NY court hears case against gay marriage benefits
(Albany, NY) A Christian legal group seeking to stop New York agencies from recognizing same-sex marriages performed outside the state argued in the state’s highest court Tuesday that the practice amounts to a policy decision that requires approval by lawmakers.
Attorney Brian Raum told state Court of Appeals judges that a …
Tags: Albany Ny, Appeals Judges, Court Case, Court Of Appeals, gay marriage, Lawmakers, Legal Group, marriage, Marriage Benefits, Policy Decision, Same Sex MarriagesSame-sex marriages begin in Vermont
(Duxbury, Vt.) After 17 years together, Bill Slimback and Bob Sullivan couldn’t wait another minute to get married. So they didn’t.
With Vermont’s new law allowing same-sex marriage only a minute old, they tied the knot in a midnight ceremony at a rustic lodge, becoming one of the first couples to …
Tags: 17 Years, Bob Sullivan, Couples, Duxbury Vt, Knot, marriage, New Sex, same sex marriage, Same Sex Marriages, Vermont Law‘Two-Track’ Church Suggested by Archbishop of Canterbury
PARIS — The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, said profound differences among the world’s 77 million Anglicans over gay clergy and same-sex unions could divide their church into a “two-track model” yielding “two styles of being Anglican.”
The formula could avert a formal breach between liberals and conservatives but bring new strains in the relationship between the global Anglican Communion and American Episcopalians who resolved this month to open the door to ordaining openly gay bishops and to start the process of developing rites for same-sex marriages.
Archbishop Williams insisted that the issue should not be debated “in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are — two styles of being Anglican.”
In a lengthy message published Monday on his Web site, the archbishop offered a detailed and nuanced response to events at the Episcopal convention in Anaheim, Calif., this month when gay-rights advocates in the United States chalked up major victories over conservatives on sexual issues. The Episcopal Church is the official branch of the Anglican Communion in the United States.
The developments were seen by liberals and conservatives as likely turning points in the history of the divided Episcopal Church, reflecting the profound rifts over sexual issues within Anglicanism — the world’s third largest network of Christian churches after the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The differences have crystallized around the Episcopal Church’s consent in 2003 to the consecration of the church’s first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
The Episcopalians had agreed to a moratorium on the election of gay bishops, but it was lifted at the convention in Anaheim.
The archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, which is composed of 38 provinces worldwide. The Episcopal Church claims about 2.3 million members.
In his message, Archbishop Williams repeated his view that “a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority” of the full Anglican Communion, any more than a blessing for a heterosexual couple living outside marriage would have.
That, in turn, means that as long as the broader church “as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle.”
The issues have confronted the archbishop with deep divisions not simply between liberals and conservatives in the United States but also across the broader church with its many followers in Africa, Britain and elsewhere. Four conservative dioceses in the United States and many individual Episcopal churches have broken away from the national denomination to forge alliances with conservative Anglican groups such as the Anglican Church of Nigeria.
Archbishop Williams said: “There is at least the possibility of a twofold ecclesial reality in view in the middle distance: that is, a ‘covenanted’ Anglican global body, fully sharing certain aspects of a vision of how the Church should be and behave, able to take part as a body in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue; and, related to this body, but in less formal ways with fewer formal expectations, there may be associated local churches in various kinds of mutual partnership and solidarity with one another and with ‘covenanted’ provinces.”
The archbishop has promoted the idea of covenant — described by some analysts as a kind of good-behavior guide for churches — to overcome the rift.
“This has been called a ‘two-tier’ model, or, more disparagingly, a first- and second-class structure,” the archbishop’s message said. “But perhaps we are faced with the possibility rather of a ‘two-track’ model, two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage, one of which had decided that local autonomy had to be the prevailing value and so had in good faith declined a covenantal structure.”
The message continued: “It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are — two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude cooperation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion.”
See Anglican Sees ‘Two-Track’ Church @ New York Times
- Archbishop warns ordination of gay clergy could lead to two-tier … guardian.co.uk
- Anglican Head Warns Of Two-Tier Church After Gay Vote On Top Magazine Archbishop of Canterbury responds to General Convention actions on … Austin American-Statesman
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Married lesbian couple seeks protection in India
LUCKNOW: Even as the country debates pros and cons of legalising the same sex marriages and the Central government finds itself in a fix over the issue, a lesbian couple tied nuptial knot defying all social norms in Muzaffarnagar, known for honour killings and fundamentalist diktats by caste-based panchayats.
