In just 30 days, aisle is cleared for gay marriage

[Boston Guy]

An interesting take on the speed with which gay marriage is spreading around the US:

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ericzorn/chi-0403040124mar04,1,5725787.column?coll=chi-news-nav

 

BG

[Guest houseboy]

It would be interesting to see what the timeline for the reversal of anti-miscegenation (i.e. interracial marriage) laws was in comparison...

 

Sean Lespagnol

Chicago, IL

http://www.seanlespagnol.com

 

"Big and tasty - every day!"

[+ deej]

That's a membership site, and I forget my ID. Care to post a synopsis?

[Boston Guy]

Sorry... I forgot that not everyone registers for newspapers across the country. :-)

 

BG

 

Here's the story:

 

[h3]In just 30 days, aisle is cleared for gay marriage[/h3]

Eric Zorn

 

Published March 4, 2004

 

On Wednesday, Feb. 4, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that the state's constitution required same-sex couples be granted full marriage rights.

 

Thus began Our Big Fat Gay Month, the wildest 30-day ride a social issue has taken in modern memory:

 

Feb. 11--The Massachusetts legislature convenes a contentious two-day constitutional convention that fails to pass an amendment to prohibit gay marriage.

 

Feb. 12--San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

 

Feb. 14--An estimated 150 demonstrators, including Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), rally outside Cardinal Francis George's mansion in support of gay marriage.

 

Feb. 18--Mayor Richard Daley voices support for same-sex marriage, saying he has "no problem with that issue at all."

 

Feb. 20--Sandoval County, N.M., issues 66 marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but the state's attorney general invalidates them on the same day.

 

Feb. 24--President Bush calls for a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.

 

Feb. 25--Cook County Clerk David Orr endorses gay marriage on a TV talk show and says he'll issue licenses if he gets the green light from the County Board.

 

Feb. 26--Rosie O'Donnell marries her longtime girlfriend in San Francisco. It's the city's 3,326th gay wedding in two weeks.

 

Feb. 27 (Friday)--The California Supreme Court refuses to halt San Francisco's gay weddings, and New Paltz, N.Y., Mayor Jason West begins issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

 

March 1 (Monday)--California's Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tells Jay Leno that it would be "fine with me" if judges or voters changed the state law that now forbids gay marriage.

 

March 2 (Tuesday)--Demonstrators, including the local president of the National Organization for Women, rally in favor of gay marriage outside the County Building.

 

At a news conference shortly thereafter, the leaders of the Cook County Republicans and the Illinois Family Institute call on Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan to "to clearly articulate and promise to uphold Illinois law on the issue of marriage."

 

Madigan responds by calling the demand "a ridiculous attempt to divert attention from the serious questions before us."

 

In New Paltz, Mayor West is charged with 19 criminal offenses for marrying gay couples, and in Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney reverses his earlier stance that this issue should be decided by the states and says he now supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

 

March 3 (Wednesday)--Gay and lesbian couples begin marrying in Portland, Ore., after Multnomah County officials begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses. In New York, Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer says gay marriage clearly violates state law, though he personally supports the idea, and gay marriage advocates rally on the steps of New York's City Hall. In Detroit, gay couples seeking wedding licenses are turned away from the Wayne County Courthouse. And in Washington, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist decries the "wildfire" of same-sex marriages.

 

Thursday, exactly one month to the day from the high court ruling in Massachusetts, promises more of the same. Activists here are calling on same-sex couples to show up en masse at the County Building to apply for marriage licenses.

 

Orr says he won't issue them. But soon enough he will.

 

Because the progress toward equal treatment under the law for same-sex couples is as fast and inevitable as a freight train. The proposed constitutional amendment inspired by a semantic debate over the definition of a sacramental religious term--marriage--is doomed.

 

No matter what the Massachusetts legislature does when it reconvenes its constitutional convention next week, gay couples in that state will begin marrying legally on May 17.

 

The institution of heterosexual marriage will be undamaged, as it is now undamaged in Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands. Americans will learn to accept what they may not favor.

 

The timeline of Our Big Fat Gay Month is not the timeline of a mere movement. It's the timeline of a revolution.

[Rick Munroe]

Great article! This is such an exciting month. 2004 started out sucking (well, actually, I start most years sucking) but it's getting to be really neat-o.

[Boston Guy]

>Great article! This is such an exciting month. 2004 started

>out sucking (well, actually, I start most years sucking) but

>it's getting to be really neat-o.

 

If you keep using expressions like "neat-o", people are going to start thinking that you are a old geezer.

