen.

Tomorrow I’ll try to provide an update for Europe and South America.

UPDATE:

Yesterday, a state representative in Hawaii filed a bill for marriage equality. She had no cosponsors. Also yesterday, 15 representatives filed a bill calling for a constitutional amendment banning equality. It was also introduced in the senate. Additionally, a state senator filed a pair of ‘take it to the people’ bills which would have voters choose to either allow or ban marriage in the constitution (he’s an opponent of equality). All in all, it looks dire for marriage in Hawaii.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, January 25

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Creating Change Conference, Atlanta, GA; Midsumma, Melbourne, VIC; BeefDip, Puerto Vallarta, JAL; Winter Rendezvous Ski Week, Stowe, VT; Out In the Desert LGBT Film Festival, Tucson, AZ.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Alice Mitchell Kills Freda Ward: 1892. Freda Ward was the socialite daughter of a wealthy planter and merchant. Alice Mitchell was the daughter of a retired furniture dealer. Both were well known about town, daughters of two of the best families of Memphis, Tennessee. Alice would later say that as far as she could remember, she had an “extraordinary love” for Freda. The letters the exchanged revealed, as one newspaper put it, “that Alice loved Freda as man loves woman, and Freda loved Alice as woman regards man.”  According to one newspaper account,

“Twice Alice went to visit Freda’s family, during which time the two girls, as witnesses attested, showed ‘disgusting tenderness’ for each other. They were seen to swing together in a hammock by the hour, hugging and kissing each other — they hugged and kissed ad nauseum”.

Alice was ashamed of doing this in public, but Freda upbraided her for this.” Their relationship grew. Alice proposed marriage, but it appears that Freda either refused the offer or was prevented from accepting it by her family.  As Freda was about to leave Memphis to board a steamboat to her family’s home town in Arkansas, Alice waylaid her and killed her on the streets of Memphis. As she later explained:

“I was in love with Freda. I could not live without her. Long ago we made a compact that if we were ever separated we should ill each other. When I found that Josie had forbidden Freda to have nothing more to do with me, I saw nothing else to do but to kill her. I took father’s razor, but told no one what I was going to do.

Newspapers around the country followed every detail of the case and trial. And since this occurred at about the time psychologists and medical professionals were beginning to understand homosexuality and lesbianism as something other than simply criminal acts, the Mitchell-Ward case was dissected in the nation’s medical journals as well. The Memphis Medical Monthly carried an extensive report of the trial in which Mitchell was judged insane.

Other medical journals weighed in on the exact nature of her insanity. It was a common nineteenth century belief that insanity was the result of “degeneracy,” which was a body of beliefs that held that human beings, through the natural course of evolution, would naturally produce children who “de-generated” some of their parent’s characteristics in an imperfect form — think of a xerox copy of a xerox copy. With ordinary evolution, these inferior copies would be disadvantaged and their genes would die out. But Degeneracy theory held that the advances and “luxuries” of modern society protected these lesser individuals and allowed them to bear further de-generated offspring. Degeneracy didn’t always yield blemished children: geniuses were also held as examples of a kind of positive “de-generation” (because they deviated from the norm), and evidence of their degeneracy was often found in various personality quirks or eccentricities.

Yet it was an extraordinarily short trip from “de-generation” to degeneracy, and the Mitchell-Ward case become, literally, a textbook example. Even two decades later, as in the following passage from 1914 by Douglas C. McMurtrie from the American Journal of Urology. He cited other psychologists and sexologists who observed that “congenital sexual inversion is widespread in America, homosexual women being frequently found in societies and clubs.” He then turned his attention to the still talked-about Mitchell-Ward case from two decades earlier, and places great importance on Mitchell’s mother’s mental state:

One of the most widely known cases of violent crimes due to sexual inversion in the female occurred in Memphis, Tenn., approximately in 1891, though the exact date is unknown to me. The facts were typical of sexually inverted affection and are of considerable interest. They have been reported by Comstock. [Here, he quotes a brief account of the crime by T. Griswold Comstock for the New York Medical Times in 1893]

… In accounting for the deed, Comstock, while diagnosing Alice Mitchell as a sexual “pervert,” considers her insane. It appears that her mother in her first confinement had child-bed fever and puerperal insanity, and was confined in an asylum, and that before the birth of Alice she was deranged, and this aberration continued until some time after labor. Although no actual determination was made of Alice’s mental state it was decided she was insane.

