Sham queer marriages

Until the legal fog lifts, businesses being contacted
by gays and lesbians seeking new benefits probably
won't acknowledge their marriages. Corporate counsels,
employment law consultants and human resource
departments already are devoting time and energy trying
to figure out where they stand.

Stacey Zartler, a San Francisco lawyer married last
week at City Hall, said her ceremony was all about
love, not financial or other benefits. It was a moving
experience when she and Alicia Sinclair were pronounced
``spouses for life,'' she said.

If their vows end up being nullified, ``There will be a
psychological toll,'' Zartler said. ``I don't know if I
can handle the disappointment.''

More at
http://my.netscape.com/corewidgets/news/story.psp?cat=51180&id=2004022116310001651884

It shouldn't take much time or energy. The status quo ante is still the
law despite the shenanigans of the mayor of SF. Nothing changed with
respect to the law.

Such a reaction is why I claim homosexuals tend to be emotionally
immature. What has changed over the last couple of weeks? Nothing. They
can still hook up, move in together, buy furniture, etc. The only thing
that changes is they'll lose the legal marital status they never
qualified for in the first place.

> More at
> http://my.netscape.com/corewidgets/news/story.psp?cat=51180&id=2004022116310001651884

``At this moment, these marriage licenses, they don't have
force,'' said Lawrence Levine of the University of the Pacific
McGeorge School of Law, an expert on sexual orientation and the
law. ``We haven't even decided whether they are valid in the
state of California.''

The attorney general has finally come to his senses, as has Governor
Schwarzenegger. It's time for all the crybabies to face reality and hope
the coming backlash isn't as widespread as a constitutional amendment.
Gavin Newsom has activated and energized evangelicals who just two weeks
ago were sitting on their hands with respect to November's elections.

The status they demand others acknowledge, when they
have no right to make such a demand.

I think it's funny as hell that the comments being
heard from most of the participants in this circus are
serving to undercut everything Karen is saying.
Overwhelmingly, the comments show that it is *not*
about obtaining the supposed legal advantages of
marriage, and *is* all about forcing straights to
accept queers socially. It will never work.

Rat

I read her post from the wee hours this morning mentioning Sandoval
County, NM. Too bad she's behind the times and thinks this is some kind
of snowball. If it is, she seems to be on the wrong side of it (lol):

New Mexico Gay Marriage Licenses Invalid AG Says
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: February 20, 2004 8:01 p.m. ET
Updated: February 21, 2004 12:14 p.m. ET

(Albuquerque, New Mexico) New Mexico's Attorney General was throwing
cold water instead of rice on dozens of same-sex couples granted
marriage licenses in the state Friday.

The clerk of Sandoval County, a community of about 90,000 people just
north of Albuquerque, began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex
couples Friday (story). Victoria Dunlap, a Republican, said she feared a
lawsuit if she refuses to grant licenses to gay couples.

Within hours more than 100 same-sex couples had lined up for licenses.
Once the licenses were processed and stamped the couples went back
outside where two preachers held impromptu ceremonies.

Friday afternoon Attorney General Patricia Madrid, a Democrat, said the
licenses "would be invalid under current law." In a letter to a
Republican lawmaker seeking a legal opinion on the licenses Madrid
said: "Until the laws are changed through the legislative process or
declared unconstitutional by the judicial process, the statutes limit
marriage in New Mexico to a man and a woman. Thus in my judgment, no
county clerk should issue a marriage license to same sex couples because
those licenses would be invalid under current law."

Late in the afternoon on orders from Madrid, the county sheriff and a
deputy moved in to block the clerk's counter and prevented the last 30
angry couples from obtaining licenses.

Lambda Legal, which is representing same-sex couples in legal
proceedings in San Francisco, said it is monitoring the situation in New
Mexico.

©365Gay.com® 2004
http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/02/022004nmUpdt.htm

<...>

No, it was Wednesday or Thursday.

