NEW YORK, CALIFORNIA, UTAH: MARRIAGE IN MODERN TIMES

We start this editorial with an article, in its entirety, culled from the headlines.

Gay marriage backers: New York vote has national impact

Yahoo! News
AP
Saturday evening, 25 June 2011, 8:40 p.m. MDT
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer

NEW YORK – Many obstacles still lie ahead for supporters of same-sex marriage, and eventually they will need Congress or the Supreme Court to embrace their goal. For the moment, though, they are jubilantly channeling the lyrics of "New York, New York."

"Now that we've made it here, we'll make it everywhere," said prominent activist Evan Wolfson, who took up the cause of marriage equality as a law student three decades ago.

With a historic vote by its Legislature late Friday, New York became the sixth — and by far the most populous — state to legalize same-sex marriage since Massachusetts led the way, under court order, in 2004.

With the new law, which takes effect after 30 days, the number of Americans in same-sex marriage states more than doubles. New York's population of 19 million surpasses the combined total of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Iowa, plus the District of Columbia.

The outcome — a product of intensive lobbying by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo — will have nationwide repercussions. Activists hope the New York vote will help convince judges and politicians across the country, including a hesitant President Barack Obama, that support of same-sex marriage is now a mainstream viewpoint and a winning political stance.

"New York sends the message that marriage equality across the country is a question of `when,' not `if,'" said Fred Sainz, a vice president of the Human Rights Campaign.

Wolfson, president of the advocacy group Freedom to Marry, said the goal is attainable by 2020, or sooner, "if we do the work and keep making the case."

The work — as envisioned by leading activists — is a three-pronged strategy unfolding at the state level, in dealings with Congress and the Obama administration, and in the courts where several challenges to the federal ban on gay marriage are pending.

"This will be a big boost to our efforts nationally," said Richard Socarides, a former Clinton White House adviser on gay rights. "It will help in the pending court cases to show that more states are adopting same-sex marriage, and it will help in the court of public opinion."

The New York bill cleared the Republican-controlled Senate by a 33-29 margin, thanks to crucial support from four GOP senators who joined all but one Democrat in voting yes. The Democratic-led Assembly, which previously approved the bill, passed the Senate's stronger religious exemptions in the measure, and Cuomo swiftly signed it into law.

Gay rights activists have been heaping praise on Cuomo for leading the push for the bill, seizing on an issue that many politicians of both parties have skirted. Yet the Senate vote marked the first time a Republican-controlled legislative chamber in any state has supported same-sex marriage, and several prominent Republican donors contributed to the lobbying campaign on behalf of the bill.

For those engaged in the marriage debate nationally, recent months have been a political rollercoaster.

Bills to legalize same-sex marriage failed in Maryland and Rhode Island despite gay rights activists' high hopes. However, Illinois, Hawaii and Delaware approved civil unions, joining five other states — California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington — that provide gay couples with extensive marriage-like rights.

Adding those eight states to the six that allow gay marriage, more than 35 percent of Americans now live in states where gay couples can effectively attain the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Just 11 years ago, no states offered such rights.

For now, gay couples cannot get married in 44 states, and 30 of them have taken the extra step of passing constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. Minnesota's Republican-controlled Legislature has placed such an amendment on the 2012 ballot.

Brian Brown, president of the conservative National Organization for Marriage, vowed to seek defeat of the New York Republicans who helped the marriage bill pass. He also predicted victory for the amendment to ban gay marriage next year in Minnesota, and said this would belie the claims that the same-sex marriage campaign would inevitably prevail nationwide.

"We've won every free, fair vote of the people," Brown said Saturday. "Backroom deals in Albany are not an indication of what people in this country think about marriage."

Efforts may surface in some states to repeal the existing marriage bans, but the prospect of dismantling all of them on a state-by-state basis is dim. In Mississippi, for example, a ban won support of 86 percent of the voters in 2004.

Thus, looking long term, gay marriage advocates see nationwide victory coming in one of two ways — either congressional legislation or a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that would require all states to recognize same-sex marriages.

