Inter-American Human Rights Court Backs Same-Sex Marriage

While the Trump/Pence regime and its Christofascists base continue their war on LGBT Americans and their civil rights, a major ruling has been handed down which could lead to same sex marriage being legalized across South America and parts of the Caribbean.  The ruling was addressed to Costa Rica, but the precedent should trigger a domino effect across the region.  The usual suspects - self-enriching scamvangelis, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, and hypocrisy-filled evangelicals will lament the ruling which is another defeat of their efforts to impose their hate and fear based religious beliefs on society and civil governments.  The Court specifically stated that domestic partnerships and similar arrangements short of marriage were not sufficient. The BBC has details on the ruling and the fallout it will trigger.  Here are highlights:

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled that same-sex marriages should be recognised.  The court's rulings apply to countries which have signed the American Convention on Human Rights.

Some of the signatories already recognise same-sex marriages while others recognise same-sex civil unions.

But others, such as Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Paraguay and Peru do not recognise either and will be expected to change their laws.

The court was established by the regional body, the Organization of American States (OAS), and signatories to the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights are bound by its rulings.

The ruling comes as a number of Latin American countries have changed or are debating changing their laws to allow same-sex couples to marry.

The judges said that governments "must recognise and guarantee all the rights that are derived from a family bond between people of the same sex".  They also said that it was inadmissible and discriminatory for a separate legal provision to be established just for same-sex marriages.

The judges demanded that governments "guarantee access to all existing forms of domestic legal systems, including the right to marriage, in order to ensure the protection of all the rights of families formed by same-sex couples without discrimination".

Recognising the difficulty in passing such laws in countries where there is strong opposition to same-sex marriage, they recommended that governments pass temporary decrees until new legislation was brought in.

The judges issued the ruling in response to a motion brought by Costa Rica.  The Central American government asked the court to give its opinion on whether it had an obligation to extend property rights to same-sex couples. The court ruled that it did.

The Costa Rican government also wanted to know whether it should allow transgender people to change their name on their identity documents. Again, the court ruled that it should.  Costa Rica's Vice-President Ana Helena Chacón welcomed the court's ruling, saying it would be adopted "in its totality".

The GOP and Christofascists Perversion of America's Founding Principles

NOTE:  This is a modified repost of a piece from four years ago which is applicable today as it was when first written:

Many, many newspapers across the nation are carrying the text of the Declaration of Independence as their main editorials. Many will also carrying a number of letters and statements from individuals reverently considered among the Founding Fathers. The irony is that many of the concepts espoused in these writings are rejected daily by the far right GOP base and the Christianists who would rewrite history. The most obvious part of the Declaration of Independence rejected by these self-anointed "patriots" is the following:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
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These false patriots who claim to revere the founding principles of this nation would have everyone believe that all are created equal so long as they are white, heterosexual, non-Hispanic, non-immigrant, and preferably conservative Christian. Hopefully, those whom these individuals would exclude from equality will be inspired today to redouble their efforts to oppose those who would destroy the founding principles of this nation. While not available online, the Daily Press provides interesting insights with letters written by the Founders. Here is a sampling of highlights:

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Benjamin Franklin in a speech to the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787: "most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication tells the Pope that the only difference between our Churches in their opinion of the certainty of their doctrine is, the Church in Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never wrong. . . . I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who still may have objections to it [the proposed Constitution], would with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility, and make manifest our unanimity, put his hand to this instrument."

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Thomas Jefferson on funding public education and teaching science on January 6, 1816 in a letter to Charles Yancey: "If the legislature would . . . forever maintain a system of primary or ward schools, and a university where might be taught, in its highest degree, every branch of science . . . . If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

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George Washington to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia on May 10, 1789: "For you, doubtlessly, remember that I have often expressed my sentiment that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious pinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience."

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Abigail Adams in a letter to John Adams on March 31, 1776: "And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire that you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not out such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. . . . . Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us [women] as the (servants) of your sex; . . ."

