So Iowa and Vermont have legalized gay marriage, while other states move in the same direction.... but such a step was far too radical for California?
Read these two articles, and try to reconcile the situation that they both describe with what allegedly went down in California--and, even more surprisingly, in L.A. County--on Election Day: the passage of Prop 8. In fact, there is no evidence that Prop 8 passed, although there is persuasive evidence that it did not. And now, as further evidence, there's this great national surge of grass-roots tolerance toward gay marriage. How this shift could somehow not include a county that is one of the most liberal in the USA is a mystery, to put it mildly. This is reminiscent of the Terry Schiavo travesty in March of 2005, when four out of five Americans expressed strong disapproval of the push by Tom DeLay and other Christianist fanatics to jam that feeding-tube back into Schiavo's barely living body. One of those fanatics was George W. Bush, who actually cut his vacation short to sign the law that had been dashed off by DeLay et al. So roughly 80% of the American people hollered "NO!"--less than four months after Bush was "re-elected," we were told, by an aroused majority of "values voters." To put it bluntly, that did not compute. Such voters were, in fact, a fringe majority back then (as quite a lot of evidence made clear already, and as lots more has made even clearer since). And now, again, we see a social movement that belies the dubious official numbers from a previous election--numbers that we have no reason to believe in any case, since they were generated by computerized voting systems run by private companies with a partisan agenda. So maybe it's now time for activists throughout the gay community to take a good hard look at the results re: Proposition 8. Because what happened there may not have been a gross repudiation of gay rights, but a massive breach of Californians' voting rights. And if that's the case, it's yet another grave injustice that those voters have been taking all the blame. MCM p.s. If you're interested in seeing some of that abundantevidence of massive fraud in the 2004 election, start with the essays in Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008. Moves to legalise gay marriage in Vermont and Iowa signal cultural shift - Both US states legalised gay marriage within past week - Eight other states may vote on bills this year By Ewen MacAskill The Guardian April 8, 2009 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/08/gay-marriage-usa A significant cultural shift appears to be under way in the US in favour of same-sex marriages, with two landmark decisions over the past week and eight states poised to vote on bills later this year. Gay campaigners are celebrating a vote in the Vermont legislature yesterday and an Iowa supreme court ruling last week, bringing to four the number of states where same-sex marriages are legal. The mood contrasts with the despondency in November when the public in California overturned a brief period in which same-sex marriages were allowed and voted for a definition of marriage as being only between a man and woman. Evan Wolfson, founder and executive director of the New York-based Freedom to Marry organisation, described the events of the last week as wonderful and said the dynamic has been changing, with the public coming to see gay people in a different way. The presidency of George Bush was marked by social conservatism, often based on the agenda of the Christian right, but the victory of Barack Obama in November has coincided with an apparent rejection of much of that agenda in favour of greater liberalisation. "Eight years after the most polarising politics of Bush-Rove and orchestrated attacks on gay people, I think what happened in 2008 was the American people said they have had enough of divisiveness," Wolfson said. Up until last week, only two states recognised same-sex marriages: Connecticut and Massachusetts. Many other states accept civil unions but not marriage. Vermont is important because it is the first legislature to pass such a bill. Legal marriage for gays in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa was the result of court rulings. The Vermont bill cannot be overruled by its governor and the first gay marriages are scheduled for September. Wolfson said: "Legislatures in several states are considering bills now and we are hoping to see movement in several of them over the next few months." The next is likely to be New Hampshire, whose house of representatives has voted in favour and the bill has now gone to its senate. In Maine, the state legislature is scheduled to begin committee hearings later this month. In New York and New Jersey, both their governors have promised to sign any bills passed by their legislatures. Wolfson, who founded his organisation in 2003, sees the California ruling as a turning point. "California was a wake-up call. People realised that we had been too complacent." Other states laying the groundwork for bills in favour of same-sex marriages include Illinois, Washington state, Maryland and Rhode Island. In another development, the District of Columbia's council voted in favour of recognising same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. It will be subject to another vote later this month before going to the mayor, Aidrian Fenty, who said he will sign it. The Washington DC vote is subject to a congressional review, which will mean it could go in front of national politicians for a decision. Organisations opposed to gay marriage held press conferences today predicting that campaigners in favour of same-sex marriage will find it harder in at least 29 US states that would require constitutional amendments to reverse the bans. They also claimed that the decisions in Iowa and Vermont would energise those opposed to same-sex marriages. According to polls, the number of Americans in favour of same-sex marriages, though still a minority, has grown in the last five years from about 20% to over 30%. In California, the supreme court is expected to rule in coming months on November's ballot. But gay rights campaigners hold out little hope, on the basis of initial hearings. Faith groups increasingly lose gay rights fights The Washington Post 3:20 AM EST April 10, 2009 http://news.mobile.msn.com/en-us/articles.aspx?afid=1&aid=30146878 Faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom. The lawsuits have resulted from states and communities that have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. Those laws have created a clash between the right to be free from discrimination and the right to freedom of religion, religious groups said, with faith losing. They point to what they say are ominous recent examples: * A Christian photographer was forced by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission to pay $6,637 in attorney's costs after she refused to photograph a gay couple's commitment ceremony. * A psychologist in Georgia was fired after she declined for religious reasons to counsel a lesbian about her relationship. * Christian fertility doctors in California who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian patient were barred by the state Supreme Court from invoking their religious beliefs in refusing treatment. * A Christian student group was not recognized at a University of California law school because it denies membership to anyone practicing sex outside of traditional marriage. "It really is all about religious liberty for us," said Scott Hoffman, chief administrative officer of a New Jersey Methodist group, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, which lost a property tax exemption after it declined to allow its beachside pavilion to be used for a same-sex union ceremony. "The protection to not be forced to do something that is against deeply held religious principles." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [email protected] OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
