Married couples tell their stories

Posted on April 8, 2007
Filed Under Massachusetts | Leave a Comment

Marriage Equality“It’s about time that Rhode Island became the second state in our nation to have legalized same-sex marriage. Not civil unions. Not domestic partnerships.”
Those words, spoken by Katie Bennett, echoed the feelings of 70 or so people who gathered at the Statehouse in Providence.

The press conference was organized by Marriage Equality RI and featured eight of the many Rhode Island married same-sex couples as well as two members of other couples whose spouses could not attend.

Also there were Patricia Lynch-Gadaleta, the sister of Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch, and her spouse Margaret. The attorney general recently issued a legal opinion that state government agencies should respect same-sex marriages performed out-of-state and offer employees in those marriages the same benefits straight married employees receive.

“We took vows and we got married and then came home to Pawtucket,” said Chris Butler, who married his partner of eight years, R. J. Rose, a month ago in Attleboro.

“We literally drove four miles from where we got married to our house. And as soon as we crossed that line, we were no longer married, at least in the eyes of the people in this building. That’s wrong.”

Butler says that before he met Rose “I never gave much thought to getting married…but eight years ago, it became clear to me that someday might [happen].” He says that, although he didn’t think it was possible, he and Rose have grown closer since they married.

However, Butler also told a story illustrating the perils same-sex couples face in a state where their relationship is not legally recognized.

Two years ago, Rose had a medical emergency at work and was rushed to the emergency room. “As his emergency contact in his personnel file, they called me,” said Butler.

“I ran down to Memorial Hospital and said ’I’m here to see R. J. Rose’, and the nurse looks up and says ’Who are you?’ I struggled with ’am I his lover, am I his partner,
am I his friend?’ I finally settled on ’partner.’ I explained that we were together in a relationship and I was his partner.”

At that point, it struck Butler that the nurse could have refused to let him see Rose.

“Luckily, she didn’t, and she let me in. And luckily, He was okay. But we had the conversation later, ’what would have happened if he was unresponsive, if he wasn’t able to answer questions, or to consent?’ It would have been me trying to call his mother as his nearest relative to try to get to the emergency room to make those decisions, even though we’ve built a life together.”

For Butler and Rose, as well as Rhode Island’s other married same-sex couples, a legal scene more like the Soviet Union plays out every day. To have just some of the rights of married heterosexuals during an emergency or worse, they have to carry powers of attorney, wills, and other legal documents with them at all times, even for “a ride to the corner store,” in the words of MERI Director Jenn Steinfeld.

Discrimination hit home for Frank Ferri and Tony Carpaco when they had to get married in Canada. “Several of our straight friends have gotten married and had weddings in their backyard,” Carpaco told EDGE. “We had to go to Canada. It was a very happy day, but it was bittersweet because we weren’t somewhere where we could have all of our family and friends with us.”

For reasons like these, Steinfeld said that doing anything less than enacting equal marriage legislation “would be a step backward.”

Other couples shared a lot of the same joys and concerns. Read more about them…

Source: Edge Boston

Same sex, different rules

Posted on April 1, 2007
Filed Under Massachusetts | Leave a Comment

For years, the right wing has wrongly accused the gay movement of seeking special rights. At no time has our struggle for equal rights been more transparent than in the fight to legalize marriage for gays and lesbians.

Those who push civil unions as a solution to the dilemma sicken me. To offer civil unions to some citizens and marriage to others is simply un-American. The only way to advocate for civil unions is to concurrently abolish marriage for all. Our rule of law has been interpreted as “separate but equal is not equal.” How much more simply do you need the law explained?

Not only are civil unions unconstitutional, they are unworkable. Allow me relate the following example: My friend Charlie and his partner have been civilly unionized and, thanks to that law, his partner is covered under Charlie’s union health insurance. However, at tax time Charlie received notification from the feds that he was responsible for an extra $10,000 of income for that coverage. As a married couple, the coverage would not be taxable income. That, my friends, is not even separate-but-equal. That is institutionalized second-class citizenship.

