Showing posts with label policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label policy. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
McCain and Women's Rights
McCain's record on Women's Rights
this is something that i am not willing to tolerate. it is an outrage!
Check this out.
this is something that i am not willing to tolerate. it is an outrage!
Check this out.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
A friend passed this on - so simple. Messaging is so important in this discussion, it has been proven over and over again.
Say No to Proposition 8 Pass the word on to voters in CA. See previous post on this topic.
Monday, October 13, 2008
NYTimes.com: Help for Haiti
October 13, 2008
EDITORIAL
Help for Haiti
This year has been especially cruel to Haiti, with four back-to-back storms that killed hundreds of people, uprooted tens of thousands more and obliterated houses, roads and crops. A far richer country would have been left reeling; Haiti is as poor as poor gets in this half of the globe. Those who have seen the damage say it is hard to convey the new depths of misery there.
The Bush administration promised Haiti $10 million in emergency aid and Congress has since authorized $100 million for relief and reconstruction. The United Nations has issued a global appeal for another $100 million. We have no doubt that Haiti will need much more.
There is something the United States can do immediately to help Haitians help themselves. It is to grant “temporary protected status” to undocumented Haitians in the United States, so they can live and work legally as their country struggles back from its latest catastrophe.
This is the same protection that has been given for years, in 18-month increments, to tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Salvadorans and others whose countries have been afflicted by war, earthquakes and hurricanes.
While the Bush administration has temporarily stopped deporting Haitians since Hurricane Ike last month, it has not been willing to go the next step of officially granting temporary protected status to the undocumented Haitians living here.
Haiti’s president, René Préval, and members of Congress have urged the administration to change its mind. We urge the same.
There is very little that is consistent in the United States’ immigration policies toward its nearest neighbors, except that the rawest deal usually goes to the Haitians. Cubans who make it to dry land here are allowed to stay; those intercepted at sea are not. Hondurans and Nicaraguans who fled Hurricane Mitch 10 years ago have seen their temporary protected status renewed, as have Salvadorans uprooted by earthquakes in 2001.
Haiti, meanwhile, more than meets the conditions that immigration law requires for its citizens here to receive temporary protected status, including ongoing armed conflict and a dire natural or environmental disaster that leaves a country unable to handle the safe return of its migrants.
If Haiti is ever going to find the road to recovery after decades of dictatorship, upheaval and decay, it will take more than post-hurricane shipments of food and water. Haiti desperately needs money, trade, investment and infrastructure repairs.
It also needs the support of Haitians in the United States, who send home more than $1 billion a year. What it does not need, especially right now, is a forced influx of homeless, jobless deportees.
EDITORIAL
Help for Haiti
This year has been especially cruel to Haiti, with four back-to-back storms that killed hundreds of people, uprooted tens of thousands more and obliterated houses, roads and crops. A far richer country would have been left reeling; Haiti is as poor as poor gets in this half of the globe. Those who have seen the damage say it is hard to convey the new depths of misery there.
The Bush administration promised Haiti $10 million in emergency aid and Congress has since authorized $100 million for relief and reconstruction. The United Nations has issued a global appeal for another $100 million. We have no doubt that Haiti will need much more.
There is something the United States can do immediately to help Haitians help themselves. It is to grant “temporary protected status” to undocumented Haitians in the United States, so they can live and work legally as their country struggles back from its latest catastrophe.
This is the same protection that has been given for years, in 18-month increments, to tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Salvadorans and others whose countries have been afflicted by war, earthquakes and hurricanes.
While the Bush administration has temporarily stopped deporting Haitians since Hurricane Ike last month, it has not been willing to go the next step of officially granting temporary protected status to the undocumented Haitians living here.
Haiti’s president, René Préval, and members of Congress have urged the administration to change its mind. We urge the same.
There is very little that is consistent in the United States’ immigration policies toward its nearest neighbors, except that the rawest deal usually goes to the Haitians. Cubans who make it to dry land here are allowed to stay; those intercepted at sea are not. Hondurans and Nicaraguans who fled Hurricane Mitch 10 years ago have seen their temporary protected status renewed, as have Salvadorans uprooted by earthquakes in 2001.
Haiti, meanwhile, more than meets the conditions that immigration law requires for its citizens here to receive temporary protected status, including ongoing armed conflict and a dire natural or environmental disaster that leaves a country unable to handle the safe return of its migrants.
If Haiti is ever going to find the road to recovery after decades of dictatorship, upheaval and decay, it will take more than post-hurricane shipments of food and water. Haiti desperately needs money, trade, investment and infrastructure repairs.
It also needs the support of Haitians in the United States, who send home more than $1 billion a year. What it does not need, especially right now, is a forced influx of homeless, jobless deportees.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
I'm not sure exactly when this is from, but it is a visual breakdown of the two candidates tax proposals...notice a glaring difference? How can McCain justify that his biggest breaks are for the top 1% - we've seen in the past eight years that a trickle down approach to the economy DOES NOT WORK. When are people going to realize this - a dollar today gets us no where close to what it did a year ago. I used to laugh when I heard folks like my parents talk about the cost of things when they were growing up - - - well 10 years ago when I was in high school, I paid $0.89 for a gallon of gas. What happened to that? I don't drive now, so I don't feel the increased gas prices the way I might if I in fact drove, but geezus!
The Washington Post
Obama and McCain Tax Proposals
According to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are both proposing tax plans that would result in cuts for most American families. Obama's plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy. For the approximately 147,000 families that make up the top 0.1 percent of the income scale, the difference between the two plans is stark. While McCain offers a $269,364 tax cut, Obama would raise their taxes, on average, by $701,885 - a difference of nearly $1 million.
The Washington Post
Obama and McCain Tax Proposals
According to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are both proposing tax plans that would result in cuts for most American families. Obama's plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy. For the approximately 147,000 families that make up the top 0.1 percent of the income scale, the difference between the two plans is stark. While McCain offers a $269,364 tax cut, Obama would raise their taxes, on average, by $701,885 - a difference of nearly $1 million.
Friday, October 10, 2008
CT and marriage as in the NYTimes
I promise to post link to this article, but in the meantime I had a reaction to something I just read in the article...
below is the article -
Gay Marriage Is Ruled Legal in Connecticut
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
A sharply divided Connecticut Supreme Court struck down the state’s civil union law on Friday and ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. Connecticut thus joins Massachusetts and California as the only states to have legalized gay marriages.
The ruling, which cannot be appealed and is to take effect on Oct. 28, held that a state law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, and a civil union law intended to provide all the rights and privileges of marriage to same-sex couples, violated the constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law.
