Now There Are Two
The big news of the week is Massachusetts' repeal of its 1913 out-of-state marriage law. From 365gay.com:
The Massachusetts House has repealed a 1913 law used to bar the marriages of same-sex couples who are residents of states which would not recognize their unions. The measure already has passed the Senate and Gov. Deval Patrick (D) has said he will sign it.
Watch for New York and New Jersey to legalize SSM within a year.
Update:: Gov. Patrick has signed the bill, which includes a waiver of the usual 90-day waiting period before it becomes effective. It's a go.
Proposition 8
Is probably going down the tubes. From LA Times, via Joe.My.God (as well as others), this news:
Giving a financial and public relations boost to gay marriage proponents, PG&E announced today that it is giving $250,000 to the No on Proposition 8 campaign.
The utility also said it will spearhead the formation of a business advisory council that will seek to get other businesses around California to to defeat the ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.
This comes hard on the heels of the announcement that WordPerfect founder Bruce Bastian is donating $1 million to the cause.
And the California attorney general's office has made its own move. The right wing, of course, is turning to activist judges:
In a move made public last week and applauded by same-sex marriage proponents, the attorney general's office changed the language to say that Proposition 8 seeks to "eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry."
Jennifer Kerns, spokeswoman for the Protect Marriage coalition, called the new language "inherently argumentative" and said it could "prejudice voters against the initiative."
Proponents of the measure said they want voters to see ballot language similar to what was on the petitions that began circulating last fall.
"This is a complete about-face from the ballot title that was assigned" when the measure was being circulated for signatures, Kerns said.
On the other side, Steve Smith, campaign manager for No on Proposition 8, applauded the language change.
"What Proposition 8 would do is eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry, which is exactly what the attorney general put in the title of the measure," he said. "It will be very difficult for them to win the case."
Political analysts on both sides suggest that the language change will make passage of the initiative more difficult, noting that voters might be more reluctant to pass a measure that makes clear it is taking away existing rights.
Dale Carpenter on Obama on Same-Sex Marriage
This is a couple of weeks old, and I may have mentioned it before, but here's a really dumb article from Dale Carpenter on Obama's positions on same-sex marriage and Proposition 8.
n a recent statement, Barack Obama said that he rejects "the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution" and similar efforts in other states. At the same time, Obama has repeatedly said that he opposes gay marriage. While his views are perplexing as a matter of logic, this episode reminds us that Obama is, after all, a politician who’s trying to get elected.
I don't think I'd be too far off base to interpret this to mean Carpenter is anti-Obama, and that concerns on same-sex marriage are secondary to getting an anti-Obama piece published.
There's really a very simple answer, which Carpenter touches on tangentially in his piece but doesn't really address head-on (of course, if he did, there would be no article): Like Arnold Schawrzenegger, Obama believes marriage is between a man and a woman, but also that his personal beliefs should not be the law of the land.
There -- that wasn't so hard now, was it?
Update: John Corvino has an equally convolute post making much of nothing on this issue. It's quite similar to Carpenter's.
Obama’s not alone in this apparent contradiction: Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s Republican governor, holds a similar juxtaposition of beliefs: that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and that the state’s supreme court did the right thing by declaring California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.
What contradiction? Gentlemen, I have a news flash for you: this is the way an American should think. It appears that neither writer can wrap his head around the concept of the law as something separate from personal beliefs, which is something that Obama, McCain, and Schwarzenegger seem to have figured out quite nicely. I think that just demonstrates the toxic effect of the right-wing noise machine on public discourse in recent years.
Orson Scott Card: A Special Tribute
Here's a commentary on Orson Scott Card's latest anti-gay screed. The man's getting really unhinged. And his books have gotten boring.
Dessert later -- I'm not finding anything I love right now.
Update: Whee! Found something nice, courtesty of Made in Brazil:
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