Marriage/CU cases headed to Euro court
The European Court of Human Rights will decide on UK’s gay marriage, straight civil union ban.
2/3 Irish support gay marriage
2/3 Irish support gay marriage
2/3 Irish support gay marriage
2/3 Irish support gay marriage
2/3 Irish support gay marriage
2/3 Irish support gay marriage
2/3 Irish support gay marriage
2/3 Irish support gay marriage
Same-sex marriage now in Argentina
Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalize gay marriage and adoption.
Culhane: How DADT repeal will help gay marriage
Depending on whom you read and rely on, the DADT ban is or is not about to be history. Many stories have been written on the proposed law, but not much has been said about this point: If the repeal does go through, the case for marriage equality becomes rhetorically stronger. Why?
First, unlike many of the laws that seek equality for the LGBT community, DADT and the ban on same-sex marriages are instances where the government itself is doing the discriminating.
Thus, the rhetoric that’s used in one case applies to the other: Government should treat all of its citizens equally. Even an unreconstructed libertarian like Rand Paul – currently in boiling water because of his statements that the government shouldn’t tell private businesses whom they can and can’t deal with (including, say, African-Americans) – should support a principle of basic fairness and equality for all citizens. (He doesn’t, of course, so his libertarianism is born of convenience, not principle.)
Second, the most-often heard argument against allowing gay and lesbian soldiers into the military is that they will disrupt “unit cohesion.” But if this argument is ultimately rejected in the one area in which it at least sounds plausible (if only because of a homophobic atmosphere that has too often come from higher-ranking military), that rejection weakens a similar argument that’s advanced by many of those who oppose marriage equality: Allowing gays, lesbians, and transgendered people to marry will weaken heterosexual marriages – disrupt their “unit cohesion,” if you will.
But if folks in the military can somehow learn to deal with gay and lesbian troops who live and fight alongside them every day, then surely straight couples can absorb the blow inflicted by living in the same society as same-sex couples.
Sometimes the argument is pitched at a slightly more sophisticated level: While marriage equality won’t immediately affect heterosexual couples, in the long run it will change the message of marriage by suggesting that the biological connection between parents and children isn’t important.
Maggie Gallagher is perhaps the anti-equality spokesperson most associated with this argument, but I’ve also heard it made during litigation. For example, during oral argument before the Iowa Supreme Court, the state’s dramatically unsuccessful effort (7-zip) to block equality leaned almost exclusively on a version of that argument.
Courts, though, are rarely impressed by such abstract arguments – especially when they carry more than a whiff of desperation. You’ll notice that the anti-equality forces haven’t been especially vocal about opposing adoption, surrogacy, or no-fault divorce laws, all of which of course sever the biological connections between parents and their children.
Nor do they acknowledge that marriage sends a bunch of other messages, too – including that one about commitment and the raising of children, together.
Against these arguments stand the obvious and debilitating discrimination against all of us – those who’d marry if we could, and those who wouldn’t but who are constantly reminded of our second-class citizenship. Faced with the balancing of that ledger, any self-respecting court should require sounder arguments for the continued exclusion of LGBT couples from the institution of marriage.
And recently, they have: Supreme Courts in California (pre-Prop 8), Massachusetts, Iowa and Connecticut have all read their state constitutional guarantees of equality to require the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Are there other arguments against marriage equality?
Not good ones.
Even Justice Scalia admitted, in his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, that the marriage-procreation link isn’t a reason (we don’t require proof of reproductive capacity), and the related arguments that opposite-sex couples “need” marriage because only they can procreate “accidentally” (Oops! I Procreated Again!) is just plain dumb (even though it was accepted by the highest courts in both Washington and New York).
Religious arguments, of course, have no place in a public debate (for one thing: whose religion controls?)
So we’re left with this kind of discomfort with marriage equality – that somehow it will affect straight marriages, however indirectly and over time. Once this “unit cohesion” argument falls in the military setting, its demise in civilian life should be briskly achieved. Let’s begin to press this argument.
John Culhane is Professor of Law and Director of the Health Law Institute at Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware. He blogs about the role of law in everyday life, and about a bunch of other things (LGBT rights, public health, science, certain sports, pop culture, music, philosophy and lots of personal stuff) at: http://wordinedgewise.org. A fuller bio can be found here. He can be reached via email at: johnculhane@comcast.net.
Ask the Expert: ‘Do I buy my boyfriend an engagement ring?’
Stumped on when to send out your STDs (save-the-date announcements)? Don’t know who should be invited to your rehearsal dinner? Get the answers to all your wedding etiquette questions by submitting your dilemma to etiquette@equallywed.com [1]
Q I’m planning on proposing to my boyfriend, and I’m wondering how other men propose to one another? An engagement ring is really for females since they can wear an engagement and wedding ring. While I realize there are no rules, a man with two wedding bands just doesn’t make sense to me. Plus, I’d rather purchase rings together (most likely matching) with my partner when we are ready to wed. So what does one propose with? Another ring? A watch? I can’t seem to find anything about this online…
A gay marriage is all about embracing who you are and who you love, which means that you should do what makes sense for you, and if that’s wearing an engagement ring, a wedding band and stackable anniversary bands up to your fingernail, then by all means, feel free.
