New England economy could see gay-marriage boost

The expansion of legal gay marriage across New England could deliver an economic windfall by attracting a youthful “creative class” of workers to a region with an aging population.
In the past year, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine have joined Massachusetts, which in 2004 became the first U.S. state to allow same-sex weddings, in blessing gay and lesbian weddings.
That makes the region the first in the United States where same-sex couples can move from one state to another while retaining marriage benefits.
New arrivals include John Visser and Nick Keffer, who recently moved to Hartford, Connecticut, from Raleigh, North Carolina. They plan to wed later this month.
“The sole, only reason why we moved was because it was now legal for us to get married here,” said Visser, 42. “No other reason whatsoever other than marriage equality. We were perfectly happy in North Carolina.”
New England has long burnished an image of tolerance. Early European settlers in the 17th-century escaped religious persecution, although they imposed their own stern doctrines and sometimes expelled dissenters. Later, the region led the right for the abolition of black slavery.
Five out of the region’s six states now endorse gay weddings after New Hampshire legalized same-sex marriage on Wednesday, leaving Rhode Island as the sole holdout.
The spread of gay marriage could serve as a recruiting tool for universities, health care companies and financial services firms that dominate the region’s economy, experts said.
“It will be a selling point when it comes to trying to lure people with same-sex partners who are being wooed for a job,” said M.V. Lee Badgett, a University of Massachusetts economist See New England economy could see gay-marriage boost
Reuters

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For gay couples, married matters

Five years after the first same-sex weddings in Massachusetts, gay and lesbian couples express deeply traditional reasons for deciding to wed and cite equally conventional benefits flowing from marriage, according to a study being released this week.

A significant majority of the 558 gay men and women surveyed said that since marrying, they feel more committed to their spouses, more accepted in their community, and more likely to be open about their sexual orientation at work.

The survey indicates that there is something universal about the legal protections and social advantages afforded by the institution of marriage, said the study’s authors from the University of California, Los Angeles as well as independent researchers. And it suggests, they said, that a ritual once scorned even by many same-sex couples has the power to ease discrimination.

“This really helps us confirm and makes us understand why same-sex couples demand marriage – if it’s just about the legal rights, why wouldn’t they be happy with civil partnerships?” said Stephanie Coontz author of “Marriage, A History.”

“They want access to that word that is so highly valued by our society and by other people.

“It is one thing not to invite your child’s girlfriend or boyfriend to dinner,” said Coontz, a professor at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. “It is quite another thing not to invite the spouse.”

Same-sex marriages began in Massachusetts on May 17, 2004, after the Supreme Judicial Court declared that gay and lesbian couples had the right to wed. The ruling ignited a political and social maelstrom in Massachusetts and beyond, but since then four other states – Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, and Vermont – have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples. Lawmakers in New Hampshire are currently debating whether to make their state the next to do so.

The study was prepared and paid for by UCLA’s Williams Institute, which examines legal and public policy issues related to sexual orientation and is funded by foundations and individuals, including supporters of gay marriage.

The authors of the survey, which consisted of about 30 questions, said they regarded it as an initial assessment of gay marriage, largely designed to explore issues arising during public debate rather than to delve into more personal aspects of couples’ relationships. For example, researchers asked whether respondents’ children had faced taunting as a result of their parents’ same-sex marriage – only 5 percent had – but did not ask how happily married partners were.

“We’ve been interested in the impact of marriage for a long time,” said Lee Badgett, researcher director of the Williams Institute and senior author of the study. “I’ve been combing the universe for data, but there just aren’t that many places to look at same-sex couples who are literally married.”

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Mass. couples cheer gay marriage, 5 years later

BOSTON – Every year, the couples who led the fight for gay marriage in Massachusetts get together privately to celebrate both their own weddings and the marriages of thousands more couples who followed them.

But this year, the celebration feels a little bit sweeter for the six couples who will gather Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of Massachusetts becoming the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. This year, they will also be celebrating the legalization of gay marriage in four other states.

“We’ve been very happy that it’s started to be accepted in other places,” said Maureen Brodoff, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to a Supreme Judicial Court decision legalizing gay marriage.

