10.31.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 6:59 am by pikapp44
Sen. Hillary Clinton, addressing a gathering of LGBT organizations Thursday, said that she “has certainly evolved” on gay issues, Gay City News reported.
Clinton spoke following Wednesday’s New Jersey supreme court ruling that same-sex couples are entitled to the same marriage rights as heterosexuals. She also confirmed support for gubernatorial front-runner Eliot Spitzer, a strong backer of marriage equality.
“My position is consistent. I support states making the decision,” Clinton said. “And if anyone ever tried to use our words in any way, we’ll review that. Because I think that it should be in the political process and people make a decision, and if our governor and our legislature support marriage in New York, I’m not going to be against that.
“So I feel very comfortable with being able to refute anybody who tries to pit us or pit me against Eliot. I am not going to speak out against, I’m not going to oppose anything that the governor and the legislature do.”
However, Clinton said, getting the public to accept the term “gay marriage” will be especially difficult. “If you go the next step and say, ‘But I want what is called marriage,’ you’re going to have a problem.”
Clinton explained that her decision not to defend same-sex marriage protection on a federal level was a strategic one and said, “Very few Democrats spoke, because maybe you thought one way, which is that you want people out there speaking for us. We thought…force the Republicans out there, make them look like they’re trying to enshrine discrimination in the Constitution. We don’t even want to dignify it.”
Clinton also slammed the Bush administration, saying, “They put Nixon to shame.”
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10.27.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 12:46 pm by pikapp44
President Bush said the ‘’sacred institution” of marriage between a man and a woman must be defended against what he called activist court rulings. Bush briefly brought up the topic, unprompted, while raising money in Des Moines, Iowa, for a Republican congressional candidate, a day after the New Jersey supreme court decided that same-sex couples must be given the same rights as married heterosexual couples.
The court left it up to the state’s legislature to decide whether to extend those rights under the structure of marriage, civil unions, or something else.
The president said the New Jersey ruling ”raises doubts about the institution of marriage…. I believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman. I believe it’s a sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society and the well-being of families, and it must be defended.”
Bush did not say how it must be defended. But he has advocated amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Earlier this year, such an amendment failed to win the needed two-thirds support in both the Senate and House.
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10.25.06
Posted in Gay Rights at 6:51 am by pikapp44
New Jersey could become the nation’s gay wedding chapel should the state’s highest court rule in favor of same-sex marriages, adversaries on the issue agree.
The New Jersey Supreme Court is poised to release its highly anticipated decision Wednesday in a case brought by seven gay couples who say the state constitution allows them to marry, said Winnie Comfort, a spokeswoman for the state judiciary.
New Jersey is one of only five states with neither a law nor a state constitutional amendment blocking same-sex marriage. As a result, the state is more likely than others to allow gays to wed, said advocacy groups on both sides.
Only Massachusetts — by virtue of a 2003 ruling from that state’s top court — allows gay marriages.
Proponents and opponents from across the country are watching the case closely.
“New Jersey is a stepping stone,” said Matt Daniels, president of the Virginia-based Alliance for Marriage, a group pushing for an amendment to the federal Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage. “It’s not about New Jersey.”
From a practical standpoint, the Massachusetts court decision made little impact nationally because the state has a law barring out-of-state couples from wedding there if their marriages would not be recognized in their home states.
New Jersey has no such law.
People on both sides of the issue expect a victory for same-sex unions would make New Jersey a destination for gay couples from around the country who want to get married. Some of those couples could return home and sue to have their marriages recognized.
Daniels said gay-rights advocates are already looking ahead to such lawsuits. “Their game, of course, is they figure all they need to do is execute this maneuver in a half-dozen states and they’ll have the momentum,” he said.
David S. Buckel, the Lambda Legal lawyer who argued on behalf of the seven New Jersey couples, said he expects some couples would travel to the New Jersey to get married if his suit is successful. But, he said, “it won’t be tidal.”
Buckel said that there have been relatively few such lawsuits filed in the U.S. by couples who went to Canada to exchange vows.
And, he said, while many same-sex couples would prefer to be married, they are getting more legal protections for their relationships. Several states, including New Jersey, offer domestic partnerships or civil unions with some of the benefits of marriage. A growing number of employers are treating same-sex couples the same way they treat married couples.
Cases similar to New Jersey’s are pending in California, Connecticut, Iowa and Maryland.
Conservatives watching the cases believe the best chance for gay marriage to be allowed would be in New Jersey, where the state Supreme Court has a history of extending civil rights protections.
Gay marriage supporters have had a two-year losing streak, striking out in state courts in New York and Washington state and in ballot boxes in 15 states where constitutions have been amended to ban same-sex unions.
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10.24.06
Posted in Advocate Articles at 5:24 pm by pikapp44
Comedian Joan Rivers has a lot of gay in her future.