Instead of a reasonable discussion of law, the debate over marriage has been reduced to a cacophony of selective Bible quotes, social doctrine, psychological misinformation and naked prejudice. Do you want to know what marriage law is really about? Ask anyone who has been divorced: Property rights are the root of these laws. It is ridiculous to assert that the state has any interest or business in “holy matrimony.” Looking for something holy from government makes as much sense as shopping for art in a hardware store.

The good-thinking citizens of Massachusetts have shared the legal right of marriage with their gay and lesbian families for some years. Thus far, they’ve not been visited with predicted plagues or righteous retribution.

Rather, according to all reports, the state has found the amending of their laws a non-event. But instead of accepting the facts of that excellent example, we are still tortured with superstitious lies that the acceptance of homosexual citizens will diminish the bonds of heterosexual ones. It’s as silly as someone watching an airplane soaring overhead while proclaiming, “If God meant man to fly, he would have given him wings.” The rightness of equal marriage laws is no longer a matter of opinion. It is measurable visible fact.

Equal marriage rights are going to be the law of the land sooner or later. We can waste time, energy and billions of tax dollars fighting the inevitable, but America was founded on ideals of fairness and equality. Those principles will win the war.

How long the wrong-thinking want to drag the battle out is up to them. But they have already lost. Right is on our side.

Source: Hartford Courant

Law gives status to Massachusetts couples

Posted on February 18, 2007
Filed Under Massachusetts | Leave a Comment

Same-sex couples who marry in Massachusetts and move to New Jersey will be legally recognized starting tomorrow under a new law in that state that allows civil unions.

New Jersey lawmakers passed a law recognizing civil unions after the state Supreme Court ruled in October that the state must extend all marriage rights to gay couples.
The law - which makes New Jersey the third state in the nation, after Vermont and Connecticut, to authorize civil unions for same-sex couples - is likely to have little impact in Massachusetts, according to advocates and opponents of gay marriage.

“The biggest impact, obviously, is for couples living in New Jersey right now,” , it is certainly good for them to know they will have the same legal protections,” said Carisa Cunningham (spokeswoman for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders). ”They can have a civil union, though undoubtedly many of them want to be married.”

Lisa Barstow (spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Family Institute, which seeks a statewide vote on a ban on gay marriage) said that the New Jersey law will have little impact on Massachusetts and won’t permit New Jersey gay couples to get married in the Bay State and return home to have the union legally recognized. “They can’t come here and marry and then go home,” Barstow said. “The benefits don’t carry.”

Massachusetts has allowed same-sex marriages since May 2004, following a Supreme Judicial Court ruling the previous year making them legal. But state officials have blocked out-of-state gay couples from getting married here, citing a 1913-law that prohibits couples from getting married in the Bay State if their marriage would not be recognized in their home state. The only exception has been same-sex couples from Rhode Island. In September, a state court judge ruled that Rhode Island couples may marry in Massachusetts because that state’s laws do not explicity prohibit same-sex marriages.

Last month, the Massachusetts Legislature advanced a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. If the amendment gets the votes of at least 50 lawmakers, it will be placed on the 2008 state ballot.

The fact that New Jersey’s law allows civil unions, but not same-sex marriage, “points out the fact that Massachusetts really is an anomaly,” Barstow said. “We’ve come to gay marriage through what we see as an activist court and not a swelling up from the people or legislators.”

But Cunningham offered a different perspective, saying that New Jersey’s move toward civil unions and recognition of civil unions and marriages in other states and countries, shows that “there’s definitely a momentum” toward equal rights for all. She pointed out that Vermont and Connecticut are now considering authorizing same-sex marriage.

Steven Goldstein (chairman of New Jersey’s Garden State Equality, which advocates the authorization of same-sex marriage) said: “We are not celebrating civil unions as a final step. The good news is we believe we are going to win marriage equality in a few years.”

Source: The Boston Globe

Same-sex marriage debate should be left to the law

Posted on February 8, 2007
Filed Under Massachusetts | Leave a Comment

Elizabeth Harmer-Dionne (“The Right View”) is in error when she describes the ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health. Massachusetts does not have same-sex marriage because “four members of the SJC decided that we should.” What we have in Massachusetts is marriage available to couples who wish to enter that state, whatever their gender.