It takes little analysis to realize that those who oppose equality for LGBT Americans , look down on blacks and Hispanics with contempt, and who would force all citizens to live in accordance with one set of religious beliefs are the enemies of these founding principles of this nation. We owe a duty to the Founders to never let the likes of the Christianists, the white supremacist, today's Tea Party/Christofascists Republicans and others like them prevail in their effort to subvert the Constitution. Hence why I will always continue to tell the truth about such people and anti-democratic religious denominations even as they continue to lie about us and the true intent of the Founders.

 

Idaho Marriage BanRuled Unconstitutional, No Stay Issued

I try not to write just about same sex marriage - even as my husband and I continue to savor the marital after glow of our marriage in the District of Columbia - but some days it seems almost impossible.  Even as analysis of the oral arguments before the 4th Circuit was being written, a federal judge in Idaho struck down that state's anti-gay marriage bans.  It is almost humorous to see the Christofascists reeling after one defeat after another in the various U.S. District Courts (all together, some 70 court cases are pending challenging anti-gay animus based laws and constitutional amendments).   The Idaho Statesman has details.  Here are highlights:

BOISE — U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy Dale has ruled Idaho's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

In her 57-page decision, Dale stated, "Idaho’s Marriage Laws withhold from them a profound and personal choice, one that most can take for granted. By doing so, Idaho’s Marriage Laws deny same-sex couples the economic, practical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of marriage, relegating each couple to a stigmatized, second-class status. Plaintiffs suffer these injuries not because they are unqualified to marry, start a family, or grow old together, but because of who they are and whom they love."

Gov. Butch Otter responded in a written statement: "In 2006, the people of Idaho exercised their fundamental right, reaffirming that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. Today’s decision, while disappointing, is a small setback in a long-term battle that will end at the U.S. Supreme Court. I am firmly committed to upholding the will of the people and defending our Constitution.”

The court's injunction is effective 9 a.m. Friday.

www.idahostatesman.com/2014/05/13/3183291/judge-rules-idaho-gay-marriage.html?sp=/99/101/#storylink=cpy

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry: "Today's ruling from the federal court in Idaho is the latest in more than a dozen rulings unanimously holding marriage discrimination unconstitutional. From Idaho to Arkansas, Utah to Michigan, the courts are affirming that there is no good reason for government to deny marriage to committed couples. As gay couples and their families begin to share in the joy and security of the freedom to marry, hearts and minds are opening, discrimination's barriers are falling, and we're moving our country to the right side of history. As the federal appellate courts now take up these marriage cases, America is ready for the freedom to marry."

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/05/13/3183291/judge-rules-idaho-gay-marriage.html?sp=/99/101/#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/05/13/3183291/judge-rules-idaho-gay-marriage.html?sp=/99/101/#storylink=cpThe court's injunction is effective 9 a.m. Friday.

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/05/13/3183291/judge-rules-idaho-gay-marriage.html?sp=/99/101/#storylink=cpy

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Arkansas State Court Strikes Down State Marriage Ban

There must be shock and convulsions among the bigots and haters "godly folk" in the wake of a ruling by Arkansas Circuit Court judge Chris Piazza that held that Arkansas' ban on same sex marriage and non-recognition of same sex marriage legally performed in other states were unconstitutional.  While no immediate stay of the ruling was issued, it is expected that the state, in slavish pandering to Christofascists will appeal the ruling.  The ruling builds on an unbroken string of court rulings that have recognized anti-gay marriage bans for what they are: Religious based animus targeting a segment of the population that are unconstitutional.  Like Judge Arenda Wright  Allen her ruling in Bostic v. Rainey, Judge Piazza noted the parallels with Loving v. Virginia.  Here are more details from the Arkansas Times:

Circuit Judge Chris Piazza today invalidated the Arkansas ban on same-sex marriage and recognition of marriages legally entered by same-sex couples in other states.