According to Liz Smith’s column in the New York Post, Rivers is planning a series for Bravo in which she and her gay friends will sit around and chat. The program, titled Straight Talk, was called “a gay and lesbian version of The View” by Rivers.
Rivers also revealed to Smith that she’s busy writing a Broadway play with acclaimed gay writer Charles Busch. And the comedian is currently packing the house at New York’s Cutting Room, performing her racy act for college kids, gay and straight.
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10.21.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 7:08 am by pikapp44
A gay Colorado man’s fight for his late partner’s estate may continue, the Colorado court of appeals ruled on Thursday. Randall Rex has argued that a typed letter in a birthday card given to him by his late partner qualifies as a will, according to the Associated Press.
The court ruling revives Rex’s claim to the estate of Ronald Wiltfong, who gave Rex the card in 2003 with a letter that said Rex should inherit his property if anything happened to him. It said Rex, their pets, and an aunt were his only family and that “everyone else is dead to me.”
Wiltfong died of a heart attack in 2004, according to the AP. Margaret Tovrea, the mother of Wiltfong’s three nephews and legal heirs if he died without a will, challenged the letter held by Rex. A lower court ruled the will wasn’t valid because, while Wiltfong had signed the letter in the presence of two friends, it said he hadn’t also acknowledged the letter was his will.
But the appeals court said the law requires only that it either be signed or acknowledged as a will and sent the case back for reconsideration.
The case has been seized upon by advocates of a Colorado referendum on the November 7 ballot that would make surviving domestic partners the presumed heirs of property just as surviving spouses now are. Under current law, same-sex and married couples can draw up wills stating who should inherit their property when they die. If there is no will or the will is found to be invalid, a surviving spouse is presumed to be the primary, if not the sole heir, of the property, Stan Kent, a probate lawyer in Colorado Springs told AP.
Kent said Referendum I would give that same presumption to surviving domestic partners so relatives would be less likely to challenge the validity of any wills they have.
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10.18.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 9:38 am by pikapp44
Studds married Dean Hara in 2004 after gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts. But Hara will not be eligible to receive any portion of Studds’ estimated $114,337 annual pension because the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act bars the federal government from recognizing Studds’ marriage.
Peter Graves, a spokesman for the Office of Personnel Management, which administers the congressional pension program, said same-sex partners are not recognized as spouses for any marriage benefits. He said Studds’ case was the first of its kind known to the agency.
Under federal law, pensions can be denied only to lawmakers’ same-sex partners and people convicted of espionage or treason, Graves said.
Studds, 69, had his homosexuality exposed during a teenage page sex scandal in 1983. He died Saturday, several days after collapsing while walking his dog. Doctors said he had developed two blood clots.
Graves said Studds could have purchased an insurable interest annuity, similar to an insurance policy, which is allowed under both the civil service and federal employee retirement system and is not affected by the Defense of Marriage Act. Graves said he did not know if Studds used that option.
Pete Sepp, spokesman for the nonprofit watchdog group National Taxpayers Union, estimated Studds’ annual pension at $114,337.
That would have made Hara eligible for a lifetime annual pension of about $62,000, which would grow with inflation, if the marriage were recognized by the federal government, Sepp said.
Hara, 48, declined to comment on the matter.
Gary Buseck, legal director for an advocacy group called Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said Studds’ case may offer “a moment of education for Congress.”
“Now they have a death in the congressional family of one of their distinguished members whose spouse is being treated differently than any of their spouses,” Buseck said.
In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage after gay and lesbian couples successfully sued for the right to marry.
Studds was elected to Congress in 1972. In 1983, a 27-year-old man disclosed that he and Studds had a sexual relationship a decade earlier when he was a teenage congressional page. The House censured Studds, who revealed on the House floor that he was gay.
Voters continued to re-elect him until he retired in 1997 to become a lobbyist for the fishing industry and environmental causes.
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10.16.06
Posted in Gay Rights at 2:18 pm by pikapp44
Conservative religious and political leaders rallied in Boston on Sunday in opposition to same-sex marriage, arguing that their rights to religious expression are being threatened. The event, being broadcast to churches nationally, is part of a larger effort to energize conservative voters before the November 7 congressional elections.
”Here in Massachusetts, activist judges struck a blow to the foundation of civilization: the family,” Republican governor Mitt Romney, a likely presidential candidate, told an applauding crowd of about 1,000 people, some of whom responded with ”Amen.”
Romney, during his speech inside Tremont Temple Baptist Church, criticized the state’s highest court for its 2004 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. ”What [the judges] ignored is that marriage is not primarily about adults; marriage is about the nurturing and development of children…. Every child deserves a mother and a father,” he said.
The Washington, D.C.–based Family Research Council chose Boston for the site of its annual ”Liberty Sunday” because Massachusetts is the only state that has legalized marriage for same-sex couples. ”When we look at what has happened with same-sex marriage, as it began in this state and threatens to spread across the country, we’ve seen in its wake the loss of religious freedoms and the ability to speak out based upon one’s moral convictions,” Tony Perkins, the organization’s president, said Sunday.