"The way you do that is creating a critical mass of states and a critical mass of public opinion — some combination that will encourage Congress and the Supreme Court," Wolfson said. "By winning New York, we add tremendous energy to the national conversation that grows the majority."

Shorter term, gay rights activists and their allies in Congress would like to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition to same-sex marriages. The act is being challenged in several court cases, and Obama ordered his administration in February to stop defending the law on the grounds it is unconstitutional.

Democrats in Congress have introduced a bill to repeal the law, while the Republican leadership in the House has pledged to defend it.

Obama, when elected, said he supported broadening rights for gay couples but opposed legalizing same-sex marriage. More recently, he has said his position is "evolving," and he asked gay activists at a New York City fundraiser Thursday for patience.

Nonetheless, frustrations are mounting. Freedom to Marry says more than 112,000 people have signed its "Say I Do" appeal to the president, and gay marriage supporters have launched an EvolveAlready campaign on Twitter.

"We hope that, through this public pressure, we'll be able to move the president to understand that he's falling behind the majority of Americans who see marriage equality as a key civil right," said Robin McGehee of the advocacy group GetEqual.

Several recent opinion polls — by Gallup and The Associated Press, among others — have shown that a majority of Americans now approve of same-sex marriage, which a decade ago lagged below 40 percent support. Particularly strong backing for gay marriage among young people, who've grown up watching gay friendly films and TV programs, has prompted many analysts across the political spectrum to suggest the trend is irreversible.

Some conservatives, however, say the opinion polls are belied in the voting booth and point to the steady stream of approvals of state-level bans on same-sex marriage.

"The opposition has created an illusion of momentum but not a real base of support or track record of victory in the courts," said Brian Raum, senior counsel with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund.

Mary Bonauto would disagree.

An attorney with Boston-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, she has spent two decades battling for legal recognition of same-sex relationships. She helped win the landmark court rulings that led to civil unions in Vermont in 2000 and same-sex marriage in Massachusetts in 2004.

Even in the 1990s, she recalled thinking the cause eventually would prevail nationwide.

"I could see attitudes change," she said. "Eventually we have to have one standard of justice in this country and establish that sexual orientation is not a basis for discrimination."

She recalled setbacks just a few years ago in New York — a 2006 Court of Appeals ruling that there was no constitutional right to same-sex marriage in the state, and the decisive defeat of a same-sex marriage bill in the state Senate in 2009.

"The switch this time tells us there's a lot of momentum pointing toward marriage equality," Bonauto said.

Vermont lawyer Beth Robinson, now counsel for Gov. Peter Shumlin, worked with Bonauto in the late 1990s on the case that led to the state's pioneering civil union law. She expects the move toward nationwide same-sex marriage will be bumpy but inexorable.

"As people get to know their gay and lesbian neighbors, friends and family, the notion of denying those families equal rights becomes untenable," she said. "For New York to go there, on a vote rather that a court order, is huge ... It's a victory not just for New York, but for the whole country."

Robinson said Vermont, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2009, offered a lesson to wary Americans in other states.

"It isn't that the sky isn't falling — it's more positive than that," she said. "Vermont is a better place for it. Each of us has the opportunity to be our best selves."

Among the New Yorkers who will now get that opportunity are Richard Dorr, 84, and John Mace, 91, who have been partners for 61 years while pursuing successful careers as voice teachers in Manhattan.

"We thought about getting married in Massachusetts, but it just didn't seem to jibe right," said Dorr. "It should be in the state where you live."

They plan to seek a marriage license as swiftly as possible but don't envision a lavish ceremony.

"Just a couple of witnesses and a justice of the peace," Dorr said.

When they fell in love, back in 1950, "marriage never crossed our mind," he added. "It was just that we had to be together. We could not stay away."

Copyright © 2011 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.


RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY

On 25 June, the New York legislature legalized gay marriage. It won’t be long before California finds a way to legalize in finality the concept. The logic, such as it was, used in both states seems along the lines of what’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, and in the 21st century we cannot go around following the foolish old traditions of our fathers.