An appeal is expected. The judge did not stay his ruling, though the state probably can be expected to request a stay. Reaction was quick, with Republican politicians first out of the box to decry the ruling.

he order came after county clerks offices closed for the week. But they can expect a flood of applicants Monday morning. Pulaski County Clerk Larry Crane said he'd be ready with software to issue gender-neutral marriage licenses Monday morning. The judge's decision not to issue a stay isn't surprising. Why would a judge allow something he found unconstitutional to continue? He might also decline McDaniel's request, which would send the attorney general to the Supreme Court for relief. It recently issued a stay of a lower court order in hotly contested lawsuits over judicial candidacies after Circuit Judge Tim Fox didn't issue one. The lawsuit didn't name all county clerks, however, so there will be haziness about enforcement of the ruling statewide without a stay.

The lawsuit challenged both the 2004 state constitutional amendment and a 1997 law. Piazza's 13-page ruling struck down both.

Here's the full ruling.
Piazza said "tradition alone cannot form a rational basis for a law." He wrote in lofty terms about freedom for all and cited landmark federal cases. He commented about criticism that is sure to follow:

The court is not unmindful of the criticism that judges should not be super legislators. However, the issue at hand is the fundamental right to marry being denied to an unpopular minority. Our judiciary has failed such groups in the past.

Not Piazza. He concluded by citing the past landmark Arkansas Supreme Court decision striking down criminal laws aimed at homosexuals as an invasion of privacy and then his own earlier ruling that foiled an effort to prevent gay couples from parenting.

The Arkansas Supreme Court applied a heightened scrutiny and struck down as unconstitutional an initiated act that prohibited unmarried opposite-sex and same-sex couples from adopting children. The exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage for no rational basis violates the fundamental right to privacy and equal protection as described in Jegley and Cole, supra. The difference between opposite-sex and same-sex families is within the privacy of their homes.

THEREFORE, THIS COURT HEREBY FINDS the Arkansas constitutional and legislative ban on same-sex marriage through Act 144 of 1997 and Amendment 83 is unconstitutional.

It has been over forty years since Mildred Loving was given the right to marry the person of her choice. The hatred and fears have long since vanished and she and her husband lived full lives together; so it will be for the same-sex couples.

It is time to let that beacon of freedom shine brighter on all our brothers and sisters. We will be stronger for it.

 Anyone who truly values equality and freedom should be thrilled by Piazza's ruling.

Gay Rights in the US, State by State

I often note that the newspapers in Great Britain seem to often have better news coverage on America than much of the main stream media in this country.  A case in point is a new piece in The Guardian that looks at the state of gay rights across this nation.  Not surprisingly, the South is revealed as the most anti-gay region of the country with gays having few rights.  Here in Virginia, other than a watered down anti-bullying policy and hospital visitation (largely due to federal rule making), gays are clearly third or fourth class citizens.  Check out the interactive chart here.

The Legacy of Loving v. Virginia Lives On in Gay Marriage Rulings

Mildred and Richard Loving

Richmond Virginia is the former capital of the Confederate States of America and the Richmond Times Dispatch has to rank as one of the most reactionary conservative newspapers in Virginia. Yet, it the wake of the ruling in Bostic v. Rainey which struck down Virginia's anti-gay marriage ban, the Times Dispatch has been surprising in respect to some of the editorials that it has run even as it has attacked Mark Herring for refusing to defend the unconstitutional Marshall-Newman Amendment.   Yesterday, an op-ed was particularly salient to the issue.  Here are excerpts:

Opponents of same-sex marriage object, often strenuously, to comparisons with interracial marriage. Homosexuality is a behavior rather than a trait, they contend, and men and women of different races are sexually compatible in a way that same-gender couples are not.

All analogies are inexact. But for practical purposes, whether the comparison holds up in every possible regard matters less than whether it holds up in legal terms. And from that perspective, the comparison is proving powerful indeed. So far six federal judges have ruled against state restrictions on gay marriage, and every one of them has invoked Loving v. Virginia — the 1967 case in which the Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage.

Defenders of bans on same-sex marriage have appealed to tradition — i.e., old habit. That’s an awfully weak argument, given our history. Slavery was traditional. Denying women the vote was traditional. So was a lot of gun control.

Federal Judge Arenda Wright Allen certainly didn’t buy the argument when she ruled against Virginia’s ban.