One clerk who took matters into her own hand and was quickly corrected
by your state's attorney general:

----

©365Gay.com® 2004
http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/02/022004nmUpdt.htm
-----

Not quite, according to your state's AG:

-- Patricia Madrid

More like the homosexual equivalent of the Branch Davidian stand-off.

Several homosexuals tried applying for marriage licenses here in Austin
last weekend. It was amusing to watch them crying on the news when they
were informed by the clerks that the state of Texas doesn't allow
same-sex marriage. They already knew this.

They can file suit, but they will likely not prevail.

You're on the wrong side of the snowball. These acts, along with the
screwy rulings in LAWRENCE and Massachusetts, will only build momentum
for a constitutional amendment. Barney Frank warned you to slow down.
Keep pushing it and see.

And stopped after a phone call from the state attorney
general.

What a big steaming load of crap. She doesn't "fear" a
lawsuit at all. If she were sued, it would be in her
official capacity, and the worst "loss" she'd face
would be an order to begin issuing the licenses.

I think you're correct that gay marriage will eventually be made legal.
Society as a whole
is slowly being convinced, by comments such as yours above, that gays are
some kind of
oppressed group like blacks used to be. Also anti-discrimination policies
are including gays as
well as blacks and disabled people more and more often.

I don't like it, but this is one fight that I think that the republicans are
going to lose.

-Rubystars

I don't think so. The polls indicate widespread support for a
constitutional amendment, and there appears to be political will in
Congress *and* the states to address the issue sooner rather than later.

I don't think that's the case. Polls taken prior to the Massachusetts
Supreme Court ruling last year were trending that way, but the polls
have reversed course since then.

That is an offensive and repugnant comparison, lacking all merit, as
I've said already. Jesse Jackson has also addressed such comparisons,
noting:
"The comparison with slavery is a stretch in that some slave
masters were gay, in that gays were never called three-fifths
human in the Constitution and in that they did not require the
Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote."

He added in another appearance, "In my culture, marriage is a man-woman
relationship."

The whole idea is the definition of marriage, not who can and cannot get
married. Homosexuals can marry, just someone from the other sex, not
related, above the age of consent, etc.

Not the same as redefining marriage.

Don't lose hope. The backlash in Massachusetts was quick, but it takes
time to amend a constitution; the people of that state are speaking and
their court's action will be corrected. There's also a growing backlash
in California, where over 60% of voters a couple years ago defined
marriage to be between a man and a woman. Thirty-eight states already
have Defense of Marriage Acts, and Bill Clinton signed a federal version
eight years ago that protects individual state rights on the redefining
of marriage. The number 38 is important for another reason -- that's
more than enough to ratify a constitutional amendment.

Just the fact that we'll have to amend the constitution to put a stop to
this indicates to me
that homosexuals are wielding significant political power.

You can talk to most older people and they'll be against it. I don't think
that's
true of most younger people. They're growing up hearing all this from a
really young age and
they don't want to be a "homophobe" any more than they want to be a racist.

Until I was about 12 I had only heard stories about men and women being
together, no one else.
So it was quite a shocker and quite disgusting to me when I learned that
some men wanted to be with men
and some women wanted to be with women. The idea just seemed totally
ridiculous to me, and it still does to a degree,
though I know that a lot of people do feel that way. I knew kids at school
had sometimes used "lesbo" as an insult
but I didn't know what that meant for a while.

The kids today are growing up thinking that its just another type of family,
another lifestyle, another "normal" but different
way of life. Many kids are even growing up with two "dads" or two "moms"
that are in a homosexual relationship with each other.

A few years ago in college I made a mistake that I won't repeat, because it
was embarassing thinking back on it.
In class discussion I referred to gays as "perverts." The entire class
stared at me with wide eyes, as if I'd just said "nigger."
This was a class full of young adults, and already it seems that it makes
one a pariah to say those kind of things.

I can only see this trend continuing, especially as the generations turn
over and more younger people grow to voting age.
The polls are a bit skewed right now because there are so many baby boomers
in the population. If we're both still around
in 30 years then I'll bet that we can see a poll taken then that will be
dramatically different from any taken now.