Some bigots tried to make an issue of the sexual preferences of California Judge Walker, who made the central ruling. Few associated with the case cared to do so. American culture for years allowed heterosexual married judges make rulings about marriages, and who exactly cried out conflict of interest then

Meanwhile in Salt Lake City, the public communications department of the Church of Jesus Christ has in the past few years issued a number of statements expressing regrets at the legalization of gay marriage. We would hope the brethren of public affairs and public communications departments would find a line more sophisticated than [paraphrase here] God ordained marriage between a man and a woman and that’s the way it has always been and that is the way it just has to be sort of stuff. The P C department always does a fine job making God look like some sort of bigot. They did the same sort of job for God back in the days when it publicly endorsed withholding priesthood from the blacks and decried mixed racial marriage.

For Mormons with parents or children who prefer same gender relationships, this current situation resolves itself by whom do they list best – the Brethren or their gay relatives and their gay friends. If the gay crowd has more charming people, there goes the Church’s influence.

Marriage is not a domestic arrangement between two people. Marriage is a covenant among four entities, not two:

one man

one woman

children of the culture

the culture in which the covenant takes place.

Children have a personal stake in the definitions of marriage. Children’s interest always gets lost in heterosexual – homosexual marriage controversies.

A child has a right to the love, respect, nurturing, and care of both a mother and a father. Fathers are not just a biological act or an afterthought.

Companionship and domestic arrangements are one's own business between Consenting Adults. A child, however, has a right to the loving influence of both a man and a woman.


RIGHT ASCENSION CALL TO ACTION

Politicians in California, Utah, and elsewhere mouth platitudes about protecting the sanctity of marriage, but most of them possess vague notions and definitions of marriage. Congress and the states should spell out the covenant relationship of marriage among the four entities of a man, a woman, American culture and American children in a black-letter law Constitutional amendment. Politicians should not banter marriage about for electioneering points.


And now, yet another article culled from the headlines:


New York becomes largest state to approve gay marriage

Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/print/700146923/NY-becomes-largest-state-to-approve-gay-marriage.html
By Michael Gormley Associated Press
Published: Friday, June 24, 2011 11:58 p.m. MDT

ALBANY, New York — New York lawmakers narrowly voted to legalize same-sex marriage Friday, handing activists a breakthrough victory in the state where the American gay rights movement was born.

New York will become the sixth state where gay couples can wed and the biggest by far.

"We are leaders and we join other proud states that recognize our families and the battle will now go on in other states," said Sen. Thomas Duane, a Democrat.

Gay rights advocates are hoping the vote will galvanize the movement around the United States and help it regain momentum after an almost identical bill was defeated here in 2009 and similar measures failed in 2010 in New Jersey and this year in Maryland and Rhode Island.

Though New York is a relative latecomer in allowing gay marriage, it is considered an important prize for advocates, given the state's size and New York City's international stature and its role as the birthplace of the gay rights movement, which is considered to have started with the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village in 1969.

The New York bill cleared the Republican-controlled state Senate on a 33-29 vote. The Democrat-led Assembly, which passed a different version last week, is expected to pass the new version with stronger religious exemptions and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who campaigned on the issue last year, has promised to sign it. Same-sex couples can begin marrying begin 30 days after that.

The effects of the law could be felt well beyond New York: Unlike Massachusetts, which pioneered gay marriage in 2004, New York has no residency requirement for obtaining a marriage license, meaning the state could become a magnet for gay couples across the country who want to have a wedding in Central Park, the Hamptons, the romantic Hudson Valley or that honeymoon hot spot of yore, Niagara Falls.

New York, the nation's third most populous state, will join Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the Washington capital district in allowing same-sex couples to wed.

For five months in 2008, gay marriage was legal in California, the biggest state in population, and 18,000 same-sex couples rushed to tie the knot there before voters overturned the state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the practice. The constitutionality of California's ban is now before a federal appeals court.

The passage of New York's legislation was made possible by two Republican senators who had been undecided.

Sen. Stephen Saland pledged the deciding vote. He voted against a similar bill in 2009, helping kill the measure and dealing a blow to the national gay rights movement.