Striking at the heart of discriminatory traditions in America, the court — in language that often rose above the legal landscape into realms of social justice for a new century — recalled that laws in the not-so-distant past barred interracial marriages, excluded women from occupations and official duties, and relegated blacks to separate but supposedly equal public facilities.
“Like these once prevalent views, our conventional understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection,” Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote for the majority in a 4-to-3 decision that explored the nature of homosexual identity, the history of societal views toward homosexuality and the limits of gay political power compared with that of blacks and women.
“Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same-sex partner of their choice,” Justice Palmer declared. “To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others.”
The ruling was groundbreaking in various respects. In addition to establishing Connecticut as the third state to sanction same-sex marriage, it was the first state high court ruling to hold that civil union statutes specifically violated the equal protection clause of a state constitution. The Massachusetts high court held in 2004 that same-sex marriages were legal, while California’s court decision in May related to domestic partnerships and not the more broadly defined civil unions.
The Connecticut decision, which elicited strong dissenting opinions from three justices, also opened the door to marriage a bit wider for gay couples in New York, where state laws do not provide for same-sex marriages or civil unions, although Gov. David A. Paterson recently issued an executive order requiring government agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
The opinion in Connecticut was hailed by jubilant gay couples and their advocates as a fulfillment of years of hopes and dreams. Hugs, kisses and cheers greeted eight same-sex couples as they entered the ballroom at the Hartford Hilton, where four years ago they had announced they would file a lawsuit seeking marriage licenses.
One of those couples, Joanne Mock, 53, and her partner, Elizabeth Kerrigan, 52, stood with their twin 6-year-old sons, choking back tears of joy and gratitude. Another plaintiff, Garret Stack, 59, introduced his partner, John Anderson, 63, and said: “For 28 years we have been engaged. We can now register at Home Depot and prepare for marriage.”
Religious and conservative groups called the ruling an outrage but not unexpected, and spoke of steps to enact a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, blamed “robed masters” and “philosopher kings” on the court. “This is about our right to govern ourselves,” he said. “It is bigger than gay marriage.”
But the state, a principal defendant in the lawsuit, appeared to be resigned to the outcome.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell said that she disagreed with the decision, but would uphold it. “The Supreme Court has spoken,” she said. “I do not believe their voice reflects the majority of the people of Connecticut. However, I am also firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision, either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution, will not meet with success.”
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said his office was reviewing the decision to determine whether laws and procedures will have to be revised — local officials will issue marriage licenses to gay couples without question, for example — but he offered no challenge and said it would soon be implemented.
The case was watched far beyond Hartford. Vermont, New Hampshire and New Jersey all have civil union statutes, while Maine, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii have domestic partnership laws that allow same-sex couples many of the same rights granted to those in civil unions. Advocates for same-sex couples have long argued that civil unions and domestic partnerships denied them the financial, social and emotional benefits accorded in a marriage.
The legal underpinnings for gay marriages, civil unions and statutory partnerships have all come in legislative actions and decisions in lawsuits. Next month, however, voters in California will decide whether the state Constitution should permit same-sex marriage.
The Connecticut case began in 2004 after the eight same-sex couples were denied marriage licenses by the town of Madison. Reflecting the contentiousness and wide interest in the case, a long list of state, national and international organizations on both sides filed friend-of-the-court briefs. The plaintiffs contended that the denial of marriage licenses deprived them of due process and equal protection under the law.
While the case was pending, the legislature in 2005 adopted a law establishing the right of same-sex partners to enter into civil unions that conferred all the rights and privileges of marriage. But, at the insistence of the governor, the law also defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Arguments in the case centered on whether civil unions and marriages conferred equal rights, and on whether same-sex couples should be treated as what the court called a “suspect class” or “quasi-suspect class” — a group, like blacks or women, that has experienced a history of discrimination and was thus entitled to increased scrutiny and protection by the state in the promulgation of its laws.
Among the criteria for inclusion as a suspect class, the court said, were whether gay people could “control” their sexual orientation, whether they were “politically powerless” and whether being gay had a bearing on one’s ability to contribute to society.
A lower-court judge, Patty Jenkins Pittman of Superior Court in New Haven, sided with the state, denying that gay men and lesbians were entitled to special consideration as a suspect class and concluding that the differences between civil unions and marriages amounted to no more than nomenclature. The Supreme Court reversed the lower-court ruling.
“Although marriage and civil unions do embody the same legal rights under our law, they are by no means equal,” Justice Palmer wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Justices Flemming L. Norcott Jr., Joette Katz and Lubbie Harper. “The former is an institution of transcendent historical, cultural and social significance, whereas the latter is not.”
The court said it was aware that many people held deep-seated religious, moral and ethical convictions about marriage and homosexuality, and that others believed gays should be treated no differently than heterosexuals. But it said such views did not bear on the questions before the court.
“There is no doubt that civil unions enjoy a lesser status in our society than marriage,” the court said. “Ultimately, the message of the civil unions law is that what same-sex couples have is not as important or as significant as real marriage.”
In one dissenting opinion, Justice David M. Bordon contended that there was no conclusive evidence that civil unions are inferior to marriages, and he argued that gay people have “unique and extraordinary” political power that does not warrant heightened constitutional protections.
Justice Peter T. Zarella, in another dissent, argued that the state marriage laws dealt with procreation, which was not a factor in gay relationships. “The ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis in biology, not bigotry,” he wrote.
About 1,800 couples have obtained civil unions in Connecticut since the law was adopted three years ago, although gay-rights advocates say the demand has slowed. They cite complaints that the unions leave many people feeling not quite married but not quite single, facing forms that mischaracterize their status and questions at airports challenging their ties to their own children.
But marriage will soon be a possibility for gay couples like Janet Peck, 55, and Carol Conklin, 53, of West Hartford, who have been partners for 33 years. “I so look forward to the day when I can take this woman’s hand, look deeply into her eyes and pledge my deep love and support and commitment to her in marriage,” Ms. Peck said.
Sharon Otterman and Christine Stuart contributed reporting.
"Justice Zarella went further in his dissent, ruling that there was no fundamental right to same-sex marriage in Connecticut because the state's marriage laws deal with the regulation of pepcreation, a factor not triggered in the case of gay marriage. "The ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis in biology, not bigotry," he wrote."
Oh really, biology, not bigotry? If that were true wouldn't marriage not be limited to one man and one woman, because scientifically I would imagine that monogamy is biologically less efficient than polygamy.