Wright Allen noted that “other profound infringements upon our citizens’ rights have been explained as a consequence of heritage, and those explanations have been found wanting.” Quoting another Supreme Court case (Casey), she said interracial marriage “was illegal in most States in the 19th century, but the Court was no doubt correct in finding it to be an aspect of liberty protected against state interference by the substantive component of the Due Process Clause in Loving v. Virginia.” Elsewhere, she points out that “nearly identical concerns about the significance of tradition were presented to, and resolved by, the Supreme Court in its Loving decision.”

Last week a federal judge struck down Texas’ ban on gay marriage. Judge Orlando Garcia quotes the same passage from Casey as the one above. He goes on to say that Texas claims the debate is merely definitional: In the state’s view, “plaintiffs are seeking recognition of a ‘new right to same-sex marriage’ as opposed to the existing ‘right to marry.’ This Court finds this argument fails, as the Supreme Court did not adopt this line of reasoning in the analogous Loving v. Virginia. Instead of declaring a new right to interracial marriage, the Court held that individuals could not be restricted from exercising their ‘existing’ right to marry on account of their chosen partner. . . . That is, an interracial marriage was considered to be a subset of ‘marriage,’ in the same way that same-sex marriage is included within the fundamental right to marry.”

Moreover, “this fundamental right to marry also entails the ability to marry the partner of one’s choosing. See generally Loving. . . .”

A similar ruling requiring Ohio to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages also cited Loving more than a half-dozen times. And when he struck down Oklahoma’s ban on gay marriage, federal judge Terence C. Kern noted that “in discussing [the] traditional state authority over marriage, the Supreme Court repeatedly used the disclaimer ‘subject to constitutional guarantees.’ . . . (citing Loving v. Virginia. . . .) A citation to Loving is a disclaimer of enormous proportion.”
Apparently so.

Courts — including the Supreme Court — can be wrong. Sometimes egregiously so. But there is a reason so many courts have referred to Loving again and again: The arguments for laws banning gay marriage and the arguments for laws banning interracial marriage are nearly identical: Tradition. States’ rights. Government’s presumed interest in the ordering of private relationships for the sake of an ostensible public good.

Those arguments did not hold up in 1967, and they don’t hold up now. Government’s core purpose consists of protecting people from harm they don’t consent to. The trouble confronting opponents of gay marriage, like opponents of interracial marriage before them, is that they can produce nobody whose rights have been violated by somebody else’s marriage.

The Christofascists are losing the war on same sex marriage and ultimately, the longer that they resist equalitythe more the hurt their own image and reputation in the eyes of history.  There is a good reason why the younger generations are fleeing organized Christianity in droves: Jesus preached acceptance, tolerance and love.  In contrast, the Christofascist preach hate, bigotry and intolerance and in the process make the Pharisees of the Bible look righteous and upstanding in comparison.

Kentucky Attorney General Will Not Defend STate's Marriage Ban

The ranks of attorneys general who are declining to defend their respective state's same sex marriage bans is growing.  In Kentucky, Attorney General Jack Conway (pictured at left) has made the announcement yesterday that he would not appeal U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II’s ruling striking down Kentucky's ban on recognition of same sex marriages performed in other sates and further that he would not pursue any more stays of the ruling.  Like other attorneys general who have taken this position, Conway properly placed his oath to defend the U.S. Constitution over his oath to defend Kentucky's Constitution. Governor Steve Beshear announced Tuesday morning that the state will hire outside counsel to appeal .  The Courier-Journal has details.  Here are excerpts:

Gov. Steve Beshear announced Tuesday morning that the state will hire outside counsel to appeal a judicial ruling that the state must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed outside the state.

The announcement followed state Attorney General Jack Conway’s emotional announcement that he would not appeal U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II’s ruling and would not pursue any more stays.

“Judge Heyburn got it right,” he said at his Frankfort office. By appealing, he said, he would be defending discrimination “and that I will not do.”

Conway said he had prayed on the decision and felt he is doing what is right. He said that he was sworn to defend both the constitutions of Kentucky and the United States.

“It’s about placing people over politics,” he said.

He began choking up at the end of the statement before leaving without taking questions.

Beshear’s office emailed a statement soon after the announcement saying that an outside counsel would be hired to appeal the decision and ask for a stay pending appeal.