I'd rather see polygamy made legal than homosexual marriage. It gives women
support when a new baby comes into the family so that
she and her husband don't have to do all the work / lose all the sleep,
provides for multiple incomes without necessarily leaving the kids
untended, etc. It has various bad things associated with it too, such as
jealousy, large numbers of kids, transmission of venereal diseases
between wives by the husband, etc. Homosexual relationships don't seem to
have any positives associated with them at all and will end up raising
insurance
premiums and having kids grow up in a perverted household.

Yet, cultures evolve. I think that the culture of the United States is
evolving. The
black community tends to vote democratic, yet on the flip side of this, they
tend
to be religious, so it will be interesting to see if this issue will help to
bring more
blacks into the Republican fold.

And they often do get married, and end up unhappy or cheat on their
wives/husbands.

It is a complex issue. I don't pretend to know all the different aspects of
it. It's just hard
for me to even understand why a man would want to have a penis shoved up
inside his butt and
make him bleed (even after having an enema) or why a woman would want
another woman fingering her instead of having
sex with a man.

I don't think that people can help these emotions, and I don't think it
makes someone a bad person for having them.
I just think they shouldn't act on them.

Everything is a step further. They're gaining small victories one by one.
It's just as
much a grounds for being in trouble at many jobs now to say "queer" as it is
to say "nigger."

Even if we get a constitutional amendment, that doesn't guarantee it will
always be effective. There might always be an amendment made later
making it null.

-Rubystars

No, it only means we have activist judges and rogue mayors. I think a
little perspective is necessary. Remember when Ellen DeGeneris had her
own sit-com and "came out" on the show? She had big ratings for that
episode. Then came the slide. There may be some momentary curiosity in
the culture, but I think the more people see the less interested they
are in alternative lifestyles. It's a lot like rubbernecking: people
slow down to look at a fender bender or a stalled car and end up
impeding traffic flow, then it's smooth sailing when you get past the
impediment.

You're a little younger than I am, and I'm not old. I don't think
there's a significant difference between generations, but I know there's
more tolerance within ours.

I think there are other insidious factors at work in our schools and
culture. Homosexual activists shouldn't be allowed in public schools,
period. Until we get our test scores up and kids can read and write and
do arithmetic, they shouldn't be worried about diversity, sensitivity,
or rolling condoms down produce.

I was a little older than that.

It should: it's outside the norm (whether or not one chooses to call it
natural or normal).

Yeah, my friends and I would call each other "fag" and "fairy" and stuff
without knowing what it really meant.

A lot of that is from what's happening in the public schools.

Nope. One dad and his partner, or one mom and her partner, or an
adoption parent with a partner. Children are born to a union of male and
female, period.

I remember one judge in Virginia removed a child from a lesbian mother
(famously appropriate name: Sharon Bottoms) at the insistence of the
lesbian's mother. Too many family judges are afraid to intervene in such
cases because of the firestorm that comes from the political correctness
people.

It shouldn't be a source of embarrassment. The two words aren't
synonymous, and there's absolutely no injustice in defining people by
behavior like there is in defining people on characteristics of birth:
race, mental state, etc.

Polls show higher Republican and conservative identification among
younger voters. A lot of the children of boomers aren't nearly as
liberal as portrayed in the news and media.

Not sure I'd like that, either. I know my girlfriend wouldn't.

That's if we allow adoption. Otherwise, those children will belong only
to the person who produced the gametes.

Constantly, but there are some verities that don't change.

More simply put, blacks are much more culturally conservative than the
rest of the population. Professor Walter Williams, black and
conservative, of George Mason University once commented on a poll about
black cultural values. He noted that blacks were more likely to oppose
abortion than whites; more likely to oppose homosexuality; more likely
to oppose drug legalization; etc. Then he went through a Jesse Jackson
speech in which he discussed many of those issues, all contrary to what
most blacks think. Professor Williams said something to the effect that,
"Reverend Jackson isn't a black leader. He's a white hippie leader."