Again, just saying, so riddle me that logic, Justice Zarella.
below is the article -
Gay Marriage Is Ruled Legal in Connecticut
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
A sharply divided Connecticut Supreme Court struck down the state’s civil union law on Friday and ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. Connecticut thus joins Massachusetts and California as the only states to have legalized gay marriages.
The ruling, which cannot be appealed and is to take effect on Oct. 28, held that a state law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, and a civil union law intended to provide all the rights and privileges of marriage to same-sex couples, violated the constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law.
Striking at the heart of discriminatory traditions in America, the court — in language that often rose above the legal landscape into realms of social justice for a new century — recalled that laws in the not-so-distant past barred interracial marriages, excluded women from occupations and official duties, and relegated blacks to separate but supposedly equal public facilities.
“Like these once prevalent views, our conventional understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection,” Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote for the majority in a 4-to-3 decision that explored the nature of homosexual identity, the history of societal views toward homosexuality and the limits of gay political power compared with that of blacks and women.
“Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same-sex partner of their choice,” Justice Palmer declared. “To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others.”
The ruling was groundbreaking in various respects. In addition to establishing Connecticut as the third state to sanction same-sex marriage, it was the first state high court ruling to hold that civil union statutes specifically violated the equal protection clause of a state constitution. The Massachusetts high court held in 2004 that same-sex marriages were legal, while California’s court decision in May related to domestic partnerships and not the more broadly defined civil unions.
The Connecticut decision, which elicited strong dissenting opinions from three justices, also opened the door to marriage a bit wider for gay couples in New York, where state laws do not provide for same-sex marriages or civil unions, although Gov. David A. Paterson recently issued an executive order requiring government agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
The opinion in Connecticut was hailed by jubilant gay couples and their advocates as a fulfillment of years of hopes and dreams. Hugs, kisses and cheers greeted eight same-sex couples as they entered the ballroom at the Hartford Hilton, where four years ago they had announced they would file a lawsuit seeking marriage licenses.
One of those couples, Joanne Mock, 53, and her partner, Elizabeth Kerrigan, 52, stood with their twin 6-year-old sons, choking back tears of joy and gratitude. Another plaintiff, Garret Stack, 59, introduced his partner, John Anderson, 63, and said: “For 28 years we have been engaged. We can now register at Home Depot and prepare for marriage.”
Religious and conservative groups called the ruling an outrage but not unexpected, and spoke of steps to enact a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, blamed “robed masters” and “philosopher kings” on the court. “This is about our right to govern ourselves,” he said. “It is bigger than gay marriage.”
But the state, a principal defendant in the lawsuit, appeared to be resigned to the outcome.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell said that she disagreed with the decision, but would uphold it. “The Supreme Court has spoken,” she said. “I do not believe their voice reflects the majority of the people of Connecticut. However, I am also firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision, either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution, will not meet with success.”
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said his office was reviewing the decision to determine whether laws and procedures will have to be revised — local officials will issue marriage licenses to gay couples without question, for example — but he offered no challenge and said it would soon be implemented.
The case was watched far beyond Hartford. Vermont, New Hampshire and New Jersey all have civil union statutes, while Maine, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii have domestic partnership laws that allow same-sex couples many of the same rights granted to those in civil unions. Advocates for same-sex couples have long argued that civil unions and domestic partnerships denied them the financial, social and emotional benefits accorded in a marriage.
The legal underpinnings for gay marriages, civil unions and statutory partnerships have all come in legislative actions and decisions in lawsuits. Next month, however, voters in California will decide whether the state Constitution should permit same-sex marriage.
The Connecticut case began in 2004 after the eight same-sex couples were denied marriage licenses by the town of Madison. Reflecting the contentiousness and wide interest in the case, a long list of state, national and international organizations on both sides filed friend-of-the-court briefs. The plaintiffs contended that the denial of marriage licenses deprived them of due process and equal protection under the law.
While the case was pending, the legislature in 2005 adopted a law establishing the right of same-sex partners to enter into civil unions that conferred all the rights and privileges of marriage. But, at the insistence of the governor, the law also defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Arguments in the case centered on whether civil unions and marriages conferred equal rights, and on whether same-sex couples should be treated as what the court called a “suspect class” or “quasi-suspect class” — a group, like blacks or women, that has experienced a history of discrimination and was thus entitled to increased scrutiny and protection by the state in the promulgation of its laws.
Among the criteria for inclusion as a suspect class, the court said, were whether gay people could “control” their sexual orientation, whether they were “politically powerless” and whether being gay had a bearing on one’s ability to contribute to society.
A lower-court judge, Patty Jenkins Pittman of Superior Court in New Haven, sided with the state, denying that gay men and lesbians were entitled to special consideration as a suspect class and concluding that the differences between civil unions and marriages amounted to no more than nomenclature. The Supreme Court reversed the lower-court ruling.
“Although marriage and civil unions do embody the same legal rights under our law, they are by no means equal,” Justice Palmer wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Justices Flemming L. Norcott Jr., Joette Katz and Lubbie Harper. “The former is an institution of transcendent historical, cultural and social significance, whereas the latter is not.”
The court said it was aware that many people held deep-seated religious, moral and ethical convictions about marriage and homosexuality, and that others believed gays should be treated no differently than heterosexuals. But it said such views did not bear on the questions before the court.
“There is no doubt that civil unions enjoy a lesser status in our society than marriage,” the court said. “Ultimately, the message of the civil unions law is that what same-sex couples have is not as important or as significant as real marriage.”
In one dissenting opinion, Justice David M. Bordon contended that there was no conclusive evidence that civil unions are inferior to marriages, and he argued that gay people have “unique and extraordinary” political power that does not warrant heightened constitutional protections.
Justice Peter T. Zarella, in another dissent, argued that the state marriage laws dealt with procreation, which was not a factor in gay relationships. “The ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis in biology, not bigotry,” he wrote.
About 1,800 couples have obtained civil unions in Connecticut since the law was adopted three years ago, although gay-rights advocates say the demand has slowed. They cite complaints that the unions leave many people feeling not quite married but not quite single, facing forms that mischaracterize their status and questions at airports challenging their ties to their own children.
But marriage will soon be a possibility for gay couples like Janet Peck, 55, and Carol Conklin, 53, of West Hartford, who have been partners for 33 years. “I so look forward to the day when I can take this woman’s hand, look deeply into her eyes and pledge my deep love and support and commitment to her in marriage,” Ms. Peck said.
Sharon Otterman and Christine Stuart contributed reporting.