Expect more rage and flying spittle from the Christocascist crowd.

When ‘Religious Liberty’ Was Used To Justify Racism Instead Of Homophobia

KKK members marching into a Baptist church

From following a number of anti-gay "family values" organizations for many years and reading the inflammatory rants and deliberately false information on their websites, I long ago came to recognizes that these organizations are comprised of leaders and members who are either former segregationists and/or their descendants.  Tony Perkins, the head of Family Research Council, has clear ties to white supremacy organizations and has spoken at their gatherings.  And like the segregationists of a half century ago, today's anti-gay forces are trying desperately to use the cloak of "religious freedom" to ennoble and justify their hate and bigotry.  Think Progress has a piece that looks at how the same claims we are hearing today were used decades ago to justify out right racism and anti-black discrimination.  What I continue to find shocking is the way in which black pastors refuse to recognize that they are being used by the same forces who supported "segregation forever."  Here are article excerpts:

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

– Judge Leon M. Bazile, January 6, 1959

The most remarkable thing about Arizona’s “License To Discriminate” bill is how quickly it became anathema, even among Republicans. Both 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney called upon Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to veto this effort to protect businesses that want to discriminate against gay people. So did Arizona’s other senator, Jeff Flake. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. 

The premise of the bill is that discrimination becomes acceptable so long as it is packaged inside a religious wrapper. As Arizona state Rep. Eddie Farnsworth (R) explained, lawmakers introduced it in response to instances where anti-gay business owners in other states were “punished for their religious beliefs” after they denied service to gay customers in violation of a state anti-discrimination law.

Yet, while LGBT Americans are the current target of this effort to repackage prejudice as “religious liberty,” they are hardly the first. To the contrary, as Wake Forest law Professor Michael Kent Curtis explained in a 2012 law review article, many segregationists justified racial bigotry on the very same grounds that religious conservatives now hope to justify anti-gay animus. In the words of one professor at a prominent Mississippi Baptist institution, “our Southern segregation way is the Christian way . . . . [God] was the original segregationist.”

Theodore Bilbo was one of Mississippi’s great demagogues. After two non-consecutive terms as governor, Bilbo won a U.S. Senate . . .  Bilbo proclaimed during his successful reelection campaign in 1946. He was a proud member of the Ku Klux Klan, telling Meet the Press that same year that “[n]o man can leave the Klan. He takes an oath not to do that. Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux.” During a filibuster of an anti-lynching bill, Bilbo claimed that the bill

will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousandfold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon White Southern men will not tolerate.

For Senator Bilbo, however, racism was more that just an ideology, it was a sincerely held religious belief. In a book entitled Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization, Bilbo wrote that “[p]urity of race is a gift of God . . . . And God, in his infinite wisdom, has so ordained it that when man destroys his racial purity, it can never be redeemed.” Allowing “the blood of the races [to] mix,” according to Bilbo, was a direct attack on the “Divine plan of God.” There “is every reason to believe that miscegenation and amalgamation are sins of man in direct defiance to the will of God.”

In 1901, Georgia Gov. Allen Candler defended unequal public schooling for African Americans on the grounds that “God made them negroes and we cannot by education make them white folks.” After the Supreme Court ordered public schools integrated in Brown v. Board of Education, many segregationists cited their own faith as justification for official racism. Ross Barnett won Mississippi’s governorship in a landslide in 1960 after claiming that “the good Lord was the original segregationist.” Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia relied on passages from Genesis, Leviticus and Matthew when he spoke out against the civil rights law banning employment discrimination and whites-only lunch counters on the Senate floor.

Although the Supreme Court never considered whether Bilbo, Candler, Barnett or Byrd’s religious beliefs gave them a license to engage in race discrimination, a very similar case did reach the justices in 1983.  Bob Jones University excluded African Americans completely until the early 1970s, when it began permitting black students to attend so long as they were married. . . . As a result, the Internal Revenue Service revoked Bob Jones’ tax-exempt status.