“It’s important to us that same-sex relationships get recognition outside of our home state, and I think that that is happening slowly as people look to the Massachusetts example and see that, you know, the sky didn’t fall, that it’s strengthened families, that it’s brought joy to a lot of families,” Brodoff said. See Mass. couples cheer gay marriage, 5 years later Chicago Tribune * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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Hallmark, Having Dipped Toe In Gay Greetings, Plunges In

Hallmark Cards is set to ramp up its greeting card business for those “non-traditional” families on your list, supplying its stock of wedding and civil unions greeting cards to all 500 corporate-owed stores.The firm, the very name of which is synonymous with wholesome greetings on any occasion, is responding to consumer needs by making the cards more available starting this summer.Last year, Hallmark made a splash by introducing its first congratulatory greetings for two-groom and two-bride weddings and civil union ceremonies, noted a May 14 article at Contra Costa Times.Now, Hallmark is poised for a mass release of greetings. See Hallmark, Having Dipped Toe In Gay Greetings, Plunges In
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Greek Courts Rules Same-Sex Weddings Invalid

A Greek court ruled the country’s first homosexual weddings, celebrated last year despite official warnings, were invalid, the couples’ lawyer said Tuesday.

Last year, a gay and a lesbian couple defied the threat of criminal charges and the wrath of the Greek Orthodox church to tie the knot on a tiny Aegean island, abetted by a local mayor.

The couples had said they took advantage of a loophole in Greek civil law, which does not specify gender in matrimony, and took vows in June at municipal offices on the island of Tilos.

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Greek court annuls gay marriages

(Athens) A court Tuesday annulled the only two same-sex marriages performed in Greece.

In June, Mayor Tasos Aliferis, on the island of Rhodes, performed the weddings after LGBT rights group OLKE said it had found a loophole in a 26-year-old update of the Greek civil marriage law that refers only to …

Same-sex marriages gradually gain legal ground

When Maine’s highest court ruled two years ago that lesbians Marilyn Kirby and Ann Courtney could adopt the two children they had cared for since 2001, the man who has led the state battle against gay marriage for 25 years got a glimpse of the defeat now looming.

“There’s a sense people have — a sense of inevitability — and a tremendous sense of frustration because of the history of the gay rights fight in Maine,” said Michael Heath, executive director of the Maine Family Policy Council.

He was referring to rights incrementally accorded to gay couples that have led to virtual equality between same-sex and heterosexual unions — a significant trend occurring in Maine and other states where gay marriage remains banned, experts on both sides of the issue agree.

Those rights are expanding as legally married gay couples relocate to states that don’t allow same-sex marriage, forcing courts, legislatures and employers to deal with the resulting issues of custody, divorce, inheritance and end-of-life decisions.

The adoption ruling in Maine had the effect of granting parental rights to same-sex couples. By the time the Legislature adjourns for the summer, experts expect Maine to become the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage — 11 years after voters banned it.

In New York, which doesn’t allow same-sex marriages but recognizes those conducted elsewhere, recent court decisions have granted a divorce to two gay men and surviving spouse benefits to another.

In California, federal judges have twice overruled decisions by the federal government to deny healthcare coverage to gay employees’ legal spouses, teeing up a constitutional challenge to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which forbids federal benefits for same-sex couples.

Same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Massachusetts, which began the trend five years ago. (Iowa issued its first marriage licenses April 27, a few weeks after its Supreme Court gave approval; weddings in Vermont will begin in September.) Within a year, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York will probably follow suit, say sexual orientation scholars at the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute; New Hampshire’s Senate approved a same-sex marriage bill Wednesday.

And as more same-sex couples wed in places where it is legal, the administrative fallout in other states is expected to keep expanding.

“The courts are going to have to wrestle with these issues as more and more states make it possible for people to marry,” said Toni Broaddus, executive director of the San Francisco-based Equality Federation. “People don’t stay in the same state for their whole lives anymore, so the courts in states without marriage equality are going to have to address these issues.”

The recent moves in New England and the heartland to legalize gay marriage appeared to reinvigorate campaigns for passage of same-sex marriage bills in Maine, Maryland and Hawaii. Rights advocates predict the tide will eventually sweep even into some of the 30-plus states that have passed laws or constitutional amendments defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

“A body of law is emerging because it has no choice. Cases have been filed and they have to be decided one way or another,” said Joseph Milizio, a Long Island lawyer specializing in gay and lesbian representation.