This is not all. Two days after the incident hit the headlines, the Muzaffarnagar district administration received another application for same sex marriage from another lesbian couple. While in the first case, officers have provided security to the newly wedded, they have not given permission to the second couple fearing a backlash from the community. Significantly, in both the cases, the couples belong to low income group and are not highly educated.
In the first case, Komal Sharma and Pinki Kashyap entered into wedlock and left their families to live together. The couple hails from Dayanand Nagar, a small locality in Shamli tehsil of Muzaffarnagar district. While Komal belongs to a Brahmin family and is educated till class XI, Pinki hails from an other backward class family and has studied only till class VIII. Komal’s father Rajendra Sharma is with home guard and Pinki’s father Hariram runs a small dairy.
The two girls met three months back in a vocational training centre where both had enrolled for a course in stitching. The friendship soon turned into love and they got secretly married through Arya Samaj rituals at a temple in Muzaffarnagar. They also to have entered wedlock legally through a court marriage in Delhi. While Pinki posed as the groom, Komal dressed as a bride.
The couple kept their marriage a secret till July 23, the day they left their families. According to police, Pinki came to Komal’s house in the morning of July 23 when Komal was alone with her two younger siblings. The duo gave sleeping pills mixed in cold drink to the Komal’s younger brother and sister and left the house. The two girls also filed an application in the office of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Muzaffarnagar, complaining that they have threat to their lives from their families. See Married woman marries her ‘girlfriend’ in west UP Times of India
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Gay Rights Groups Seek to Intervene in Federal Challenge to Calif. Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Gay rights groups’ attempt to intervene in a federal challenge of California’s Proposition 8 has created a rift with the high-powered attorneys heading the case, turning erstwhile allies into head-butting competitors.
Both sides have diverging visions of legal strategy. The gay groups are pushing a cautious, narrow approach based on the circumstances of Prop 8, while Theodore Olson, David Boies and their backers are seeking a decisive victory for all gay couples under the U.S. Constitution.
The civil rights groups — the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union — are also worried that the Olson/Boies team is underestimating the importance of U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker’s insistence on a fully developed factual record. They moved this month to intervene (pdf) so they can present evidence of historic discrimination against gays and lesbians and answer Walker’s questions, such as whether sexual orientation can be changed and whether same-sex marriages destabilize opposite-sex marriages.
See Gay Rights Groups Seek to Intervene in Federal Challenge to Calif …
Above the Law
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Sask. appeal court asked whether commissioners can opt out of same-sex marriages
REGINA — The Saskatchewan government wants the province’s highest court to weigh in on proposed legislation that would allow marriage commissioners to not perform same-sex marriages if it is contrary to their religious beliefs.
Justice Minister Don Morgan said Friday that the government is referring legislative options to the Court of Appeal for its opinion on whether the proposals meet the requirements of the Charter of Rights.
“We’ve given the Court of Appeal two suggested options: one that we grandfather the existing marriage commissioners that are reluctant or refusing to perform a same-sex marriage, and the other one would be to create a religious exemption for those and for future marriage commissioners,” he said.
“It would require us to have two pools of marriage commissioners. One that would be willing to perform the same-sex marriage and one that would not.”
Whether officials can refuse to marry same-sex couples is the subject of a lawsuit and a complaint before the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal - both of which are being heard by Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench.
The complaint arose in 2005 when marriage commissioner Orville Nichols, a devout Baptist, told a gay couple he wouldn’t marry them because it went against his religious beliefs.
See Sask. appeal court asked whether commissioners can opt out of same … The Canadian Press
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Judge Declines to Stay Law on Gay Marriage
A Superior Court judge decided yesterday not to delay enactment of a law stipulating that the D.C. government will recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.
Judge Judith E. Retchin ruled that she would not a grant a stay preventing the law from taking effect Monday, as requested by opponents. However, the effective date is likely to be delayed by the need for congressional approval. Attorneys for the group said they needed more time to research and argue their position before the law takes effect.
Opponents, led by Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, and seven other D.C. voters want a referendum on the issue, but the D.C. elections board said that would be illegal under the District’s Human Rights Act.
Although Retchin decided against delaying the law’s enactment, she said opponents could seek to amend the law after the marriage provision takes effect.