The SJC decision held the state Constitution did not permit discrimination, in this case gender discrimination, in marriage. It is compatible with earlier findings that people of different races had the right to marry. Ms. Harmer-Dionne may not be comfortable with the fact that people of the same gender are attracted to each other and wish to live together in marriage, but why should her discomfort dictate their access to this fundamental social contract?

The Massachusetts Constitution says that the commonwealth may not provide privileges that are exclusive to one group. Those that petitioned the SJC for access to marriage did so on that basis. The state provides economic protections and privileges to married couples that it does not provide to unmarried couples. Since civil marriage is an economic arrangement between the state and the couple, providing those benefits to certain couples, but not all couples, is discrimination.

Source: Cambridge Chronicle

Amendment to end same-sex marriage could come to a popular vote in 2008

Posted on February 7, 2007
Filed Under USA, Massachusetts | 1 Comment

Same-sex marriageAfter a flurry of activity over the past few months that ended with a vote supporting the appearance of an amendment on the 2008 ballot to end same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, the status of the proposed amendment is still in limbo.

When, if at all, a final hurdle to it being put up for a public referendum will be overcome is still unclear. The proposed amendment, which still needs to be voted on by the current legislature to determine whether it will appear on the ballot, has been the source of a great deal of controversy about the role of the public in determining certain state policies.

“I don’t believe in putting civil rights to a [popular] vote,” Dona Yarbrough, director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Center, said. “Many civil rights violations have been perpetrated by the majority and against a minority, and minority rights have traditionally been protected by the Constitution and the courts.”

On the other side of the debate, President of the Tufts Republicans Jordan Greene feels that a popular vote is the most fair way to gauge public opinion. “Because of rampant gerrymandering and the standard benefits of incumbency, the state legislature is less conservative, more statist and more committed to social engineering than the people they serve,” he said in an e-mail to the Daily. “Given this, the correct course of action seems clear.

The debate over the role of the people and the state came to a head in December when the last session of the legislature refused to vote on whether the amendment should appear on the ballot. Following a court decision compelling them to bring the issue to a vote, its members decided, in a constitutional convention of both the state House and Senate, to support a public referendum in 2008. Under the law, however, two consecutive legislative sessions need to support the appearance of an amendment on the ballot in order for it to reach a popular vote. As of yet, the current group of legislators, who took office in January, have not voted.

State Representative Carl Sciortino (LA ‘00), a Democrat, said that a date for a vote has not been set, but he does not expect that the legislature will delay for an overly long time.

“If the vote took place today”, he said, “legislators would likely support the measure’s appearance on the ballot”, something he hopes to change before the legislature votes on it again. “We’re still roughly nine votes short of where we need to be to defeat this,” he told the Daily.

Even if the amendment does come up for a popular vote, it appears that the public will overwhelmingly reject it.

A poll taken in November showed 62 percent of residents oppose an amendment to ban same-sex marriage, while only 30 percent support it, according to a January article in the Christian Science Monitor.

“What the polling and specific research have shown us is that since gay marriage came into effect, the public has overwhelmingly found that it has made no difference to their lives,” Tufts Department of Political Science affiliate Michael Goldman said.

Yarbrough cautioned, however, that polling numbers should not be used as a crutch.

“Those in favor of same-sex marriage should not be lulled into a false sense of security by these polls because if the issue comes to a popular vote, the religious right will spend an enormous amount of money and time to get the vote out, and their resources are much greater than those of pro-marriage organizations,” she said.

Currently, as the amendment sits in limbo, it is unclear what measures activist Jumbos will take either in favor of or against it.

“We don’t have any definite plans now because it’s not going to go before the public until 2008 at the earliest,” Mickey Leibner, the vice president of the Tufts Democrats, said.

The Tufts Republicans feel similarly, Greene said. “The level of support the club offers this campaign will be determined by its 2008 Executive Board,” he said.

