I wish I had more time to write about this — and by the time I do have time to write about it, others will have already said what I would have — but this is easily the best news I’ve heard in a long time.
A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down California’s ban on same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on gay marriage as early as next year.
The 2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that limited marriage to one man and one woman, violated the U.S. Constitution. The architects of Prop. 8 have vowed to appeal.
The ruling was narrow and likely to be limited to California.
The ruling upheld a decision by retired Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who struck down the ballot measure in 2010 after holding an unprecedented trial on the nature of sexual orientation and the history of marriage.
In a separate decision, the appeals court refused to invalidate Walker’s ruling on the grounds that he should have disclosed he was in a long term same-sex relationship. Walker, a Republican appointee who is openly gay, said after his ruling that he had been in a relationship with another man for 10 years. He has never said whether he and partner wished to marry.
“Today’s powerful court ruling striking down the infamous Prop 8 affirms basic American values and helps tear down a discriminatory barrier to marriage that benefits no one while making it harder for people to take care of their loved ones. The Ninth Circuit rightly held that a state simply may not take a group of people and shove them outside the law, least of all when it comes to something as important as the commitment and security of marriage. We salute the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which brought this challenge to Prop 8.
“This monumental appellate decision restores California to the growing list of states and countries that have ended exclusion from marriage, and will further accelerate the surging nationwide majority for marriage. As this and other important challenges to marriage discrimination move through the courts around the country, Freedom to Marry calls on all Americans to join us in ensuring that together we make as strong a case in the court of public opinion as our legal advocates are making in the courts of law. By growing the majority for marriage, winning more states, and tackling federal discrimination – Freedom to Marry’s ‘Roadmap to Victory’ – we maximize our chances of winning when one case or another finally reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.”
I mentioned earlier that I’ve been doing a bit of writing about the GOP candidates for the day job. Those posts are limited to policy issues, usually economic policy. But, like I said in the posts about Newt, there’s a lot more I’d like to get into with these guys that wouldn’t be appropriate elsewhere.
Which brings me back to Rick Santorum. It’s been a while since I posted another edition in this rather long series. I have so little time for non-work-related writing these days, that I seldom write about LGBT issues. (As a result, the hate crimes project is so embarrassingly out of date, that I’ve let the hosting account lapse, and probably won’t bring it back online because at this point I’ll never get it up to date.) Sometimes I question whether I can even be called a “gay blogger,” except as a blogger who happens to be gay, but rarely ever writes about gay issues (anymore).
Alas, between commuting to work, putting in eight hours, commuting back home, having family dinner, spending time with the kids between dinner and bedtime, helping Parker with his homework, putting the kids to bed, sharing the work of keeping the house relatively clean, and then finishing up the hour’s worth of work I bring home, there are just not enough hours in the day. And I’m usually to physically and mentally exhausted to do much of anything with what’s left of the 24 hours in question.
But that’s another post for another day.
It was my work-related blogging that alerted me to a remark Santorum made, comparing gay parents to felons, which inspired me to return to this series.
I’ve been having some fun with the Republican presidential candidates lately. It’s funny, how much these guys get right — when they attack each other, that is. But I haven’t had nearly as much fun with a couple of candidates as I could. Until now.
Yes, it’s too easy. Certainly, it’s low-hanging fruit. But this is politics. There’s no such thing as a shot so easy that you shouldn’t take it. So, let’s go there. And let’s start with Newt Gingrich.
Am I still a gay blogger? Well, I’m still a blogger. And I’m as gay as I’ve every been. But I almost hesitate to call myself a gay blogger these days. I used to blog about gay issues all the time, but the circumstances of my life have changed. Between work, family, and the limitations of being a mere mortal, I just can’t keep up.
During the day, all my blogging is work-related. So, I write about economic issues, healthcare, Medicare, Social Security, etc, and a lot of stuff that occasionally has a gay “angle” but isn’t specifically gay related. By the time I get home, have dinner with the family, do “homework time,” bedtime, pitch in on the realities of domestic life (like loading the dishwasher or folding the laundry), and do my work-related blog culling for the next morning … I’m pretty much spent.
So, there’s a lot I haven’t covered, because I just can’t. Fortunately, someone else has. Buzzfeed has a list of “40 Reasons Why 2011 Was A Great Year For Gays.” Here’s my attempt at a video compilation. (Some things I couldn’t find video for.)
I may have written about some of this stuff. Some of it I haven’t. Anyway, it all happened.