Black political party affiliation is something of a paradox. Consider
that the Democrats are the party of Jim Crow laws, the Klan, Planned
Parenthood and other eugenics movements, and were the opponents of the
civil rights movement in the 1960s; and then consider that the
Republicans were founded on a platform of freeing slaves, the party of
emancipation, and the men in Congress who helped President Johnson get
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. Politics has always fascinated me
how, but all the many disconnects between what groups want (or DON'T
want) and how those groups actually vote is even more fascinating -- if
not perplexing.

I don't think any single issue can cause a significant movement in the
voting habits of large groups over a long period of time. The
comparisons between homosexual marriage and civil rights do alienate
many blacks. I do think that voting trends may change a bit more as the
pile of issues alienating voters grows.

Yes, but the point remains: anyone can get married, but society has some
restrictions.

I don't think it's complex at all.

Neither do I.

I don't know what to think of the people, but I agree they shouldn't act
out every idea they have. That's especially true for behavior that leads
to the types of injury you mentioned above.

Gradualism concerns me. I'm somewhat opposed to civil unions, but I
think that's an area where we can grant some of the things that affect
those in long-term homosexual relationships so they can have rights to
visit in hospital, etc. I don't favor extending other financial
benefits, though, even if we do that for all people who shack-up.

More homosexuals call themselves "queer" than blacks call themselves
"nigger" -- and that would be less an issue today if so many rappers
would have a little more self-respect. Generally speaking, though, one
really has no business mentioning either at work. The workplace should
be free from sexual and racial politics. I know I wouldn't want to work
where either word is used on any regular basis.

Repeal would take a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress and
ratification of three-fourths of state legislatures. We've only repealed
one, and rightly so. I hope we don't have to pass this amendment, but
the courts need a check and balance.

I hope you're right.

<snip>

Yet they know that reaching the kids is the only way to change society
enough
to get what they want, and that's why they're so aggressive in their efforts
to
convince kids that homosexuals are normal.

<snip>

When I keep hearing about these gays getting marriage licenses, part of my
understands what's
going on and that they want to be able to get married etc. but part of me
still thinks the guy
working at the office should be genuinely surprised/shocked and say "What?
You want to
get married, to each OTHER? hahahahahaha!"

<snip>

That may not always be true with cloning technology coming up. The truth
is that no matter what their origin is, many kids are growing up with two
people
they call mommy or daddy.

That makes me really sad.

I think if a child's already in the situation it may be more harmful to take
them out, but
I don't think it's a good idea to have them go into that situation to begin
with. I don't know
anything about that particular case but I do think that gay adoption is
becoming a "civil rights" issue.

Yes but I obviously offended a lot of people when I said that.

I hope that's true. Both republicans and democrats know the key to the
future is the kids.
I suppose it depends on who wins that battle, on who will win all the
others.

I wouldn't like it either and would oppose it beign legalized,
but it does have some benefits as well as harmful things.
I don't see any beneift to homosexual marriages.

<snip>

Allow it or not, its happening right now.

<snip>

I don't consider Jesse Jackson to be representative of blacks. He's more of
a
comedy act than anything else.

Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

My dad used to be a democrat back in the 80s but he realized that they were
completely against
everything he stood for and now he's as republican as they come.

I think the real problem here is that the objections being raised to gay
marriage
are often religiously based, and though they have merit, legally those are
not going to hold a lot of weight,
especially since some of the more liberal denominations have little trouble
with it.
There need to be objections based on things like the economic impact,
the welfare of children in such situations, etc. Things that can be
demonstrated.

My main objection is just "Ewwww, yuck." but that's not going to hold up in
a court.

So if the homosexuals are going to lose this one, the conservatives need to
get to
work on some things they can use to argue that its harmful.

I think its complex because there are real people involved with real
emotions and
people who have been together for over a decade who want to get married and
also people who are raising children right now in those kinds of households.