CT joins CA and MA: Gays to Marry
Conn. court overturns same-sex marriage ban
Court finds law discriminates by limiting marriage to heterosexual couples
updated 12:25 p.m. ET, Fri., Oct. 10, 2008
HARTFORD, Connecticut - Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, making that state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions.
The divided court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution, and Connecticut's civil unions law does not provide those couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples.
"I can't believe it. We're thrilled, we're absolutely overjoyed. We're finally going to be able, after 33 years, to get married," said Janet Peck of Colchester, who was a plaintiff with her partner, Carole Conklin.
Justices overturned a lower court ruling and found in favor of the plaintiffs, who said the state's marriage law discriminates against them because it applies only to heterosexual couples, therefore denying gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage.
"Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice," Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the majority opinion that overturned a lower court finding.
"To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others," Palmer wrote.
Gov. disagrees, but won't fight ruling
Connecticut already permitted same-sex civil unions that grant largely the same state rights as to married couples, but lack the full, federal legal protections of marriage.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Friday that she disagreed with the court's ruling, but will not fight the ruling.
"The Supreme Court has spoken," Rell said in a statement. "I do not believe their voice reflects the majority of the people of Connecticut. However, I am also firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision — either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution — will not meet with success."
Because Friday's decision was based on the state constitution, the ruling cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, NBC News reported. The ruling is to take effect shortly.
Eight same-sex couples sued in 2004, saying their constitutional rights to equal protection and due process were violated when they were denied marriage licenses.
The plaintiffs wanted the court to rule that the law discriminated against them because it applies only to heterosexual couples, therefore denying gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage.
The only U.S. states that allow same-sex couples to marry are Massachusetts and California.
Peck said that as soon as the decision was announced, the couple started crying and hugging while juggling excited phone calls from her brother and other friends and family.
"We've always dreamed of being married," she said. "Even though we were lesbians and didn't know if that would ever come true, we always dreamed of it."
© 2008 msnbc.com
Read what is being said over at Queerty.
Court finds law discriminates by limiting marriage to heterosexual couples
updated 12:25 p.m. ET, Fri., Oct. 10, 2008
HARTFORD, Connecticut - Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, making that state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions.
The divided court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution, and Connecticut's civil unions law does not provide those couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples.
"I can't believe it. We're thrilled, we're absolutely overjoyed. We're finally going to be able, after 33 years, to get married," said Janet Peck of Colchester, who was a plaintiff with her partner, Carole Conklin.
Justices overturned a lower court ruling and found in favor of the plaintiffs, who said the state's marriage law discriminates against them because it applies only to heterosexual couples, therefore denying gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage.
"Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice," Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the majority opinion that overturned a lower court finding.
"To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others," Palmer wrote.
Gov. disagrees, but won't fight ruling
Connecticut already permitted same-sex civil unions that grant largely the same state rights as to married couples, but lack the full, federal legal protections of marriage.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Friday that she disagreed with the court's ruling, but will not fight the ruling.
"The Supreme Court has spoken," Rell said in a statement. "I do not believe their voice reflects the majority of the people of Connecticut. However, I am also firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision — either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution — will not meet with success."
Because Friday's decision was based on the state constitution, the ruling cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, NBC News reported. The ruling is to take effect shortly.
Eight same-sex couples sued in 2004, saying their constitutional rights to equal protection and due process were violated when they were denied marriage licenses.
The plaintiffs wanted the court to rule that the law discriminated against them because it applies only to heterosexual couples, therefore denying gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage.
The only U.S. states that allow same-sex couples to marry are Massachusetts and California.
Peck said that as soon as the decision was announced, the couple started crying and hugging while juggling excited phone calls from her brother and other friends and family.
"We've always dreamed of being married," she said. "Even though we were lesbians and didn't know if that would ever come true, we always dreamed of it."
© 2008 msnbc.com
Read what is being said over at Queerty.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/4rp88t
Read this and do something, send money, make calls to friends in CA.
This is too important to sit back and do nothing.
Read this and do something, send money, make calls to friends in CA.
This is too important to sit back and do nothing.
More to come when not posting from a rocket launcher.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.
Monday, October 6, 2008
NYTimes Editorial: The Supreme Court's New Term
October 6, 2008
Editorial
The Supreme Court’s New Term
The Supreme Court begins its term on Monday, and the indications so far are that it could be a quiet year. There will be at least a few high-profile cases, on issues ranging from obscenity to church-state separation, but the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy is likely to keep the court on a generally centrist path. The real excitement this fall is occurring on the outside — in a presidential race that could shape the court for years to come.
Historians will remember this as the Roberts Court’s fourth term, but as a practical matter it is likely to be another year of the Kennedy Court. Poised between a bloc of four liberal justices and four conservatives, Justice Kennedy — a moderate conservative — has for several years been able to decide most close cases.
This term’s docket includes Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, a challenge by broadcasters to the F.C.C.’s policy on “fleeting expletives.” The commission, in a sharp reversal, started imposing large fines for television programming with brief profanities — like a Golden Globe awards show in which the singer Bono uttered a single offending word. A federal appeals court rightly struck down the policy, which seriously infringes on free speech. We hope the court sides with the broadcasters.
The court will also consider, in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, whether a Utah municipality that allows a privately donated Ten Commandments monument to be displayed on public property must let another religion put up its own statue of similar size. The court should rule that the Constitution does not allow government to favor one religion over another.
The court’s conservatives have been on a campaign to close the courthouse door to people with legitimate legal claims. They have expanded a variety of doctrines to send wronged parties away empty-handed, including one known as “pre-emption.”
That issue is central to a case being argued on Monday, a challenge by Maine smokers to Philip Morris’s marketing of “light cigarettes” as safer than regular ones. The smokers say the marketing violated Maine’s consumer protection laws, but Philip Morris argues that they are pre-empted by federal law. We hope the court agrees with the Boston-based Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that the smokers’ suit can go forward.
The court is still accepting cases for the term, and it could add major ones, including a challenge to the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, or the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, which raises the question of whether the president can order someone lawfully in the United States held indefinitely as an enemy combatant.
The same day the court hears arguments in the “fleeting expletives” case next month, Nov. 4, Americans will be voting for a new president. John McCain is promising to nominate more archconservatives, which could tip the court far to the right. Barack Obama would appoint justices who are more liberal.
The election’s outcome is likely to have an enormous impact on questions like the right to abortion, the wall between church and state, and the power of the president to detain Americans. Since several justices could depart in the next four years, this could be the most important election for the court in many decades.