It’s rare that two very public implosions occur almost simultaneously or resonate so well with one another as the the crashing and burning of Herman Cain’s presidential campaign and Eddie Long’s marriage and ministry. It’s even rarer that two high profile “players” like Cain and Long (or Long and Cain, or even Long/Cain, if you prefer) have the bluffs called so spectacularly and fold so publicly.
Some of the parallels between the two are innocuous: both are black ministers, both are from Georgia, both have amassed significant amounts of personal wealth. Other parallels are innocuous: both, if the allegations against them are true, rose to fame pretending to be something they were not, and both were publicly revealed as frauds.
Ironically, in the long run, neither may suffer much for it.
Back in the 1990s, I read a book called After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90′s. It was a pretty controversial book when it came out. Many in the gay community criticized the authors’ assertion that the segments of the LGBT community least palatable to middle America should be relegated to the “back of the bus” in the movement, for the sake of better PR. The right latched on to it as the “PR manual for the homosexual agenda.” (They still call it that.)
A new documentary looks at the black-gay civil rights divide by centering on Massachusetts Rep. Byron Rushing (D) during the commonwealth’s push to legalize same-sex marriage. The African American legislator eloquently weaves the two movements together in the 15-minute film. Following a screening of the movie last month, I moderated a panel discussion at Aaron Davis Hall in New York City that looked at the marriage equality push in New York state from a black perspective. The panel was filled with luminaries, including media and fashion mogul Russell Simmons. But the star of the event was a soft-spoken man named David Wilson.
In the film, Wilson tells the heartbreaking story about the death of his then-partner. The trauma of finding him lying in the driveway. The terror of being arrested by the police on suspicion of breaking and entering or assault and battery before neighbors convinced police otherwise. The indignity of being denied information by the hospital because he was a legal stranger to his partner. Only after his partner’s 75-year-old mother told the hospital who Wilson was did they inform him that his partner of 13 years was dead on arrival.
Wilson swore he’d never go through that again. And he would find love again. In 2003, he and Rob Compton became one of the seven same-sex couples to sue for and win the right to marry in the 2003 landmarkGoodridge vs. the Department of Health case.
It wasn’t until the panel discussion that the power of Davis’s example was fully displayed. As he said in his moving opening statement, which I run in full below, this gracious, soft-spoken man wanted “to put a black face on the Marriage Equality movement.”
Anti-gay marriage amendments and ballot initiatives like Proposition 8 only harm Black gay and lesbian famlies, many of whom are already economically disadvantaged. Cannick may think marriage equality is “secondary” to other issues, or can wait until others are addressed. But that also means that thousands of our families will continue to suffer injustice, economic and otherwise, indefinitely and without remedy.
For them, inequality is a daily burden added to the rest: making ends meet, putting food on the table, keeping a roof over their heads, and simply providing for their families.
For many of our families, equality is not a “luxury,” as Cannick calls it. It is justice.
Marriage isn’t the only solution to these problems, by any means, and it for many it may not be the right solution. It shouldn’t be our only focus or strategy, but neither should marriage be rejected out of hand for everyone.
There are many paths to justice. We each chose ours for different, often deeply personal reasons. Sometimes they weave together in places where we need help and can help one another to keep going. They part, but inevitably cross again. We will meet each other many times on our winding paths to justice. We will need each other again. Let’s not put roadblocks in front of one another.
I won’t ask Cannick to change her priorities. I wish she wouldn’t decide for my family, and other Black gay families, what our priorities are or should be.
Mitt Romney took a hard break from his Republican opponents for the presidential nomination in an interview with a New Hampshire newspaper Monday.
Unlike much of the rest of the GOP field, Romney’s not ready to condemn the booing of a gay soldier at the last debate.
…“You’d have to look at it,” he told the New Hampshire Union-Leader, according to the Wall Street Journal. “I don’t know when they booed, and I don’t know why people booed. I will tell you that the boos and the applause has not always coincided with my own views.”
It’s getting hard to keep track of all the cringe-worthy moments at the GOP debates. To that end I’ve created a kind "Low-lights" reel of such moments from the last few. (I fully expect to update this regularly.)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The combination of homophobia and the closet produces a lot of twisted people, including some who internalize the belief in their own inferiority and unworthiness…
And, no, this two-part series isn’t about that Bachmann story. It’s not about being the submissive wife of a gay husband, but about how gay husbands undermine submissive wifeliness.
Submissive Wives & Gay Husbands
You’ve probably saw this coming already, if the title of this post is what drew you in to begin with. Part of the threat of same-sex marriage is that it both calls biblical gender roles into question, and undermines complimentarity.
