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A Brief History of Prop 8

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

Prop 8 RulingIn May 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled, in a 4-3 decision, that California’s Constitution prohibited the state from discriminating against same-sex couples in the state’s marriage laws. By mid-June, couples began marrying — although the future of same-sex marriage in the state already was headed to the November ballot.

Then, after about 18,000 same-sex couples had married in the state, on Nov. 4, 2008, the voters of the state of California elected Barack Obama president — but also voted to pass Proposition 8, which amended California’s Constitution to add, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” This created an upending of an otherwise joyous night for progressives, which was borne out by protests across the state — and country — in the weeks that followed.

With the vote, though, the marriages came to a halt. An attempt to have the initiative thrown out under state law, brought by the organizations who had supported the original lawsuit, was unsuccessful. The May 2009 ruling of the California Supreme Court upholding the amendment as valid, however, galvanized, once again, opponents of Proposition 8.

Full Story from Metro Weekly

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The Real History of Marriage

Monday, October 31st, 2011

Homosexual acts between men are presently illegal in the tiny Central American nation of Belize, with punishments as harsh as ten years in prison. But according to the quite nasty alert I’ve just been forwarded, Belize’s sodomy law will be reviewed by the nation’s highest court on December 5th.

The homosexual organization UNIBAM (United Belize Advocacy Movement) and Caleb Orozco has brought a lawsuit against the Attorney General, and thus, Govt. of Belize, seeking to change Section 53 of the Criminal Code, which says: “Any person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any person or any animal shall be liable to 10 years imprisonment.”

Orosco & UNIBAM are seeking to remove the words “any person or” so that this law would not apply to interpersonal relationships but only that of sex with animals.

Full Story from the Huffington Post

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History Lesson: The Passage of the Defense of Marriage Act

Friday, September 30th, 2011

Defense of Marriage Act PassageBy the time the Senate passed the Defense of Marriage Act on Sept. 10, 1996, there was no question what President Bill Clinton was going to do when the bill was presented to him.

Months earlier, May 23, 1996, Clinton made his first comments on DOMA, jumbling the specific effect of the bill but echoing comments from his press secretary that he would sign it. On July 11, 1996, the administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy: ”The President … has long opposed same sex marriage. Therefore, if H.R. 3396 were presented to the President as ordered reported from the House Judiciary Committee, the President would sign the legislation.”

But, asked if that was the only path, people around at the time — from LGBT advocates to Clinton staffers — almost universally say no. As the then-head of the Human Rights Campaign, Elizabeth Birch, says of the impact of a Clinton veto of DOMA at the time, “He could have survived it. Absolutely.”

Full Story from Metro Weekly

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Marriage Wars Part 2: The Passage of DOMA

Sunday, July 17th, 2011

“Given your stated and longstanding opposition to gay marriage, we believe there would not be a substantive basis for you not to sign the proposed legislation if it were to be adopted by Congress,” White House counsel Jack Quinn, senior advisor to the president George Stephanopoulos and White House gay and lesbian liaison Marsha Scott wrote to President Bill Clinton on May 10, 1996 – three days after Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) introduced the Defense of Marriage Act in Congress. “It is therefore our recommendation that you should sign this legislation if it is enacted,” the trio continued.

It would be two weeks until Clinton made his first remarks on the bill, but the interceding two weeks – if there ever was a question – sealed the fate of the bill and showed the extent to which Democrats were completely unprepared to address the issue at all, let alone present any sort of unified approach in opposition.

From a Department of Justice letter stating that there were no constitutional problems with the bill, to disputes in the House about how to oppose the bill, to a muddled White House message that resulted in conflicted and confused statements all around, the disorganized Democratic strategy allowed the Republicans to create a vigorously anti-gay record for the bill and move it successfully through the House in less than 10 weeks.

Full Story from Edge Boston

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To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

History Plays a Role in Prop 8 Decision

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

More than seven years ago, on July 3, 2003, HNN published “The Historians’ Case Against Gay Discrimination,” a fascinating brief prepared by prominent historians to support same-sex plaintiffs in the famous case Lawrence v. Texas (June 26, 2003), in which the United States Supreme Court struck down prohibitions against all private, adult consensual sex.

Many of the same arguments in that brief, presented by some of the same historians, were a powerful force in Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision on August 4 of this year that California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

In the 2003 brief, the historians – George Chauncey, Nancy F. Cott, John D’Emilio, Estelle B. Freedman, Thomas C. Holt, John Howard, Lynn Hunt, Mark D. Jordan, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, and Linda P. Kerber – asked the Court, as “friends” of the plaintiffs, …to consider the findings of recent historical scholarship on the history of sexual regulation, sodomy prohibitions, and anti-gay discrimination as it considers this case. In our judgment as historians, the lessons of this history are clear. The history of antigay discrimination is short, not millennial… It was only in the twentieth century that the government began to classify and discriminate against certain of its citizens on the basis of their homosexual status… [But] In recent years, a decisive majority of Americans have recognized such measures for what they are – discrimination that offends the principles of our Nation – yet a number of them remain in place… They hold no legitimate place in our Nation’s traditions.

Full Story from HNN

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Fight Over “Traditional” Marriage Goes Back Centuries

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

In the late 1700s, something disturbing happened to marriage in Western societies: It began to change. Young people had revolutionary new ideas about the institution and what it meant to them. “People were terrified,” said Stephanie Coontz, a historian at The Evergreen State College in Washington and author of “Marriage, A History” (Viking Adult, 2005). “Social conservatives of the day said, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re going to have the wrong people getting married.’”

The radical idea that had everyone so worried? The notion that people should marry for love, rather than for individual power, group survival, or any of a host of other historic reasons to bond.

Marriage survived, and so did society. But the fight over marriage continues, most recently with the judicial decision in California that ruled Proposition 8, a state ban on gay marriage, unconstitutional. On Thursday, Federal Judge Vaughn Walker lifted the stay on his earlier ruling, clearing the way for same-sex marriages in California to go forward beginning Aug. 18, pending a reversal by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Full Story from Live Science

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

A Brief History of “Traditional” Marriage

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

In California the courts are debating allowing same sex marriage, under the rules of the court the opponents of it need to show who will be harmed if gays are allowed to be married. So far they have been unable to do so. Being the nice person I am I will help them out.

Traditional Marriage, the type that is written about in the Old Testament is between one man and several women. The principals of this type of marriage are shown here.

Basically this type of marriage turned the wife into a type of property. Through the Dark Ages this worked as the amount of work maintaining a house needed well-defined roles.

Full Story from Before It’s News

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.