Editorial
The Supreme Court’s New Term
The Supreme Court begins its term on Monday, and the indications so far are that it could be a quiet year. There will be at least a few high-profile cases, on issues ranging from obscenity to church-state separation, but the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy is likely to keep the court on a generally centrist path. The real excitement this fall is occurring on the outside — in a presidential race that could shape the court for years to come.
Historians will remember this as the Roberts Court’s fourth term, but as a practical matter it is likely to be another year of the Kennedy Court. Poised between a bloc of four liberal justices and four conservatives, Justice Kennedy — a moderate conservative — has for several years been able to decide most close cases.
This term’s docket includes Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, a challenge by broadcasters to the F.C.C.’s policy on “fleeting expletives.” The commission, in a sharp reversal, started imposing large fines for television programming with brief profanities — like a Golden Globe awards show in which the singer Bono uttered a single offending word. A federal appeals court rightly struck down the policy, which seriously infringes on free speech. We hope the court sides with the broadcasters.
The court will also consider, in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, whether a Utah municipality that allows a privately donated Ten Commandments monument to be displayed on public property must let another religion put up its own statue of similar size. The court should rule that the Constitution does not allow government to favor one religion over another.
The court’s conservatives have been on a campaign to close the courthouse door to people with legitimate legal claims. They have expanded a variety of doctrines to send wronged parties away empty-handed, including one known as “pre-emption.”
That issue is central to a case being argued on Monday, a challenge by Maine smokers to Philip Morris’s marketing of “light cigarettes” as safer than regular ones. The smokers say the marketing violated Maine’s consumer protection laws, but Philip Morris argues that they are pre-empted by federal law. We hope the court agrees with the Boston-based Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that the smokers’ suit can go forward.
The court is still accepting cases for the term, and it could add major ones, including a challenge to the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, or the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, which raises the question of whether the president can order someone lawfully in the United States held indefinitely as an enemy combatant.
The same day the court hears arguments in the “fleeting expletives” case next month, Nov. 4, Americans will be voting for a new president. John McCain is promising to nominate more archconservatives, which could tip the court far to the right. Barack Obama would appoint justices who are more liberal.
The election’s outcome is likely to have an enormous impact on questions like the right to abortion, the wall between church and state, and the power of the president to detain Americans. Since several justices could depart in the next four years, this could be the most important election for the court in many decades.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Americans Scramble To Offer Bundles Of 'Shit' For Sale To Government
Read
I'm not the only one who feels a little, I dunno, bad about the fact the government is about to drop $700 Billion on a bailout plan. I've got debt too, and yes, some of it is becuase of poor choices - - - sounds a little like the folks on Wall Street. Hmmm. Like I've said before, I think my $2300 contibution to the bailout would be better spent if I had it in my wallet...
I'm not the only one who feels a little, I dunno, bad about the fact the government is about to drop $700 Billion on a bailout plan. I've got debt too, and yes, some of it is becuase of poor choices - - - sounds a little like the folks on Wall Street. Hmmm. Like I've said before, I think my $2300 contibution to the bailout would be better spent if I had it in my wallet...
Monday, September 22, 2008
No on Proposition 8
Forgot to post this NYTimes article yesterday.
Read up...on why your stance should be No on Proposition 8.
How non-Californians can help on Proposition 8.
September 21, 2008
Political Memo
Same-Sex Marriage Ban Is Tied to Obama Factor
By JESSE McKINLEY
SAN FRANCISCO — Could Senator Barack Obama’s popularity among black voters hurt gay couples in California who want to marry?
That is the concern of opponents of Proposition 8, a measure on the November ballot that would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, which was legalized in May by the State Supreme Court.
Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, is against the measure. But opponents of the proposed ban worry that many black voters, enthused by Mr. Obama’s candidacy but traditionally conservative on issues involving homosexuality, could pour into voting stations in record numbers to punch the Obama ticket — and then cast a vote for Proposition 8.
“It’s a Catch-22,” said Andrea Shorter, the campaign director of And Marriage for All, a coalition of gay and civil rights groups that recently started what it calls an education campaign around the state, focusing on blacks and framing the issue of same-sex marriage as one of civil rights.
The Obama/Proposition 8 situation appeals to those opposed to same-sex marriage, who are banking on a high turnout by blacks and conservative Latinos. “There’s no question African-American and Latino voters are among our strongest supporters,” said Frank Schubert, the co-campaign manager for Yes on 8, the leading group behind the measure. “And to the extent that they are motivated to get to the polls, whether by this issue or by Barack Obama, it helps us.”
To blunt that possibility, gay leaders and Proposition 8 opponents have been sponsoring casual events at restaurants in traditionally black neighborhoods in Los Angeles, meeting with black clergy members and recruiting gay black couples to serve as spokespeople on panels and at house parties and church events.
“This is black people talking to black people,” said Ron Buckmire, the board president of the Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition, a gay rights group in Los Angeles. “We’re saying, ‘Gay people are black and black people are gay. And if you are voting conservative on an antigay ballot measure, you are hurting the black community.’ ”
Black voters account for 6 percent of likely voters in most statewide elections, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, while Hispanic voters make up about 15 percent. But taken together, those two groups could easily decide the election, people on both sides of the issue said.
“If the white Christian evangelic movement believes they can do it alone, I’ve got news for you,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference in Sacramento, which supports the measure. “They don’t have the sheer numbers to do it without the minority effort.”
The Obama factor is just one potential element in the battle over Proposition 8.
Both sides said they expected to spend $20 million or more to help blanket airwaves. One advertisement by opponents shows a heterosexual bride on her way to the altar thwarted by various obstacles — a broken door, a clingy child — before the tagline: “What if you couldn’t marry the person you loved?”
Polls have shown Proposition 8 is trailing. A Field Poll of likely voters conducted last week found the measure was favored by 38 percent of voters and opposed by 55 percent. Mr. Obama, who has said he does not favor same-sex marriage, has stated his opposition to Proposition 8, calling the measure “divisive and discriminatory” in a letter to a gay Democratic club in San Francisco.
But opponents are not declaring victory.
“We think there’s 15 to 20 percent that are still undecided on this issue,” said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, which supports gay rights. “We do believe that if we can get our message out at least equal to the other side, we will win, but that’s a fund-raising issue.”
Mr. Kors said opponents of Proposition 8 had raised about $12 million so far.
Supporters of the proposition, which qualified for the ballot shortly after the Supreme Court decision, said they had raised about $15 million.
Those donations include money from religious and conservative groups, including $1 million from the Knights of Columbus and $500,000 from the American Family Association, run by the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon. That group’s Web site includes a fund-raising video for Proposition 8 featuring a clip of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. while a speaker comments on the duty of black pastors to speak out in favor of Proposition 8.