See Judge Declines to Stay Law on Gay Marriage
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DC judge rules against referendum
A judge ruled that a vote on recognizing same-sex marriages would violate the city’s human rights law.
Tags: Dc Judge, Human Rights Law, Judge Rules, Referendum, Same Sex Marriages, VoteGay rights mean different things to different generations of community
Before there were domestic-partnership registries and commitment ceremonies, before same-sex marriages and civil unions — before the gay-rights movement, even — John McCluskey and Rudy Henry met, fell in love and harbored the notion that they could spend their lives making one another happy.
And for 50 years, the Tacoma men went about doing just that, all the while longing for social acceptance.
Even in gay-friendly San Francisco where they first lived together, they found it necessary to hide their relationship from prospective landlords, and on job applications they would sometimes lie about their marital status to avoid raising suspicion.
Decades later in 2006, at a coffee-shop concert on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, Amy Balliett and Jessica Trejo met and they, too, eventually fell in love.
In their 20s, the two had come out as lesbians at a time when young people could find support in groups on high school and college campuses, when they had gay role models in politics and on television, and when their parents probably knew people who were openly gay. By the time the two married in California last October, legal bonds between gays and lesbians were possible in several states.
Balliett and Trejo, Henry and McCluskey are like generational bookends to this modern gay-rights movement, launched 40 years ago this week after a group of activists at a small Manhattan bar called the Stonewall Inn stood up in violent protest to ongoing police harassment.
While older gays and younger ones share much the same agenda of equality, their needs within the movement are also divergent.
Young people, who have at times referred to their own post-gay movement, seek the protections of marriage equality as they form relationships and start families, while gays of their grandparents’ generation are more concerned about issues of aging — like survivor benefits and long-term care.
See Gay rights mean different things to different generations of community
Seattle Times -
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National Gay and Lesbian Task Force applauds Census Bureau’s plan to count married same-sex couples
Task Force staffers have been meeting with officials from the White House, Census Bureau and Commerce Department to press for this policy reversal
WASHINGTON, June 20 -The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force applauds reports that the U.S. Census Bureau will count married same-sex couples in the 2010 census, reversing an earlier decision made under the Bush administration. Previously, same-sex couples only had the option of checking off ‘unmarried partner,’ which will remain an option. The Task Force has played a leading role in getting the Census Bureau to change course. Task Force staffers have been pressing for a reversal of the discriminatory policy in meetings that started in late 2008 with the Obama transition team, continuing later with officials from the White House, Census Bureau and Commerce Department.
tatement by Rea Carey, Executive Director National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
“This is a huge win for our community. Our community and allies stood up and refused to allow same-sex marriages, our
families and our children to be rendered invisible in the picture of our country provided through the census.
“After months and months of pressure through the grassroots campaign we waged and our in-person meetings with administration officials, the U.S. Census Bureau has reversed policy and will be accurately counting the thousands of same-sex couples who have worked so hard to have their love and commitment recognized.
“This gives us hope that we will also be able to get the federal government to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the data and reporting on other critical issues, including those having to do with our health, economic issues, safety and life circumstances. As a married person myself, I look forward to filling out the census form, knowing that my family will be counted accurately.
“We would like to thank Gary Gates of the Williams Institute for his years of work and for partnering with us to educate the administration on this critical issue of visibility for our community.”
The Task Force’s work leading to this victory
The Task Force has been working for months to secure a reversal of the discriminatory policy.
* Task Force staff met with Obama transition team members to educate them about this critical issue, and to provide concrete ways for them to make this change.
* Task Force staffers, including Executive Director Rea Carey and Policy Institute Director Jaime Grant, have been pressing for a policy change in meetings that started in late 2008 with the Obama transition team, continuing later with officials from the White House, Census Bureau and Commerce Department.
* In February, the Task Force Policy Institute convened 20 leading lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights organizations to meet with top census outreach officials. In this meeting, the groups collectively refused to engage in community outreach on the census until the anti-marriage policy was reversed.
* The Task Force partnered with the Williams Institute to provide officials from the White House, Census Bureau and Commerce Department with research essential to making this change.
* The Task Force undertook a major grassroots campaign to both educate the public on this issue and to apply pressure to the administration.
* The Task Force worked with key elected officials to provide them with
information so they could write letters to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and
the incoming director of the Census Bureau to advocate for change.
* The Task Force is part of a coalition of researchers and advocates
crafting a community education campaign to launch following the change of
policy.
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