This may have been the case. In the light of present knowledge regarding this sexual anomaly, however, it may be said that no more insanity might have been involved in this crime of homosexual jealousy than is involved in analogous crimes of heterosexual jealousy which come constantly before the courts.

A full account of the case of Alice Mitchell giving the facts as proved in court and the various testimony of the medical witnesses is given in the Memphis Medical Monthly. The article also contains a report of the direct examination of the defendant. It is noteworthy that in none of the medical evidence was there any mention of there having been a sexual condition chiefly accountable for the crime.

In fact, if there is anything noteworthy about this affair, it is the fact that it wasn’t the nature of the love interest which proved to be the mark of Mitchell’s insanity during her trial, even though the lesbian aspects of their relationship were very widely reported. (Indeed, it was the main reason the case was such a sensation in the popular press.) Instead, she was judged insane because her mother was judged insane. She was the unfortunate degenerated offspring of a degenerated mother, and Mitchell’s degeneracy was seen as a more generalized sort which had little to do with her sexuality. The homosexuality of gay men, on the other hand, was often regarded as degeneracy sui generis, with one Texas physician in 1893 advocating castration for those judged to be afflicted with this “trait” so that it could not be passed on to future generations — to “nip it in the bud,” so to speak.

Degeneracy theory, which provided a theoretical basis for eugenics, would eventually die with the worst excesses of the eugenics movement. People with physical, mental, emotional or other anomalies — whether those anomalies were in the direction of weakness or strength — would soon lose the tag of “degenerate.” Everyone except for gay people. For them, the last remnant of this discarded theory would live on as the name commonly used against them — degenerates — until well into the late twentieth century. And in some circles, still today.

[Sources: Jonathan Katz. Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976): pp 53-58.

Douglas C. McMurtrie. “Notes on the psychology of sex.” American Journal of Urology 10, no. 9 (September 1914): 432-436. Available online via Google Books here.

F. E. Daniel “Castration of sexual perverts.” Texas Medical Journal 9, no. 6 (December 1893): 255-271

“Murder In Cold Blood: Memphis Startled by a Most Sickening Tragedy.” The Day (New London, CT., January 26, 1892): 1. Available online via Google News Archive here.

“An Odor of Blood: The Details of Freda Ward’s Murder Retold.” Aurora (IL) Daily Express (February 25, 1892): 2. Available online via Google News Archive here.

“Misfit Affection: Strange Case of Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward.” Warsaw (IN) Daily Times (July 19, 1892): 1. Available online via Google News Archive here.

“Loved Like A Man: Developments in the Freda Ward Murder Case.” Warsaw (IN) Daily Times (July 20, 1892): 1. Available online via Google News Archive here.]

Oklahoma High School Students Form Klan Chapters: 1978. An estimated 112 to 132 high school students, mostly freshmen and sophomores at two high schools in northwestern Oklahoma City and the surrounding suburbs, joined teen chapters of the Ku Klux Kan. The purpose of those chapters, according to newspaper accounts, was to wage “a campaign of terror against homosexuals.” One unidentified youth said, “We are not just against blacks like the old Klan. We are against gays and the clubs that support them and are going to try to shut them down because this activity is morally and socially wrong.”

School officials were skeptical of that the reports were true. The principal of Putnam City High School said that the news accounts could be the work of “one young man” who “has made accusations and wants publicity.” The principal of Putnam City West Highs School vowed, “We won’t have the Klan on campus if I have any say-so.”

The boys, on the other hand, claimed credit for an attack on patrons leaving a gay bar in which several people were injured and cars were vandalized. As for the Klan chapter’s membership, one boy said, “The only people we won’t let in are girls, blacks, Jews or dope smokers. And we might consider Catholics if the time comes.” Another said that the chapters “have gotten instruction sheets and lots of information on the Klan from the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, even on making the robes and hats.” A third said that he joined the Klan “as a joke that kind of started making sense.”

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Illinios GOP anti-gays have trouble ousting State Chairman

Thing got very interesting in Illinois at the start of the year. In a move I didn’t anticipate, the state Republican Party chairman endorsed marriage equality and began lobbying legislators to support a marriage bill.

While I was delighted by his support, I feared that he would not hold his position much longer. And the Party does have a provision for removing the state chairman should he do something odd or out of character for a Republican. (Daily Herald)

According to party rules, a special meeting can be called if at least five of the 18 state central committeemen request it.

So, not surprisingly, a committeeman has been rallying the forces to removed Pat Brady from office. Sugar Grove dairy magnate and state Sen. Jim Oberweis wants him gone because, you know, there are more important issues to deal with, you see. But he’s not finding it as easy as he expected.