Some supporters of the measure also say they sense a newfound enthusiasm in their ranks since Gov. Sarah Palin became the running mate of the Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain.
“I think Governor Palin has obviously energized social conservatives and religious conservatives and all types of conservatives,” said Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst with Focus on the Family Action, the lobbying arm of Focus on the Family, a conservative group that has spent nearly $450,000 on supporting Proposition 8. “And if that motivates more of them to get out to the ballot box than would have for John McCain by himself that has to benefit socially conservative issues like Prop. 8.”
The black community has long had a conflicted relationship with gay men and lesbians, Mr. Buckmire said, equal parts homophobia and denial.
“For too long, black people seemed to think there were no gay people around, especially black ministers,” Mr. Buckmire said. “They’d say the most insanely anti-gay things, and then the choir would come up and the choir is 50 percent gay.”
Still, the tendency of black voters to oppose gay marriage extends beyond religion. Patrick J. Egan, an assistant professor of politics at New York University who has studied black voting patterns on same-sex marriage, said black voters consistently polled much lower than white voters on approval for same-sex marriage, about 16 percentage points, even when religion was not a factor.
Read up...on why your stance should be No on Proposition 8.
How non-Californians can help on Proposition 8.
September 21, 2008
Political Memo
Same-Sex Marriage Ban Is Tied to Obama Factor
By JESSE McKINLEY
SAN FRANCISCO — Could Senator Barack Obama’s popularity among black voters hurt gay couples in California who want to marry?
That is the concern of opponents of Proposition 8, a measure on the November ballot that would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, which was legalized in May by the State Supreme Court.
Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, is against the measure. But opponents of the proposed ban worry that many black voters, enthused by Mr. Obama’s candidacy but traditionally conservative on issues involving homosexuality, could pour into voting stations in record numbers to punch the Obama ticket — and then cast a vote for Proposition 8.
“It’s a Catch-22,” said Andrea Shorter, the campaign director of And Marriage for All, a coalition of gay and civil rights groups that recently started what it calls an education campaign around the state, focusing on blacks and framing the issue of same-sex marriage as one of civil rights.
The Obama/Proposition 8 situation appeals to those opposed to same-sex marriage, who are banking on a high turnout by blacks and conservative Latinos. “There’s no question African-American and Latino voters are among our strongest supporters,” said Frank Schubert, the co-campaign manager for Yes on 8, the leading group behind the measure. “And to the extent that they are motivated to get to the polls, whether by this issue or by Barack Obama, it helps us.”
To blunt that possibility, gay leaders and Proposition 8 opponents have been sponsoring casual events at restaurants in traditionally black neighborhoods in Los Angeles, meeting with black clergy members and recruiting gay black couples to serve as spokespeople on panels and at house parties and church events.
“This is black people talking to black people,” said Ron Buckmire, the board president of the Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition, a gay rights group in Los Angeles. “We’re saying, ‘Gay people are black and black people are gay. And if you are voting conservative on an antigay ballot measure, you are hurting the black community.’ ”
Black voters account for 6 percent of likely voters in most statewide elections, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, while Hispanic voters make up about 15 percent. But taken together, those two groups could easily decide the election, people on both sides of the issue said.
“If the white Christian evangelic movement believes they can do it alone, I’ve got news for you,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference in Sacramento, which supports the measure. “They don’t have the sheer numbers to do it without the minority effort.”
The Obama factor is just one potential element in the battle over Proposition 8.
Both sides said they expected to spend $20 million or more to help blanket airwaves. One advertisement by opponents shows a heterosexual bride on her way to the altar thwarted by various obstacles — a broken door, a clingy child — before the tagline: “What if you couldn’t marry the person you loved?”
Polls have shown Proposition 8 is trailing. A Field Poll of likely voters conducted last week found the measure was favored by 38 percent of voters and opposed by 55 percent. Mr. Obama, who has said he does not favor same-sex marriage, has stated his opposition to Proposition 8, calling the measure “divisive and discriminatory” in a letter to a gay Democratic club in San Francisco.
But opponents are not declaring victory.
“We think there’s 15 to 20 percent that are still undecided on this issue,” said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, which supports gay rights. “We do believe that if we can get our message out at least equal to the other side, we will win, but that’s a fund-raising issue.”
Mr. Kors said opponents of Proposition 8 had raised about $12 million so far.
Supporters of the proposition, which qualified for the ballot shortly after the Supreme Court decision, said they had raised about $15 million.
Those donations include money from religious and conservative groups, including $1 million from the Knights of Columbus and $500,000 from the American Family Association, run by the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon. That group’s Web site includes a fund-raising video for Proposition 8 featuring a clip of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. while a speaker comments on the duty of black pastors to speak out in favor of Proposition 8.
Some supporters of the measure also say they sense a newfound enthusiasm in their ranks since Gov. Sarah Palin became the running mate of the Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain.
“I think Governor Palin has obviously energized social conservatives and religious conservatives and all types of conservatives,” said Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst with Focus on the Family Action, the lobbying arm of Focus on the Family, a conservative group that has spent nearly $450,000 on supporting Proposition 8. “And if that motivates more of them to get out to the ballot box than would have for John McCain by himself that has to benefit socially conservative issues like Prop. 8.”
The black community has long had a conflicted relationship with gay men and lesbians, Mr. Buckmire said, equal parts homophobia and denial.
“For too long, black people seemed to think there were no gay people around, especially black ministers,” Mr. Buckmire said. “They’d say the most insanely anti-gay things, and then the choir would come up and the choir is 50 percent gay.”
Still, the tendency of black voters to oppose gay marriage extends beyond religion. Patrick J. Egan, an assistant professor of politics at New York University who has studied black voting patterns on same-sex marriage, said black voters consistently polled much lower than white voters on approval for same-sex marriage, about 16 percentage points, even when religion was not a factor.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
NYTimes Editorial: The Candidates and the Court
Here is an editorial on an issue I've been talking about for months now. Something that terrifies me about this election, the fact that the courts are at stake and that long outlasts the influence of a Presidential term. The article walks you through the concern, ladies and gents - its time to face up and sing...let's make sure that we continue to work to change this country for the better.
NYTimes article, text below...
September 21, 2008
EDITORIAL
The Candidates and the Court
Among the many issues voters need to consider in this campaign is this vital fact: The next president is likely to appoint several Supreme Court justices. Those choices will determine the future of the law, and of some of Americans’ most cherished rights.
John McCain and Barack Obama have made it clear that they would pick very different kinds of justices. The results could be particularly dramatic under Mr. McCain, who is likely to complete President Bush’s campaign to make the court an aggressive right-wing force.