Eight states will vote in November on constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, following 20 states that have already approved bans. Prompted by a ruling from its highest court, Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2004. Massachusetts lawmakers are expected to consider a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on November 9.
David Parker, a speaker at the Boston event, was arrested last year after he refused to leave the grounds of his 6-year-old son’s school in Lexington after officials said they would not excuse the boy from discussions about homosexuality. ”When religious liberty is compromised, all liberty is compromised,” Parker said at a news conference before the rally.
But the issue is less about liberty and more about political posturing, according to the Reverend Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Lynn said he’s not worried that the Sunday night program will change the minds of voters. In a way, he said, they’re preaching to the choir. ”But it’s the choir that has become the majority in these elections…. [The Family Research Council] has escalated their rhetoric and are trying to use this as a fire under their supporters,” making sure religious conservatives cast their ballots in November.
Among the ballot initiatives in November to prohibit same-sex marriage, passage is considered certain in Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Tennessee, but gay rights strategists believe their side is at least competitive in Arizona, Colorado, Virginia, and Wisconsin, where Romney spent Sunday morning with Rep. Mark Green, a Republican running for reelection.
In the Boston speech, Romney, who is a Mormon, cautioned against discrimination: ”I believe God loves all of his children.”
A statement from Mass Equality, a group that advocates same-sex marriage, denounced the governor’s appearance at the rally, saying, ”Mitt Romney has come home for one day to Massachusetts for one reason only—to continue courting the extreme right wing of the Republican Party.”
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10.13.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 1:41 pm by pikapp44
Support for constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage is weak in three of the eight states that will vote on them this November, and in one—Colorado—a competing measure to establish domestic partnerships for same-sex couples is currently backed by a majority of voters. The growing sense that key victories will be had this Election Day is in stark contrast to 2004, when constitutional bans on same-sex marriage were approved in 13 states, USA Today reports.
“It could be a watershed year,” Carrie Evans, state legislative director at the gay lobby group Human Rights Campaign, told the paper. Indeed, defeat of even one of the proposed marriage bans would be a major triumph, since all 19 state measures that have been voted on to date were overwhelmingly approved, with support averaging 70%.
This year, however, opposition to such a measure in Arizona is currently at 51%, with only 38% of voters supporting it, according to a recent poll, while the proposed marriage ban in South Dakota is opposed by 49% of voters, with 41% in support. In Colorado, which has ballot measures both to ban same-sex marriage and to create domestic partnerships, a recent poll showed that only 52% of voters are in favor of the former but that 58% favored the latter.
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10.12.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 1:57 pm by pikapp44
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear an appeal by a California gay couple whose quest for a marriage license was rejected by a federal appeals court earlier this year. Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer have been in court since the Orange County clerk rejected their marriage license applications in 2004, The Orange County Register reports.
The pair was unable to win support from gay rights groups, who wanted to focus legal efforts on winning same-sex marriage rights in state courts. The groups feared that a federal court decision would lead to a nationwide defeat. “I don’t think a whole lot of this right now—I’m pretty sure all of this will be overturned someday,” Hammer told the Register after learning of the Supreme Court action.
The ninth U.S. circuit court of appeals, often characterized as one of the most liberal courts in the country, shot the pair’s case down in May. “Smelt and Hammer are not even married under any state law or, for that matter, under the law of any foreign country. No doubt they wish they could be, but, again, they are not,” the ninth circuit judges wrote in rejecting the men’s request. The judges said it would have been a stronger case had they been married in one state and a second state refused to recognize the marriage.
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10.09.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 1:25 pm by pikapp44
A lesbian couple from Rhode Island who won the right to marry in Massachusetts held their ceremony Sunday. After being denied a marriage license in Massachusetts, Wendy Becker and Mary Norton challenged a 1913 state law that prohibits out-of-state residents from marrying if the union would not be permitted in their home state.
They argued that same-sex marriage was not specifically banned in Rhode Island. Superior court judge Thomas Connolly agreed last month, saying he saw no evidence of a ”constitutional amendment, statute, or controlling appellate decision” making same-sex marriage illegal in Rhode Island.
Rhode Island governor Don Carcieri, a Republican who opposes same-sex marriage, said through a spokesman that he has no plans to try to revise the state’s laws.
Becker and Norton have been together for 18 years and have two children, 3-year-old Mickey and 6-year-old Hannah. Becker works at Rhode Island College, Norton at Brown Medical School. The couple said they started planning their wedding almost as soon as the ruling was issued on September 29. About 50 people attended the ceremony in Attleboro, Mass.
”People take a year to pull off a wedding, so it’s been a busy few days, but we’ve been emotionally planning since much longer than that,” Becker said
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