Oberweis said he emailed “six or seven” committeemen, and several expressed their support for a special meeting. Oberweis said he has yet to see “five hands go up.”

Because, as it turns out, Republican leadership in Illinois may not love Teh Ghey so much, but what they really don’t like is losing. And they took a little glance at the last election results and decided that kicking out a marriage supporter is just not smart politics. As Republican House Leader Tom Cross put it:

“It reaffirms people’s worst fears about our party. I think we bragged about being the big tent party over the years. And there are going to be people that adamantly oppose gay marriage and people who support it. And we need to be the party that says, ‘Hey, that’s fine.'”

Various groups, including women, Latinos and young people aren’t listening to Republicans, Cross said,

“In the last election, we lost Kane County, DuPage County, Lake County, Will County. And we lost almost all demographic groups,” Cross said. “Old white guys aren’t going to win the elections any more,”

Now Oberweis may yet win. Brady may go. It seems to good to be true that the anti-gay forces in the Illinois GOP can’t get five committeemen to oppose ‘The HomoSEXshull Agenda’.

But at the moment it seems possible. And if so, we just may be sitting in front row seats for the biggest political extravaganza in decades: the drastic reformation of a political party. This could prove to be a VERY interesting year.

Petition to replace Paiva-Weed if she blocks equality

Currently the Rhode Island State Senate has 32 Democrats, 5 Republicans and 1 Independent. I think it reasonable to assume that there is a majority of supporters of marriage equality on the Senate in that New England State. However, Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed has used the threat of her political power to squelch any efforts in prior years to enact equality.

She may allow the bill to become law, or she may wield her power – by means of committee assignments and political positioning – to hinder its passage.

I have just started a petition on Change.org to request that Rhode Island State Senators remove her from power should she block the access of some Rhode Islanders from access to civil marriage.

For years Senate Leader Teresa Paiva-Weed has used her position to squelch efforts to enact marriage equality in Rhode Island. Now a bill has passed the House of Representatives* and will come before the Senate. Should Paiva-Weed obstruct or oppose the equality bill, we ask that you replace her as Senate Leader with someone who values the merits of equality under the law and opposes discrimination.

Please take a moment to go and add your name.

Rhode Island House passes equality – live blog

I picked this up part way through. 1/24/13 1:56 (All times P.S.T.)

Right now, Rep. Corvese (D-North Providence) is ranting about “breaking the parameters of marriage”. He just recommended that you pick up What same-sex “marriage” has done to Massachusetts, a extremist publication of the hate-group MassResistance. He’s told us it isn’t about love or civil rights, that the Homosexual Activists aren’t discriminated against, and that trouble’s a-coming. Basically he sounds a lot like a Southern Republican more than a New England Democrat.

The House Speaker, openly gay Gordon Fox, has given Corvese extra time. I assume it’s out of courtesy and in respect that Corvese is on the losing side (both today and in history).

2:02 Rep. Blazejewski (D-East Providence), “Why would anyone want to prohibit two consenting adults from entering into a binding contract to protect their family? Why would you want to do that?”

2:05 Rep. Doreen Costa (R-N. Kingston), “The people don’t support this.” Presents a bunch of signatures… but didn’t she vote “yes” in committee.?

2:06 Rep Edwards (D-Tiverton), “Yes, Rep. Corvese, this is a game changer. For good.”

2:10 Rep McLaughlin (D-Central Falls) offers amendment (Corvese seconds) which I”m not sure what it says. “I fought on two continents. I’m a Roman Catholic. I believe in the Seven Sacraments. But it goes beyond religion. It’s a moral issue.” He’s babbling on about his specific Catholic doctrine. “We have rules in our society. We have rules in Church doctrine.” He’s babbling now, venting really, in an apologetic way. I kinda feel for this guy – he’s really trying not to offend, he’s keeps saying he should judge anyone. He’s just an old guy in a world that has changed in ways he hasn’t.

2:15 It seem’s McLauglin’s bill is to delete the wording and replace it with “marriage is between one man and one woman”. Under Rule 16 it was found out of order.

2:16 Rep Trillo (R-Warwick) “I supported the civil unions bill because I believe gays and lesbians deserve every right. But what I have a problem with is the word marriage.” “The terminology has been the same for 30,000 years. Marriage is defined as being between one man and one woman.” He’s okay with any other words, and thinks the other words will have the same credibility in 10 years as “marriage”.