Regardless of their perversion they're still American citizens and it seems
as if
there needs to be some way to deal with them one way or another that takes
all of this into account.

I wish that wasn't true, I wish they could either like the opposite
sex or just abstain. They're not going away any time soon though, so
its going to be a tough battle trying to figure out how to handle this mess.

<snip>

That may be the answer, and it could be a good compromise, if only they
would
stop there and be satisfied (which they won't, they want "marriage"). The
idea of the
goverment recognizing something so completely ridiculous as a man-man or
woman-woman
relationship with a legal status still makes me feel a bit ill.

I wouldn't like that either, but the point I was making is that it seems
that the "Q" word
is becoming just as much of a horrible thing to say as the "N" word. I don't
use that word
anyway, because I prefer to be more polite than that, but I do find it
interesting.

<snip>

I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

-Rubystars

Rubystars wrote:

No -- it means gays are slowly gaining significant political power,
and that power is based on a correct perception that they are being
treated unfairly.

Yes, absolutely. The more people see of real, visible gay people and
the way they really live, the less they see them as a curiosity or a
threat, and the more they see them as an unremarkable, normal variation.
As soon as people do get to the point where they are completely
uninterested in the sexual orientation of others, and willing to treat
them as equals, we really will have won.

<snip>

Homosexuals ARE normal, and kids who get to know real, live gay people
-- their peers in school and adults all around them in regular jobs and
regular lifestyles just like their parents -- soon recognize that.

> <snip>

So was the life of Jesus. Was that ridiculous?

But their mom or dad is the person who raises them, and if both
parents are of the same sex, they are both moms and dads.

<snip>

That was a totally evil and inappropriate judicial action. If gay
marriage were allowed, it would end such injustice, and that is one
thing gay parents want.

<snip>

Yes, it is.

Very perceptive of them. I hope you realize now that the two slurs
are similar and equally inappropriate in polite society.

<snip>

That's because you aren't in the class discriminated against or
have friends who are. I just ask people to try the thought
experiment of imagining the situation reversed: suppose you
had to marry another person of your own sex to be legal. Could
you do it? Would you want to do it? When you fell in love and
wanted to spend the rest of your life with another person, to
love, honor and cherish that person until death did you part --
wouldn't you want to have the option to make that relationship legal
and socially recognized?

<snip>

*Some* blacks.

<snip>

Southern Dixiecrats. Northern Democrats were the people working to
break the stranglehold of the Dixiecrats. Clue: Johnson and Kennedy
were Democrats.

<snip>

And IF they grew up with more awareness of who they are, less social
discrimination, and the freedom to marry their partners, there would
be fewer unhappy people of both sexes in such inappropriate marriages.
It took me two tries to recognize I was not supposed to marry a man;
I was supposed to marry a woman. If I hadn't grown up in the 50's,
I would have recognized it a lot earlier, and maybe only married once:
to my lifepartner of 20 years.

<snip>

And its not a reasonable objection, either. Gays do exactly the same
acts straights do -- they just do them to each other. For every
straight who goes "Ewww, yuck" at the thought of a specific sexual
technique, there is a straight who enjoys it from his or her partner.
No sexual act is harmful in itself. Anal sex does not have to be
harmful in any way, or uncomfortable, and MANY, MANY straight people,
men and women, enjoy anal sex. It is not "gay." Neither is fingering
or oral sex. Women get it, and enjoy it, from men, and many men enjoy
giving it to women, and getting it from women.

<snip>

Rat

I think you're right that people are perceving things that way and that's
part of
what's causing the gay movement to gain power.

I don't really care what someone does in their bedroom but I don't want to
know about it and
I don't think that I should have to recognize it as legitimate.

Why do gays feel the need to "act out" in public for example? I was watching
tv and
I heard that there were "gay days" at Disney world. The other patrons of the
park had
no warning or notice of any kind, and they went up there with their kids,
only to have their
kids witness confusing things like men kissing men, etc. Can you imagine
what that must
have felt like for those parents to try to explain what just happened to
their kids, to be
looking forward to a Disney World trip and then have it ruined because they
had to
leave to protect their kids from that kind of stuff?

