Exemption for Religious Foes Of Gay Marriage Debated
As a growing number of states legalize same-sex marriage, there is growing attention on exemptions for religious institutions and individuals who find the concept morally objectionable and religiously untenable. This week, New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D) said he would sign legislation to make his state the sixth to legalize gay marriage if the legislature ensured religious protections.
Vermont and Connecticut have enacted laws that exempt clergy from performing same-sex marriages and give religious groups the right to refuse their facilities for same-sex marriage celebrations and allow them to refuse to provide insurance benefits to same-sex partners.
With those exemptions, said George Washington University constitutional law professor Ira Lupu on the legal blog Concurring Opinions, “religious conservatives and secular progressives now have the opportunity to reach political bargains.”
See Exemption for Religious Foes Of Gay Marriage Debated Washington Post * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Religious right not united in push to repeal benefits for gay couples
Religious conservatives across the state are divided over a new campaign to repeal legislation extending all the benefits of marriage — except the name — to gay and lesbian couples.
Conservative faith leaders on Monday followed through on an earlier pledge, filing a referendum to overturn Senate Bill 5688, which extends to same-sex couples all the state-given benefits of marriage previously reserved for opposite-sex couples.
But some prominent religious conservatives are not on board with the campaign, saying the timing is all wrong, given the state of the economy.
The referendum’s backers — a network of Catholic, Protestant and Mormon organizations with some 100,000 constituents — can’t begin gathering the 120,500 signatures necessary to qualify the measure for the November ballot until the governor has signed the bill into law. That should happen within two weeks.
Gary Randall, executive director of the Faith and Freedom Network, which is leading the coalition of bill opponents, said he feels they have a good shot at getting their numbers.
“There’s a broad coalition of organizations involved with us,” Randall said. “We’re not assuming everyone will be on board, but conservatively there are 100,000 people involved in those organizations. So, based on that, I think the chances are pretty good.”
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Senior GOP Consultant Backs Gay Marriage Washington Post
Steve Schmidt, a top adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign, today laid out the case for gay marriage, warning that the GOP will continue to lose young voters and the Northeast as long the party opposes it.
At a meeting in Washington of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights GOP group, Schmidt dismissed conservative arguments that allowing gay marriage would weaken the institution, as well as objections from religious conservatives, warning that they could turn the Republican Party into a “sectarian” party.
“For the party to be seen as an antigay, that is injurious to its candidates in places like California and Washington and New York,” Schmidt said.
He called heterosexual marriage “a tradition,”not a “creed.”
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Anti-Women and Anti-Gay “Walk for Life” will March Through San …
On January 24th, an anti-women’s rights and anti-gay march will take place in San Francisco. The Bay Area Coalition for Reproduction Rights (BACORR) is calling on human rights supporters to protest the so-called “Walk for Life” led by religious conservatives.
The “Unite to Fight the Right Wing” counter-protest will begin with a rally at San Francisco’s Music Concourse at Embarcadero and Market Streets at 10:30am. More Details
As part of this year’s protest, BACORR is also calling attention to the ICE raids against immigrant communities. Anita O’Shea, BACORR spokesperson writes “The ‘Walk for Life’ is part of a multi-pronged rightwing movement that includes bigots in suits as well as armed, vigilante Minutemen, clinic bombers, and gay bashers…..We must stop the blame game against women, immigrants and queers before the ultra-right gains momentum.”
In recent years the Catholic Church has helped push through two discriminatory acts, the “Conscience Rule” and Proposition 8. The “Conscience Rule” allows health care providers to refuse to fill a birth control prescription for “moral” reasons. BACORR co-chair Gemma Mirkinson responded to the institution of the Conscience Rule asking, “What’s next: refusing service to people with AIDS, or immigrants or transgender folks? This is nothing but bigotry sanctioned by the highest office of the land and applauded by the people who will trek through our city January 24.” See Anti-Women and Anti-Gay “Walk for Life” will March Through San …
Bay Area Indymedia, CA
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Rights Group Slams Mormon Attack Ad
(New York City) A full page ad in today’s Salt Lake Tribune slams the Church of Latter Day Saints and other religious conservatives for accusing gays of “mob violence” over protests against Proposition 8.
The Mormon Church was one of the biggest financial contributors to the Prop 8 campaign which amended …
Newsweek draws fire on gay marriage
“It doesn’t surprise me. Newsweek has been so far in the tank on the homosexual issue, for so long, they need scuba gear and breathing apparatus,” said Richard Land, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “I don’t think it’s going to change the minds of anyone who takes biblical teachings seriously.”
Tony Perkins, president of the socially conservative Family Research Council, agreed, calling Newsweek’s cover story “yet another attack on orthodox Christianity.”
“I hardly think that Newsweek is a credible venue for theological discussion,” said Perkins. “I mean, I thought it was just full of holes.”
In a note at the front of the magazine this week, editor Jon Meacham predicted a backlash and struck a preemptively defiant note.
“Religious conservatives will say that the liberal media are once again seeking to impose their values (or their ‘agenda,’ a favorite term to describe the views of those who disagree with you) on a God-fearing nation,” he wrote. “Let the letters and emails come. History and demographics are on the side of those who favor inclusion over exclusion.”
And in an email to Politico, Newsweek managing editor Dan Klaidman invited further responses, writing: “The piece speaks for itself and we welcome the debate.”
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Politico – Washington,DC,USA
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For This Songwriter, the Political Is Musical
Most of the jokes in the Internet video “Prop 8 — the Musical,” a comedic song-and-dance diatribe about the California ballot initiative defining marriage as existing only between a man and a woman, are in its lyrics.
Playing a black-suited religious conservative, John C. Reilly intones, “People, listen to our plea/They’ll teach our kids about sodomy.” Neil Patrick Harris, playing a flamboyant figure trying to reconcile the proposition’s supporters and opponents, sings, “Every time a gay or lesbian finds love at the parade/There’s money to be made.”
But there is one visual gag that is particularly bittersweet to Marc Shaiman, the creator and composer of the video: a credit that says Mr. Shaiman conceived and wrote this three-minute musical skit “six weeks later than he shoulda.”
As popular as “Prop 8 — the Musical” has been — it has been viewed more than 1.9 million times since it was posted on Wednesday on funnyordie.com — it is also a reminder to Mr. Shaiman and like-minded colleagues of how events might have turned out if they had been vocal and organized before Proposition 8 was approved by California voters last month.
“We stupidly allowed ourselves to be lulled into a sense of ‘everything’s fantastic now,’ ” Mr. Shaiman said in a recent telephone interview. “ ‘Everything’s changing, and this couldn’t possibly be voted into law.’ ”
The proposition passed on Election Day with 52 percent of the vote, including strong support from religious conservatives. On Nov. 20 the California Supreme Court said it would consider whether a voter-approved ban on same-sex unions was constitutional.
Mr. Shaiman, 49, an openly gay, Tony Award-winning songwriter whose résumé includes the stage and film musicals “Hairspray” and some of the bawdier songs in “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” came to create “Prop 8 — the Musical” somewhat inadvertently.
After the passage of the ballot initiative, he learned that Scott Eckern, the musical director of the California Musical Theate
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New York Times, United States
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