In 2006, Bachmann said her husband had told her to get a post-doctorate degree in tax law. “Tax law? I hate taxes,” she continued. “Why should I go into something like that? But the lord says, be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.’”
Asked about the comment by CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell Sunday, Bachmann reaffirmed that to her, “submission means respect, mutual respect.”
“I respect my husband, he respects me,” she said. “We have been married 33 years, we have a great marriage…and respecting each other, listening to each other is what that means.”
O’Donnell asked Bachmann if she would use a different word in retrospect.
“You know, I guess it depends on what word people are used to, but respect is really what it means,” Bachmann replied.
“Do you think submissive means subservient?” O’Donnell asked.
“Not to us,” Bachmann said. “To us it means respect. We respect each other, we listen to each other, we love each other and that is what it means.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich refused to sign Iowa social conservative Bob Vander Plaats’s anti-gay-marriage pledge, saying through a spokesman that it had a long list of problems.
Mr. Vander Plaats already made one change, removing a sentence that suggested African American children fared better under slavery.
“We told him that we couldn’t sign it in its current form,” said Mr. Gingrich’s spokesman, R.C. Hammond. “We’re happy to work with him to get some more precise language.”
As my husband and I watched anxiously for news of the outcome of the New York state senate vote on marriage equality, my thoughts drifted back to one last worrisome aspect of the Supreme Court's Walmart ruling — what it means for minorities. It may not be obvious, but there's a connection. Let me explain.
Beyond the Courts?
On discrimination, the court effectively lowered the bar for employers (having a non-discrimination policy is apparently, in the court's view, proof enough that there's no discrimination going on) and raised it for employees (unless you actually have written proof that you've been personally discriminated against, get back to work). That's troubling enough in and of itself, but I expect little different from this court. What troubles me more is a theme I've heard in some progressives' responses to the court's ruling, and the implications for progressive change, especially where minorities are concerned.
I was not there to hear Tracy Morgan’s now infamous, hateful anti-gay rant in the middle of a comedy performance in Nashville, as Kevin Rogers was. Had I been in town, it’s unlikely I would have been anyway, as I’ve never found Morgan to be all that funny, going all the way back to his SNL days. But I almost wish I had been, I’m not sure I would have been able to steel myself to stay in my seat for the entire thing, but at least I’d have heard it first hand.
I grew up a skinny, effeminate, non-athletic, black gay boy in the south … during the Reagan era.
That’s what I sometimes tell people when they ask my about what growing up was like for me. Those who get it, and most do, give me a wide-eyed look, and ask “How did you survive?”
I ask myself that sometimes, because I know a lot boys like me didn’t. Boys like Kirk Murphy.
Remember back in 2004, when Dubya won re-election and liberals started threatening to move to Canada? Well, maybe I should have considered it. Because according to OECD’s Better Life Index, Canada is where I belong.
I’ve been so busy with work and family that I’ve fallen behind on my email. I didn’t know I was in the running, but apparently this blog has been voted one of Circle of Moms Top 25 LGBT Parent Blogs.
What are the best blogs written by or for LGBT parents? Is there a writer out there in the blogosphere who truly tells it like it is for LGBT families and makes you feel like someone out there gets it? Is there someone who is providing much appreciated connection and support through their blog? We want to hear about them!
Voting closed on May 13th. I didn’t check my email soon enough put up a post asking for votes, so I’m even more surprised. Back in March, I was included in their top 25 Daddy Blogs. That was another pleasant surprise.
Well, it’s always nice to be included. Thanks, Circle of Moms!
OK. I plead guilty to this When I got my iPhone 4, I gave Parker my old iPhone 3G (with parental controls in place, phone service deactivated, everything restored to factory settings, history wiped clean, and internet access and the App Store on lockdown) to play games on, etc. But does that make me a “Scrooge”? Puh-leeze. An eight-year-old needs the latest iPhone?
It’s happening again. I’m getting that “I’ve got a book in me, if I can make time to write it,” feeling. Of course, that “if” is the big, and the deciding, factor.
It’s not that I don’t trust the guy, and maybe the whole Weinergate thing has me a little gun shy, but am I the only who thinks Obama tweeting for himself may not be the best idea?
“Today’s powerful court ruling striking down the infamous Prop 8 affirms basic American values and helps tear down a discriminatory barrier to marriage that benefits no one while making it harder for people to take care of their loved ones. The Ninth Circuit rightly held that a state simply may not take a group of people and shove them outside the law, least of all when it comes to something as important as the commitment and security of marriage. We salute the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which brought this challenge to Prop 8.
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