But to give you a proper answer from a man’s point of view, we deferred to a groom who’s recently been in your situation, Steve Schessler, who makes up half of one our Real Weddings couples in our Spring issue of Equally Wed magazine. Read about his and Jonathan’s wedding here [2].
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Schessler says, “For our part, I bought an engagement ring for Jonathan after some months of sideways questioning, ‘So do you like something like this?’ or ‘Do you remember your ring size?’ Not so indirect, but he somehow still wasn’t thinking the proposal was on the horizon, and coming closer. In the end, the main stipulations were no stones, simple design and a fairly thin band. I found the perfect one at Cartier, from their ‘Love’ series.
“After the proposal, Jonathan decided he wanted to get an engagement ring for me as well, so we went back to Cartier and found a complementary ring from the same collection, but bigger for my larger hands.
“At our wedding in Atlanta, we exchanged these same rings, and had planned to go without a band. We then were invited to participate in a No on Prop 8 fundraiser in San Francisco, where we’d already moved, for our legal California ceremony. As part of that event at the Bently Reserve, Shreve & Co. donated two bands of our choosing—and we now wear both our original engagement bands and the very thin Furrer Jacot rose-gold bands from the legal ceremony.
“We have some friends who used engagement rings (with both guys always getting one eventually) and then exchanged them at their wedding as well, while we know a few other couples, who did both engagement rings and wedding bands. The biggest difference, I think, is that both of the guys have the same number of rings—either one, if they re-exchange, or two, if they add bands.”
Kirsten Palladino is Editor in Chief of Equally Wed, the nation’s premier same-sex wedding magazine, online at www.equallywed.com [4]. Equally Wed offers gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender couples an extensive, trustworthy and fashionable guide of inspiration, ideas and trends for planning their engagements, weddings and honeymoons, as well as their happily ever after. The photo-rich site is home to Equally Wed’s Local Resources, a veritable marketplace of vetted GLBT-friendly wedding vendors across the United States and abroad. It also offers an interactive social community to talk to other readers about all things wedding, as well as the latest news from the frontlines of the fight for marriage equality. Follow Kirsten on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/equallywedeic [5].
[1] http://www.365gay.commailto:etiquette@equallywed.com
[2] http://equallywed.com/real-weddings-main/real-weddings-jonathan-and-steve.html
[3] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-marriage-men-rings-wedding-top.jpg
[4] http://www.equallywed.com
[5] http://www.twitter.com/equallywedeic
Laura Bush says she supports gay marriage
Former first Lady Laura Bush told Larry King this week [1]that she is in favor of gay marriage – a very different position than her husband, the former president.
She and her husband “disagree” on the issue, she told King.
“There are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with [gay marriage] because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman,” she told King. “But I also know that, you know, when couples are committed to each other and love each other, that they ought to have, I think, the same sort of rights that everyone has.”
She added, “I understand totally what George thinks and what other people think about marriage being between a man and a woman. And it’s a real, you know, reversal really for [them] to accept gay marriage,” but she thinks that legalization is coming, she said.
Laura Bush is making the talk show circuit while promoting her memoir “Spoken from the Heart.”
[1] http://larrykinglive.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/12/laura-bush-supports-gay-marriage-abortion/?iref=allsearch
Thursday’s Watercooler: Cynthia Nixon is dating a man with boobs and Laura Bush comes out for gays
The fact that a star of Sex and the City is a lesbian is really quite amazing. The fact that she is finally opening up about her home life is truly a monumental moment. So, today, we should all take a moment and read the Advocate article where Cynthia Nixon describes her girlfriend [1] as a little man with boobs. At the same time, she makes it clear that she is gay and she loves her partner’s sexuality.
[2]
Onward with the gay news. Elena Kagan’s sexuality is becoming a central focus of the Supreme Court [3]process. Andrew Sullivan went so far as to call for Kagan’s sexuality to become a topic in the nomination hearing. It’s incredible and a serious turn for the worse if a candidate’s sexual preference can become an issue with respect to their job performance.
[4]
While we might all be depressed about the Kagan press, there is good news on the horizon. Mad Men star Bryan Brett [5] is the newest in a long line of celebrities who have come out in favor of gay actors after a Newsweek article slammed their ability to act in straight roles. Check out the video below.
And let’s not stop there! Laura Bush – the woman who actually voluntarily joined the Bush family – has come out in favor of gay marriage [6]. Sure, the woman has A LOT to atone for, supporting the Bush years, but we’ll take the support where we can get it. Not to mention the fact that she supports access to abortions as well. I’m starting to wonder if Mrs. Bush has had some sort of head injury recently.
[7]
Finally, in weird news for the day, an Australian reality show is auctioning off virgins [8]. I don’t really know what else to say about this except that it’s disgusting and unbelievable. I never really liked the time I spent in Australia, but this is taking things a little too far.
[9]
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/10/cynthia-nixon-describes-h_n_570645.html
[2] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/blog-cynthia-insert.jpg
[3] http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-11/andrew-sullivans-kagan-crusade/?cid=hp:mainpromo1
[4] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/2009_0514_wiki_elena_kagan.jpg
[5] http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/mad-men-star-bryan-batt-stands-gay-actors/story?id=10627736
[6] http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/05/13/laura-bush-supports-gay-marriage-abortion-607074405/
[7] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/blog-laura-bush-top.jpg
[8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/13/australian-virgins-to-be_n_574696.html
[9] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/blog-australia-insert.jpg