Mr. Obama seems likely to pick moderate justices, who would probably not take the court back onto a distinctly liberal path, but also would be unlikely to create an unbreakable conservative bloc.
Mr. McCain has promised the right wing of the Republican Party that he would put only archconservatives on the Supreme Court. Even moderate conservatives like Anthony Kennedy, the court’s current swing justice, would not have a chance.
Mr. McCain, whose Web site proclaims his dedication to overturning Roe v. Wade, would appoint justices who could be expected to lead the charge to eliminate the right to abortion. The kinds of justices for whom Mr. McCain has expressed a strong preference would also be likely to undermine the right of habeas corpus, allowing the government to detain people indefinitely without access to lawyers or family members.
Mr. McCain’s justices are likely to join the conservative crusade against the power of Congress. They could be expected to strike down, or sharply limit, federal power to protect clean air and water; ensure food and drug safety; safeguard workers; and prohibit discrimination against women and minorities. They would also likely further erode the separation between church and state.
Mr. McCain has voted to confirm federal judges chosen by Mr. Bush who are radicals, not conservatives. One, Janice Rogers Brown, now on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has attacked Supreme Court decisions upholding New Deal laws as “the triumph of our own socialist revolution.”
Mr. Obama, a former professor of constitutional law, has clashed with Mr. McCain in the Senate over legal issues. Mr. McCain backed the odious Military Commissions Act of 2006, which the Supreme Court held to violate the right of habeas corpus; Mr. Obama opposed it. Mr. McCain was a rubber stamp for Mr. Bush’s judicial nominees; Mr. Obama voted against the worst.
Mr. Obama has said he wants justices who have “the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom” — as well as to be gay, poor or black. He has promised to make “preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as president.”
At the same time, Mr. Obama has put distance between himself and legal liberals on issues like the death penalty for child rapists and the constitutionality of gun control. As president, Mr. Obama would probably be more inclined to appoint centrist liberals, like Justice Stephen Breyer, than all-out liberals, like William Brennan or Thurgood Marshall.
Predicting vacancies on the court is difficult. But odds are that members of the liberal bloc, like 88-year-old John Paul Stevens, will leave first. That means that if Mr. Obama is elected, he might merely keep the court on its current moderately conservative course. Under Mr. McCain, if a liberal justice or two or three steps down, we may see a very different America.
NYTimes article, text below...
September 21, 2008
EDITORIAL
The Candidates and the Court
Among the many issues voters need to consider in this campaign is this vital fact: The next president is likely to appoint several Supreme Court justices. Those choices will determine the future of the law, and of some of Americans’ most cherished rights.
John McCain and Barack Obama have made it clear that they would pick very different kinds of justices. The results could be particularly dramatic under Mr. McCain, who is likely to complete President Bush’s campaign to make the court an aggressive right-wing force.
Mr. Obama seems likely to pick moderate justices, who would probably not take the court back onto a distinctly liberal path, but also would be unlikely to create an unbreakable conservative bloc.
Mr. McCain has promised the right wing of the Republican Party that he would put only archconservatives on the Supreme Court. Even moderate conservatives like Anthony Kennedy, the court’s current swing justice, would not have a chance.
Mr. McCain, whose Web site proclaims his dedication to overturning Roe v. Wade, would appoint justices who could be expected to lead the charge to eliminate the right to abortion. The kinds of justices for whom Mr. McCain has expressed a strong preference would also be likely to undermine the right of habeas corpus, allowing the government to detain people indefinitely without access to lawyers or family members.
Mr. McCain’s justices are likely to join the conservative crusade against the power of Congress. They could be expected to strike down, or sharply limit, federal power to protect clean air and water; ensure food and drug safety; safeguard workers; and prohibit discrimination against women and minorities. They would also likely further erode the separation between church and state.
Mr. McCain has voted to confirm federal judges chosen by Mr. Bush who are radicals, not conservatives. One, Janice Rogers Brown, now on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has attacked Supreme Court decisions upholding New Deal laws as “the triumph of our own socialist revolution.”
Mr. Obama, a former professor of constitutional law, has clashed with Mr. McCain in the Senate over legal issues. Mr. McCain backed the odious Military Commissions Act of 2006, which the Supreme Court held to violate the right of habeas corpus; Mr. Obama opposed it. Mr. McCain was a rubber stamp for Mr. Bush’s judicial nominees; Mr. Obama voted against the worst.
Mr. Obama has said he wants justices who have “the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom” — as well as to be gay, poor or black. He has promised to make “preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as president.”
At the same time, Mr. Obama has put distance between himself and legal liberals on issues like the death penalty for child rapists and the constitutionality of gun control. As president, Mr. Obama would probably be more inclined to appoint centrist liberals, like Justice Stephen Breyer, than all-out liberals, like William Brennan or Thurgood Marshall.
Predicting vacancies on the court is difficult. But odds are that members of the liberal bloc, like 88-year-old John Paul Stevens, will leave first. That means that if Mr. Obama is elected, he might merely keep the court on its current moderately conservative course. Under Mr. McCain, if a liberal justice or two or three steps down, we may see a very different America.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Marching for Marriage Equality and "hObama-ing"
today was the marriage march across the brooklyn bridge - it was mutha f*ckin hot, where did that nice fallish type weather go? anyway, marriage equality - as good a cause as any. one day i'd like to get married and i think it particularly awful that because i chose to love women as a woman that the law currently does not grant me the same rights as my hetreosexual counterparts. so we march.
while marching i sold some obama shirts, registered voters and signed people up to volunteer with us to go to PA. all of these things are great and caused my friend james to tell me that i've been hObama-ing it - which totally made me lose it, and i decided i am in fact a HOBAMA! so holla at your girl - get registered and don't sleep till the change has come!!!
while marching i sold some obama shirts, registered voters and signed people up to volunteer with us to go to PA. all of these things are great and caused my friend james to tell me that i've been hObama-ing it - which totally made me lose it, and i decided i am in fact a HOBAMA! so holla at your girl - get registered and don't sleep till the change has come!!!
Monday, June 23, 2008
All We Need Is Love...
here is the March 26, 2008 Advocate story.
My thoughts = I think this is amazing in the most positive way. Unfortunately, the response to this story has been overwhelmingly negative with people saying that "these people are mentally ill" and replying to online message boards with other words of hate and judgement. To date, Gender Identity Disorder has not been classified as a mental illness within the scientific community.
