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Ah yes, equality under the law is divisive! But only when Democrats start gaining the upper hand. Because there was nothing divisive about Don't Ask Don't Tell, or the Defense of Marriage Act, or the anti-gay marriage initiatives that Republicans pushed in 31 states.
The President surprised me yesterday. Not about what was in his heart. I was confident about that. But in a reelection year, I did not expect the President to say what he said. ...
Yesterday, no laws were passed. But it got better.
His new point of view is personal, he stresses in the interview, and he will continue to support individual states “deciding the issue on their own.” However, he thinks more Americans will be comfortable with expanding the definition of marriage on their own.
Prior to today’s news, the president had leaned towards supporting gay marriage in that he was a vocal advocate for civil unions between gay and lesbian couples so they could be afforded marriage-like benefits and privileges.
North Carolina law already bans gay marriage, but an amendment effectively seals the door on same-sex marriages.
The amendment also goes beyond state law by voiding other types of domestic unions from carrying legal status, which opponents warn could disrupt protection orders for unmarried couples.
If you missed Saturday night’s live performance of “8,” Dustin Lance Black’s play based on the transcripts of the Proposition 8 trial, it is now available online. Celebrities like Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Jane Lynch, and Martin Sheen brought to life the trial’s powerful arguments for equality... Given Prop 8′s proponents fought so hard to prevent public distribution of the videos of the proceedings, this reading is a must-watch and must-share glimpse into what actually transpired: ...
“Claiming that someone else’s marriage is against your religion is like claiming that someone else’s donut is breaking your diet.”
Today, the Maryland Senate passed marriage equality legislation with a vote of 25-22. ...the passed bill now proceeds to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), who has promised to sign it. The law is set to take effect January 1, 2013, but will likely be challenged in a referendum before then.
[Rock on, Maryland and California. -L]
Moments ago, Judge Jeffery White of the District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause in a case brought by Karen Golinski. Golinski, represented by Lambda Legal, “was denied spousal health benefits by her employer, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.” ... Read the full opinion here.
Backers of California's overturned same-sex-marriage ban said today that they'll ask the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for a review.
The move avoids for now taking the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court...
The governor of Washington State signs the Marriage Equality Bill into law. Watch: ...
This customary same-gender marriage arrangement – practised among Kenya’s Kalenjin (encompassing the Nandi, Kipsigis, and Keiyo), Kuria and Akamba communities – has come under the legal spotlight recently because of an inheritance case currently before the courts; some relatives are fighting to inherit a large house which would, by law, pass to the spouse of the late wife.
...traditional same-sex marriages have been a historical part of Africa’s culture — in over 30 different populations, including the Yoruba, Ibo, Nuer, Lovedu, Zulu, and Sotho — long before colonialism imported homophobia.
The bills passage elicited a round of applause from those in the audience wearing blue in support of the bill, which Gov. Chris Christie has promised to veto.
...what’s even more interesting about the opinion, now that I’ve had overnight to think about it, is the degree to which the 9th Circuit’s ruling amounts to a pretty definitive slap down of the Boies and Olson strategy in litigating the case. Recall that one of the main approaches taken at the trial by the so-called “dream team” was to paint a picture of marriage as the most sacred, revered, mature form of adult coupling...
Instead, the reasoning used in Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt’s opinion marks a triumph for the fabulous and smart Therese Stewart, the lawyer in the San Francisco City Attorney’s office who has shined time and again in oral argument and in briefs filed in the marriage equality litigation in California.
...it avoids the kind of sermonizing about the sanctity of the marital relation ... The court can find a constitutional problem with Prop 8 while remaining agnostic...on the question of whether the state should be in the marriage business at all.
...the national gay rights legal groups deserve the credit for urging this approach to Prop 8. The original litigation, as framed by the Olsen-Boies legal team, was a full-on challenge to the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage. The national litigation groups did not think the time was right for such an attack. For example, GLAD initiated litigation almost three years ago challenging the constitutionality of the part of the Defense of Marriage Act that denies federal recognition to same-sex marriages. GLAD intentionally did not challenge all marriage bans. Although Olsen-Boies were not especially responsive to the wisdom of the experts in this area, they did ultimately see the value in at least including in their arguments a more Prop 8-focused challenge. Numerous amici in the Ninth Circuit urged the court to rule on this more narrow ground. ...
The court identified the issue as whether the People of California had a legitimate reason for taking away the label "marriage" from the relationships of same-sex couples while leaving such couples with the "domestic partnership" designation. And the critical backdrop of this issue is that same-sex couples do have access in California to the status of "domestic partnership" which grants all the legal consequences of marriage without the name.
...the court's analysis isn't necessarily wrong here, so much as illuminates an oddity in how broader constitutional doctrines manifest. Judicial supremacy means that we can't even conceive of a constitutional amendment that is meant to correct a "wrong" constitutional interpretation -- there is, in this view, no such thing as a "wrong" constitutional interpretation except when the courts itself say so. Rational basis means that legislatures need to more aggressively target the rights of unpopular minorities, because if they don't, it is easier to say they acted out of animus.
... constitutional law scholar John Eastman, the chairman of NOM, ...blustered that “Never before has a federal appeals court – or any federal court for that matter – found a right to gay marriage under the US Constitution.”
But the court did not find “a right to gay marriage under the US Constitution.” The decision is very explicit on this point, and as a law professor Eastman must know that what he’s saying isn’t true.
...the Court ruled on a much narrower question: Can a state pass a special law to eliminate an already-existing right for same-sex couples to have the legal designation “marriage” applied to their relationships, when the state otherwise makes no legal distinction between same-sex and opposite-sex relationships? And the Court’s answer is no. ...
I’m actually not disappointed that this ruling is so narrow; my suspicion is that a straightforward finding that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry would be overturned by the current Supreme Court, which would be a setback. This decision, because it’s so narrow, has a much better chance of remaining good law.
[That was my intuition as well, although IANAL. -L]
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that California's voter-approved ban on gay marriage, known as Proposition 8, is unconstitutional.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling (PDF), said Proposition 8's limitations on access to marriage took away rights from a vulnerable minority without benefiting parents, children or the institution of marriage.
"Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the majority. ...
The ban will remain in effect while the case works its way through the appeals process...
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — As lawmakers held their first public hearing on legalizing same-sex marriage, a previously undecided Democratic senator on Monday announced her support for the measure, all but ensuring that Washington will become the seventh state to allow gay and lesbian couples to get married.
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