2:20 Rep Ruggiero (D-Jamestown) “It’s about tax policy”. “Do this for your sons, daughters… whoever that gay person is whom you are thinking about right now.”

2:22 Rep. Tanzi (D-Narragansett) “I felt bad voting for civil unions for telling our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters that their love was different.” “I’m proud to cast my vote for this bill with my daughter beside me…”

2:27 Rep Cimini (D-Providence) She said in testimony in support of equality three years ago, “I don’t want to get married, I don’t know why anyone would want to marry, but I know that no one will stop me.” She just got married.

2:28 Rep Almeida (D-Providence), “This IS a civil rights agenda!” He’s African-American and pissed about what Cervese said. “We were all divided. Not just my skin color, but go way back we all were.” “I remember in the Marine Corp there were a lot of gays and lesbians. I didn’t care when bullets were flying at me.”

2:31 Rep Mattello (D-Cranston) “We all have different religious beliefs in marriage. But that’s not what we’re debating today.” “Three years ago I would have been in opposition. But society has changed.” “If you were given heterosexual attraction by God, you deserve happiness. If you were given gay attraction, you deserve happiness.” “We’re just making the law catch up with where society already is.”

2:37 Rep Newberry (R-N. Smithfield; Minority Leader) “They’ve said this is a civil rights bill. And I agree, that’s why I’m voting for it.” “But this has come up seven years, and it has deserved an up or down vote.” He went on to lecture the Senate and insist that they vote and not let it be a bargaining chip. He’s angry.

2:40 Rep. O’Neill (D-Pawtucket) “It’s a historic day… Enjoy this piece of history.”

2:42 Rep. Ferri (D-Warwick) “It has been a journey getting to this point.” To Speaker Fox: “You have class”. Speaking about his husband “I guess we have to get married now. But we’ve had a ‘marriage’ for 32 years. Call it what you want, but who else in this room had a marriage of 32 years.” He spent time pointing out people “this is for Tony, this is for…”

2:45 Rep Handy (D-Cranston) “I’ve evolved on this.” “I’ll be brief.” He hasn’t been.

2: 48 THEY ARE VOTING

51-19 passes

Lots of applause

Rhode Island Senator Proposes Vote For Marriage Ban

The Rhode Island House is moments away from beginning debate and a vote on a bill providing marriage equality to same-sex couples. But on the Senate side, a different kind of fight is shaping up, where a Senator is proposing that a referendum be held in 2014 to ban same-sex marriages:

The bill, S0096, introduced Wednesday by Sen. Frank Ciccone (D-Providence, North Providence), would keep in place Rhode Island’s civil unions law for same-sex couples, but would amend the constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages from being recognized. Gov. Lincoln Chafee, an Independent, issued an executive order in 2012 that said the state would recognize legal same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

The bill would land in the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Michael McCaffrey (D-Warwick), who has already signed on as cosponsor. The same committee would also hear the marriage equality bill, which McCaffrey seems uneager to take up: “Obviously, there are more important things than gay marriage to worry about in the state of Rhode Island right now.” Fortunately, Ciccone’s referendum is unlikely to make any headway in the House.

Marriage Bill Formally Introduced in British Parliament

As expected, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was formally introduced in Parliament, kicking off a process which is expected to lead to a second reading on February 5. The legislation will prohibit the Church of England from marrying same-sex couples, but will allow all other religious denominations to provide it if they so choose. According to the BBC, religious groups supporting the bill include Quakers, Unitarians and Reformed Judaism.

The bill will be officially published on Friday ahead of Tuesday’s debate. The bill has divided Conservatives, with David Cameron giving his M.P.s a free vote on the bill. If the bill passes its second reading, it will then go to a committee for further evaluation before returning to the House for its third and final reading. It will then go to the House of Lords.

Colorado Civil Unions Clear Senate Committee

A bill to grant civil unions to Colorado’s same-sex couples cleared its first hurdle yesterday when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 3-2 on straight party lines to approve the bill. The bill’s next stop is the Appropriations Committee before moving to the full Senate.

There were a number of people testifying against the bill. Among them were Mark Rohlena, of Catholic Charities of Central Colorado, who complained that unlike previous versions of the bill, this one doesn’t have a religious conscience exemption clause which would allow adoption agencies to refuse to place children with same-sex couples. But Sen. Pat Steadman (D-Denver), the bill’s sponsor, noted that when the exemption was in previous versions of the bill Catholic leaders testified against it anyway, so he decided not to include it in the bill this year. An attempt to add the amendment to the bill failed.