The legal developments allow people to become comfortable with “the fact that gay marriage is going to be recognized in many different aspects, even in states that don’t allow it,” said Milizio, whose firm recently secured the first dissolution of a same-sex marriage in New York.

In the workplace, proponents of extending spousal rights such as healthcare benefits and life insurance to same-sex couples have succeeded by challenging employment practices that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Seven states, including California, now guarantee full equality to same-sex couples — another incremental advance that is lamented by opponents.

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17 gay couples bus to Iowa, marry, go back to Missouri

Iowa City, Ia. — Friday was a long, busy day for 17 gay and lesbian couples from Missouri.

They were awake by 4 a.m., hopped on a bus to Iowa City around 6 a.m., said “I do” in the afternoon and were unmarried by the time they returned home Friday evening.

The couples took advantage of the Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in the Hawkeye State. But, back home in Missouri, where a constitutional amendment defines marriage as only between a man and a woman, their Iowa certificates documenting a legal bond carries little weight. “We knew when we get back there our legal status will be the same as it was,” said Julie Brueggemann, 35, of St. Louis. “Hopefully, one day in the not too distant future, Missouri will be as open as Iowa is.”

The Unitarian Universalist Society in Iowa City hosted the 17 weddings. Each couple, one by one, stood before a minister, said vows, were pronounced wed and kissed.

“It’s a unique experience. How many other people can say they got married with 16 other couples?” said Kim Coleman, 32, of Florissant, Mo. She and Kimberly Banks-Brown, 38, have been together for five years. “But, it’s a logistical nightmare.”

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“Miss California” Nailed on Countdown

Countdown’s Keith Olbermann has reported that Miss California, a Christian college student named Carrie Prejean, had a boob job paid for by the Miss California Competition. Talk about performance enhancing additives! And we thought she was such a good, church going gal.

In a move reminiscent of beauty queen Anita Bryant’s 1970s crusade against gay rights, Prejean has joined in a television ad campaign against gay marriage this week. Her move upset homosexual rights advocates, including a head of the Miss California pageant.

In the 1970s, another beauty queen named Anita Bryant, a former Miss Oklahoma, became a voice against homosexuality after leading a campaign to repeal a Miami-area gay rights ordinance. She was famously quoted as saying, “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail-biters.”

Keith Lewis, the co-executive director of the Miss California pageant, said Prejean was attended to by gay beauty experts before the Miss USA contest, and that he always knew her to be friendly to gays like himself.

But Lewis said he was disappointed with her stance against same-sex weddings, and that while she keeps her crown as Miss California, she is speaking for herself on gay marriage.

Maybe it is time to take away her Miss California “crown?”

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Methodist Court Rejects Gay Marriage, OKs Bush Library

The United Methodist Church’s highest court has ruled that clergy may not officiate at same-sex unions, even in states where such marriages are legal, and gave the final OK for the George W. Bush Library to be built at Southern Methodist University.

The church’s nine-member Judicial Council rejected separate resolutions passed by the California-Nevada and California-Pacific Conferences that voiced support for clergy who officiate at such unions.

Last year, the 8.3 million-member church upheld rules in its Book of Discipline, or constitution, that Methodist churches cannot be used to host same-sex unions and clergy are prohibited from officiating at them.

The latest court ruling rejected a California-Nevada resolution that supported retired clergy who volunteered to conduct gay weddings, and a California-Pacific resolution upholding the “pastoral need and prophetic authority” of clergy to do so.

Between May and November, 2008, California allowed same-sex couples to marry until voters banned the practiced with a constitutional amendment.

“An annual conference may not legally negate, ignore or violate provisions of the Discipline with which they disagree, even when the disagreements are based on conscientious objections to the provisions,” the court ruled, according to United Methodist News Service.

In a separate case, the court said it found no reason to halt construction of the planned George W. Bush Presidential Center at the church-owned school in Dallas.

Critics contend the library complex and affiliated policy center will promote policies that the United Methodist Church officially opposed, including the Iraq War. The former president and his wife, Laura, are both United Methodists.