Instead of reacting with judgement and hate to thing that are unknown to us or different from us I truely wish that people would respond with compassion and an open mind. Here again I lean towards the idealist however, I am so bothered by the growing examples of hatred and hypocrisy. If more people were driven by love and this type of determination I wonder what kind of world we would live in. I applaud the Beaties.
Below is a NYTimes story from yesterday.
June 22, 2008
He’s Pregnant. You’re Speechless.
By GUY TREBAY
WHEN Thomas Beatie gives birth in the next few weeks to a baby girl, the blessed event will mark both a personal milestone and a strange and wondrous crossroads in the evolution of American pop culture.
Mr. Beatie — as anyone who has turned on a television, linked to a blog or picked up a tabloid in the last few months is aware — is a married 34-year-old man, born a woman, who managed to impregnate himself last year using frozen sperm and who went public this spring as the nation’s first “pregnant father.”
That this story attracted attention around the world was hardly surprising. Who, after all, could resist the image of a shirtless Madonna, with a ripe belly on a body lacking breasts and with a square jaw unmistakably fringed by a beard? For a time, clips of Mr. Beatie’s appearance on “Oprah,” where he was filmed undergoing ultrasound, as well as shirtless images of him from an autobiographical feature in the Advocate magazine, were everywhere, and they were impossible to look away from.
Partly a carnival sideshow and partly a glimpse at shifting sexual tectonics, his image and story powered past traditional definitions of gender and exposed a realm that seemed more than passing strange to some observers — and altogether natural to those who inhabit it.
“This is just a neat human-interest story about a particular couple using the reproductive capabilities they have,” said Mara Kiesling, director of the National Center for Transgender Equality in Washington. “There’s really nothing remarkable” about the Beatie pregnancy, she said.
Yet as the first pregnant transman to go public, Mr. Beatie has exposed a mass audience to alterations in the outlines of gender that may be outpacing our comprehension. In the discussions that followed his announcement, what became poignantly clear is that there is no good language yet to discuss his situation, words like an all-purpose pronoun to describe an idea as complex as a pregnant man.
“When there’s a lot of fascination around a figure like Thomas Beatie,” said Judith Halberstam, a professor of English and gender studies at the University of Southern California, “it points to other changes already happening elsewhere in the culture.”
Among the changes Ms. Halberstam noted are medical innovations that have expanded the possibilities for body modification. There are also studies that indicate, as Ms. Halberstam noted, that women respond sexually to the individual, before differentiating by sex. And the broadening legal scope of marriage has also had its effects on people like Mr. Beatie, who says of himself, “I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy,” but who might have trouble holding on to some of those assertions if he did something as simple as moving from Oregon.
Americans, Ms. Halberstam said, have long been fascinated by narratives of sexual transformation, at least since the era of Christine Jorgensen, an early male-to-female transsexual (born George Jorgensen Jr. in the Bronx) whose sex change, performed by doctors in Sweden, prompted The Daily News to run a front page story under the headline “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty” and made Miss Jorgensen as tabloid-notorious then as Mr. Beatie is, the man who “went abroad and came back a broad.”
The Jorgensen case in 1951 was treated as groundbreaking, just as Mr. Beatie’s was on “Oprah,” despite the well-established fact that physicians at the German Institute of Sexual Science had performed successful sexual reassignment surgeries decades before. If Miss Jorgensen’s story prefigured Mr. Beatie’s, it also pointed toward a future in which gender continues to change in response to changing laws and mores and, as important, new technology.
“The Beatie case seems like a way of having some of the Trans 101 discussions publicly, giving them one kind of a face and doing it in a way that’s not asking anybody for anything,” said Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, a professor at the City University of New York graduate school of English who has written extensively on gender. “He’s pregnant, he seems happy. It’s not in happening in any kind of a judicial, let alone criminal, context so it’s not a matter of claiming a right. It’s a matter of exercising one.”
By bringing his story to the public and disclosing the particulars of his anatomical journey, Ms. Sedgwick added, Mr. Beatie is “making visible the fact that a lot of people’s experience of making these decisions isn’t about getting a penis or losing a penis.” For many transgender people, she said, “genital surgery is not what defines gender, and that will be news for lots and lots of Americans,” who may have trouble comprehending the idea that for some, anatomy does not define woman or man.
Mr. Beatie does not have a penis; his clitoris was surgically reconfigured to mimic a phallus. And the person born in Hawaii in 1974 as Tracy Lagondino also altered his body with chest reconstruction surgery, took bimonthly testosterone injections for years to suppress feminine sex characteristics, grew a beard and saw his hairline change. Like many transmen, he chose not to remove his female reproductive organs. And so, when it was clear that his wife could not have another child (she has two grown daughters from a previous relationship), Mr. Beatie stopped hormone therapy until he could conceive.
“Not a lot of transmen get what’s called ‘bottom’ or ‘lower’ surgery,” Ms. Halberstam explained, referring to procedures like the one Mr. Beatie had, and to yet more radical interventions like hysterectomy. “If they want a penis, they don’t want a micro-penis,” she said. If what they want is to be men, she added, they see no reason why that goal is compromised by keeping their ovaries.
Issues like these have made Mr. Beatie’s story so compelling; the sense that trans identity in the Webster sense of the prefix signifies some threshold state of being — “across” or “beyond” or “through.”
Ms. Sedgwick said that if you look at postings on Web sites like Oprah Winfrey’s and The Huffington Post, “It seems as though there are lots and lots of comments saying: ‘That’s not a man having a baby. That’s a woman having a baby.’ ”
Partly that reaction results from what Ms. Sedgwick calls a phobic response to changes in identities that for most people seem God-given and settled at birth. Partly it is a matter “of people having to go through the stages of figuring things out,” she said.
As Ms. Kiesling, of the National Center for Transgender Equality, noted: “The long-term benefit of this story is not ‘Pregnant Man Trims Hedge,’ ” referring to a widely circulated photo of a bearded and pregnant Mr. Beatie wielding a power tool. “The Beatie story raises questions we’re all looking at now, in a lot of contexts,” about the welter of new possibilities produced by a landscape in which legalized same-sex partnerships reshape traditional ideas about husband and wife and mom and dad.
Contacted at home in Bend, Ore., Mr. Beatie declined to comment for this article. He was resting, he said, and would reserve further comment until after the baby is born. A book that he was contracted to write has been shelved, according to his publishers, St. Martin’s Press. And so once the “pregnant father” delivers, he can return to being the person his neighbors refer to as “a quiet, regular guy.”
By then his story may have served its purpose, Ms. Sedgwick said. It will have showed us that: “People experience gender very differently and some have really individual and imaginative uses to make of it. That’s an important thing for people to wrap their minds around.”
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