I'm not saying they're abnormal in all those other ways, but they are
abnormal in their desire for the same sex.

I think it's wrong to discriminate against gay people for job opportunities
and things like that (with some exceptions, such
as private clubs and religious groups). I think its wrong to hurt people or
treat them badly, especially when they must already be
dealing with a lot of hard emotional issues.

I just don't think its normal any more than wanting to have sex with kids is
normal. You were in a debate a while back
about how animals, like bonobos, show homosexual behavior. You're right,
homosexual behavior and many other
sexual behaviors can be found throughout the animal world. Some animals
might even get confused and have sex with
their own offspring, etc.

Pedophiles can't change the way they feel. They claim to have the same
strong urges for children that gays have for the same sex and that
straights have for the opposite sex. You could even argue this could have a
genetic link!

Just because something is genetic, or natural, doesn't mean that it's normal
or healthy. Now gays don't hurt people like pedophiles do,
and I would even go so far to say that they aren't any worse of people than
straight people. It's just that if you want
to argue that one form of sexual deviancy is normal, and base that on the
fact that it's natural, it's kind of hard to rule out the other kinds in
that argument.

<snip>

Yes, and when you have that kind of relationship set up, I think most of the
time it would
do more harm than good to take the kids out of that situation. I think they
shouldn't be
put in it to begin with, but I don't think kids should be taken away once
they're already in a
stable family.

If gays want to have kids they should marry someone of the opposite sex. The
plumbing doesn't work. You can't have kids with two men or two women.
It's one thing if you want to do something between consenting adults. I
might not like the idea of gay sex but that's really your own business. But
why the heck
would you want to drag an innocent child into this picture?

Love doesn't have to involve kids. People get into relationships because
they love each other, right? There are child free straight couples who
choose that route deliberately and are happy that way.

I realized that its not appropriate to say in mixed company though that
certainly doesn't change the way I feel.
Gays ostracize themselves based on deviant behavior, not based on anything
that other people can see about them.

There has never been, and will never be a society like that.

However I'll suspend the disbelief for a moment. Why does the government
have to
recognize true love? There's no law in your scenario, or the real world
scenario, that would
keep me from living with the person I desired, from loving them, from having
sex with them etc. As a straight couple,
we'd be capable of bearing our own kids and therefore the custody would of
course go to the parents
by default. If there was some strange law about taking kids away it'd be
better to use some kind of
contraceptive of course. Gays don't have to worry about that last bit. They
have the best contraceptive possible.

I'm sorry that you had to go through so much. This is why I was saying this
is a very
complex issue. I do think its perversion, and I do think its abnormal, but
that doesn't
mean I want people like you to have to feel hurt like that.

I'm not sure what you should have done but if you're happy now in the
situation
that you're in, then why do you feel the need to get "married." You said you
found
your life partner, right? So are you happy with her? Why do I or anyone else
have to recognize it?

Anal sex is pretty gross, you have to admit that. It involves enemas, and
shit (very unromantic IMO).
But it's not anal or oral sex that's yucky so much as the idea of men doing
it to men or
women doing it to women that grosses me out.

-Rubystars

Rubystars wrote:

<snip>

You don't know what straights do in their bedroom, usually.

No more than you have to approve of what straights do.

Would those parents have objected if they saw a straight couple kissing
each other? Obviously, if a straight couple were having sex on the
sidewalk, parents would legitimately object. If a husband gives his
wife an affectionate kiss, or a boyfriend kisses his girlfriend
affectionately, I doubt most parents would object. The straight couple
might be "acting out" too, but most people don't see it that way,
unless it involves heavy groping in a public place. In many foreign
countries -- and even here in the US -- its common for male and female
or friends of the same sex to give each other an affectionate peck in
greeting. Is that "acting out"?

You see that people like you have a double standard. Gays only ask
to be treated as equal.

>><snip>

The fact that something is not the norm does not mean it is wrong.