 

BG

[Rick Munroe]

>If you keep using expressions like "neat-o", people are going

>to start thinking that you are a old geezer.

 

I love "neat-o" because it's not "cool," "awesome," "excellent," or any of the other words that, to me, are really icky. Besides, if it's good enough for Wally & The Beav, it's good enough for me. And people can think whatever they want about me. They always have anyway (or should I say "anyways"?).

[+ deej]

Great article! Thanks!

[Rick Munroe]

Fearful fools continue the backlash

 

Proposal to Ban Gay Marriage Advances in Wisconsin

By JR ROSS, AP

 

MADISON, Wis. (March 5) - The Wisconsin Assembly approved an amendement to the state constitution Friday to ban same-sex marriages or civil unions to counter efforts elsewhere to legalize the partnerships.

 

After an all-night meeting, the lawmakers voted 68-27 to back the proposal and send it to the state Senate. More approval from lawmakers and voters would also be required for it to become law, with a statewide referendum coming no earlier than April 2005.

 

Wisconsin statutes already define marriage as a contract between a husband and a wife and do not recognize gay marriage. But backers fear a judge would overrule that.

 

''Amending our statutes is not going to address the problem,'' said Republican Rep. Mark Gundrum, the amendment's main author.

 

Fourteen states are seeking this year to amend their constitutions to ban same-sex marriages. States in recent years have already acted broadly in opposition to the prospect of same-sex marriages, passing so-called Defense of Marriage laws in 38 states. And four have already amended their own constitutions to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

 

President Bush is supporting a movement to amend the U.S. Constitution, citing decisions by Massachusetts' top court that prohibiting same-sex marriages would violate that state's constitution. The court rulings cleared the way for full-fledged gay marriages by mid-May.

 

Since then, San Francisco officials have allowed thousands of couples to marry, and officials in spots in New Mexico and New York have followed suit.

 

Jason West, mayor of the college town of New Paltz, N.Y., said Friday he will postpone a second round of same-sex weddings that had been planned for Saturday so he can talk to state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer next week.

 

''I'm sure people will be as disappointed, but I want to make sure we can find as many potential allies as possible,'' West said.

 

The Wisconsin Assembly first took up its amendment Thursday afternoon and continued into early Friday as its opponents spoke vigorously against it.

 

Democratic Rep. Tom Hebl said the amendment's 43 words were among the most spiteful ever put on paper.

 

''It's liberty and justice for all unless you're gay and lesbian,'' Hebl said.

 

Supporters largely declined to enter into a debate, refusing to answer questions about the amendment's merits.

 

''We need to have this in our state constitution or we are every bit as vulnerable to activists judges instituting same-sex marriage as they did in Massachusetts,'' Gundrum said.

 

As daybreak approached, lawmakers slept at their desks or sprawled out on leather couches in the Assembly parlor.

 

To take effect, the proposed amendment would have to pass both houses of the Legislature in consecutive two-year sessions and be approved by voters in a referendum.

 

 

03/05/04 11:19 EST

 

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.

[Boston Guy]

RE: Fearful fools continue the backlash

 

>To take effect, the proposed amendment would have to pass both

>houses of the Legislature in consecutive two-year sessions and

>be approved by voters in a referendum.

>

 

You heard it here first: it will never happen. It might get started, but it will never be passed.

 

By the time it gets to the referendum stage, gay marriage is going to be so routine and so widespread that it will be "ho-hum, why are we doing this?".

 

The same will be true in Massachusetts if an amendment gets passed this month -- the process in Massachusetts is almost identical and I just don't see the citizens of Massachusetts deciding, 2.5 years from now, to dissolve thousands of established marriages by voting to pass an amendment.

 

Opponents are using emotion and threats to the "sanctity" of marriage to try to stop this. After a couple of years, people will see that the sky hasn't fallen in and their marriages are doing just fine and the opponents will lose.

 

BG

[+ deej]

RE: Fearful fools continue the backlash

 

>Opponents are using emotion and threats to the "sanctity" of

>marriage to try to stop this. After a couple of years, people

>will see that the sky hasn't fallen in and their marriages are

>doing just fine and the opponents will lose.

 

Exactly. That's the brilliance of the SF mayor's gambit. He's put faces on the issue. To voters, it's no longer a faceless "what if" situation. They have thousands of news bytes showing radiant happiness and the sky hasn't fallen. It's no longer hypothetical.

 

Although I'm waiting for opponents to trot out examples of hetero marriages that have broken up over the issue. They can't leave the happiness untarnished and retain credibility (such as it is).