The Tufts Queer Straight Alliance (QSA) plans to take action if the issue comes to a popular vote, although no definite plans have yet been determined.

“Freedom to Marry Day is February 12th, and QSA might be doing something for that,” QSA Coordinator Kelly Carnahan said.

Source: Tufts Daily

Media Credit: Daily File Photo
Robyn Ochs (left), who has taught a class at Tufts’ ExCollege, exchanges vows with her long-time partner Peg Preble on May 17, 2004, the first day Massachusetts began issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Ochs and Preble were the first same-sex couple to be married in Brookline.

The homosexual assault on traditional marriage

Posted on February 7, 2007
Filed Under Massachusetts | Leave a Comment

There are those who do not believe that the institution of marriage is under assault. There are those who do not believe that same-sex marriage is a knowing attempt to undermine the nature of marriage. There are those who do not believe that many homosexuals bear a particular animus for heterosexual marriage, and have designs beyond mere tolerance. Then there are those of us who live in the real world.

In Washington, proponents of same-sex marriage, under the banner of the falsely named Defense of Marriage Alliance, have proposed a state ballot initiative that would require straight married couples to have children within three years or face annulment. “For many years, social conservatives have claimed that marriage exists solely for the purpose of procreation,” explained DOMA organizer Gregory Gadow. “The time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own medicine. If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage because they cannot have children together, it follows that all couples who cannot or will not have children together should equally be barred from marriage.”

It seems intensely ironic that same-sex marriage advocates, who proclaim the basis of their politics to be consent, should sponsor such an initiative. But, of course, they are not serious; they are using marriage as a political club to make a point. Their point in Washington is purportedly to prove that traditional marriage is not solely about children — and that if it is not about children, it is about discrimination for its own sake. But even same-sex marriage advocates realize that though traditional marriage sees children as the first priority, it does not rest its legitimacy solely on the basis of child-bearing and rearing.

The goal of same-sex marriage proponents is to elevate homosexuality to the same moral level as heterosexuality. If children are not the sole purpose of marriage, they say, any marriage is merely a grouping of two people who love each other. This is absurd. Marriage is implicitly about the relationship between man and woman. Marriage is codification of the idea that a man and a woman in a committed and sexual union make each other and the surrounding society better.

Women and men are inherently different. They are not interchangeable parts. Men have different strengths and weaknesses than women. A marital relationship between a man and a woman provides spiritual enrichment for each. The union between a single man and a single woman is, as the liturgy says, blessed.

That this blessed union produces the blessing of children demonstrates the Divine origin of such unions. Children are not merely the product of traditional marriage and the beneficiaries of it; they are Divine confirmation that the union of man and woman is special and good. The fact that certain traditional marriages do not produce children does not invalidate the general point that men and women belong together, just as the fact that broken cars exist does not demonstrate that ignition keys ought generally to be put in exhaust pipes.

Advocates of same-sex marriage argue that gender is literally meaningless. It is for that reason that they compare gender to race in legal contexts. Citing (SET ITAL) Loving v. Virginia (END ITAL), the Supreme Court case that ruled anti-miscegenation statutes unconstitutional, advocates claim that distinctions based on sex are the same as distinctions based on race.

If gender is meaningless, children do not need both mother and father; a father and a father, two mothers, six fathers and a mother — any or all may suffice. To homosexual marriage proponents, the fact that only the sexual union between men and women produces children is an unfortunate accident of nature. Would that nature had made mankind completely androgynous, so as to demonstrate the complete and utter homogeneity of all people!

Gender is not meaningless, of course. The radical individualism that denies all distinction between men and women is deeply pernicious. It denies the spiritual in mankind. It denies the obvious physical and spiritual bounty springing from traditional marriage. It also denies to children the benefits of a mother and father.

In one sense, Washington’s same-sex advocates do us a favor: They make clear that in order to deny homosexual marriage, we must uphold the beautiful and natural distinctions between men and women. They also make clear that we must uphold the value of heterosexuality over homosexuality. We must take up the gauntlet and, in doing so, vindicate the possibility of a higher spiritual elevation through the deepest possible human relationship.

Source: The Conservative Voice

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