"While I understand that my vote will disappoint many, I also know my vote is a vote of conscience," Saland said in a statement to The Associated Press before the vote. "I am doing the right thing in voting to support marriage equality."

Gay couples in gallery wept during Saland's speech.

While court challenges in New York are all but certain, the state — unlike California — makes it difficult for the voters to repeal laws at the ballot box. Changing the law would require a constitutional convention, a long, drawn-out process.

The sticking point over the past few days: Republican demands for stronger legal protections for religious groups that fear they will be hit with discrimination lawsuits if they refuse to allow their facilities to be used for gay weddings.

The climactic vote came after more than a week of stop-and-start negotiations, rumors, closed-door meetings and frustration on the part of advocates. Online discussions took on a nasty turn with insults and vulgarities peppering the screens of opponents and supporters alike and security was beefed up in the capitol to give senators easier passage to and from their conference room.

The night before, President Barack Obama encouraged lawmakers to support gay rights during a fundraiser with New York City's gay community. The vote also is sure to charge up annual gay pride events this weekend, culminating with parades Sunday in New York City, San Francisco and other cities.

Despite New York City's liberal Democratic politics and large and vocal gay community, previous efforts to legalize same-sex marriage failed over the past several years, in part because the rest of the state is more conservative than the city.

The bill's success this time reflected the powerful support of Cuomo and perhaps a change in public attitudes. Opinion polls for the first time are showing majority support for same-sex marriage, and Congress recently repealed the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that barred gays from serving openly in the military.

In the week leading up to the vote in New York, some Republicans who opposed the bill in 2009 came forward to say they were supporting it for reasons of conscience and a duty to ensure civil rights.

Pressure to vote for gay marriage also came from celebrities, athletes and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Republican-turned-independent who has long used his own fortune to help bankroll Republican campaigns and who personally lobbied some undecided lawmakers. Lady Gaga has been urging her 11 million Twitter followers to call New York senators in support of the bill.

While the support of the Assembly was never in doubt, it took days of furious deal-making to secure two Republican votes needed for passage in the closely divided Senate.

Representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox rabbis and other conservative religious leaders fought the measure, and their Republican allies pressed hard for stronger legal protections for religious organizations.

Each side of the debate was funded by more than $1 million from national and state advocates who waged media blitzes and promised campaign cash for lawmakers who sided with them.

But Republican senators said it was Cuomo's passionate appeals in the governor's mansion on Monday night and in closed-door, individual meetings that were perhaps most persuasive.

The bill makes New York only the third state, after Vermont and New Hampshire, to legalize marriage through a legislative act and without being forced to do so by a court.

Associated Press writer Michael Virtanen contributed to this report.

© 2011 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved


ANOTHER RIGHT ASCENSION CALL TO ACTION.

I can only imagine the orthodox conservatives in Utah drawing a fake line in the sand to protect the divine institution of marriage. Most of them do not have a very clear concept of the concept of marriage, divine or otherwise. They and their members in the legislature will undoubtedly make life for Utahns rather unpleasant until the day when the rest of the nation views Utah in much the same way the rest of the nation viewed Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama in the 1960s.

Heterosexuals damaged marriage more than any other group. They, after all, created marriage definitions / traditions / laws to include polygamy, mistresses, doweries, la casa grande and la casa bonita, quick divorces, institutional acceptance of violence against women and children. Their liberalized marriage laws allowing people of different cultures, classes, nations, and races to marry in fact made successful marriages harder to achieve. Men and women of different cultures, classes, nations, and races do have a moral and legal right to marry each other. It does not follow, though, that they have created marriage that will be inherently more successful,

After we accept many of these bogus assumptions, marriage between same-gender couples is just another small leap. Backwards.

We should allow and accept the companionship legalities and domestic arrangements that consenting adults want. Marriage God invented; companionship mankind invented. The law should accept both gay and straight domestic partnerships with unblinking legal equality and objectivity.

A child, however, deserves both a father and a mother in a family. This means that adoption laws need careful attention everywhere.