When Bob Jones’ case reached the Supreme Court, the school argued that IRS’ regulations denying tax exemptions to racist institutions “cannot constitutionally be applied to schools that engage in racial discrimination on the basis of sincerely held religious beliefs.” But the justices did not bite. In an 8-1 decision by conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger, the Court explained that “[o]n occasion this Court has found certain governmental interests so compelling as to allow even regulations prohibiting religiously based conduct.” Prohibiting race discrimination is one of these interests.

Ultimately, the question facing anti-gay business owners, even if the bill Brewer vetoed had become law, is why it is acceptable to exclude gay people simply because of who they are, when we do not permit this sort of behavior by racists such as Bilbo or Byrd? And there is another, equally difficult question facing advocates of the kind of sweeping “religious liberty” protected by the Arizona bill — why should we allow people to impose their religious beliefs upon others?

I recommend a read of the full article.  In answer to the last  last question posed above, there is no reason why we should allow one set of people - the Christofascists - to impose their religious beliefs on others.  In fact, for the state to do so is a violation of the United States Constitution which guarantees religious freedom to all citizens, not just Christofascists.

No Country for Old Bigots

As noted yesterday, a new survey on religious belief in America shows that anti-gay religious and political beliefs are increasingly isolated among the over 65 age bracket - a group that is slowly but steadily dying off.  Moreover, the survey confirmed that anti-gay bigotry among certain religious denominations is driving nearly a third of the under 30 age bracket to walk away from organized religion (and the GOP).  The trend is for young people to be raised in anti-gay denominations and then go off to college or move out on their own and then simply cease church affiliation.  Yet despite this documented demographic change, the GOP remains fixated on pandering to the aging angry white Christofascist voter demographic.  A column in the New York Times looks at the long term insanity of this approach and the reality that anti-gay rhetoric is increasingly a loser in the public square.  Here are excerpts:

Arizona’s S.B. 1062, part of the conservative “Jim Queer” crusade to use religious liberty as means of codifying discrimination against people for their sexual identities, once again places conservatives on the wrong side of history and further marginalizes an intolerance-obsessed party during an inclusion-oriented era.

The Arizona bill, which has been copied by Republicans in several other states, would have allowed businesses to deny services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender customers on religious grounds.

The backlash to this bill was swift and strong, and rightfully so, as Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, weighed whether to veto it, which she did on Wednesday. But, in a way, the damage to the Republican brand has already been done. The bigotry continues to coagulate. The harsh read of history draws Republicans further into disapproving resolution.

History doesn’t look kindly on those who stand against equality. Yet, that’s where conservatives have chosen to stand, much to my dismay and their detriment. 

The pace of Americans’ changing attitudes has been breathtakingly swift and shows no signs of abating. 

In fact, a report by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute produced some rather striking findings.

According to the report, not only do most religiously unaffiliated Americans now support same-sex marriage, but so do most white mainline Protestants, white Catholics, Hispanic Catholics and Jews.

Most Americans across the ideological spectrum, including even a majority of Tea Party supporters, support protecting gay men and lesbians from workplace discrimination, and most Americans believe that discrimination faced by gay people is greater than that faced by Muslims, blacks, women or Jews. The group the participants said faced the least amount of discrimination was evangelical Christians — the current campaign to portray them as an aggrieved and embattled class notwithstanding.

If young people will move away from religion over these issues, it’s not a stretch to believe that many might also move away from a political party because of them. 

[T]he courts keep striking down same-sex marriage bans. On Wednesday, another one fell when a federal judge found Texas’ ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional.   The tide has turned. But Republicans think that they can still move against it. 

Will America, and the Republican opposition, be true to the Declaration of Independence, which states without equivocation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”?

We are greater than our base elements. We feel — love, sorrow, a need for connection, the pains of longing. And we aspire, in our greatest hours, to justice. S.B. 1062 and the Republican preoccupation that fuels it was simply not our greatest hour.

Michigan Gay Marriage Trial Begins - Experts Bash Christofascists' Claims

As noted recently, Michigan's same sex marriage ban which was passed in 2004 is being challenged in federal court in Detroit and the case will pit legitimate medical and mental health professionals against far right quacks and disgraced researchers such as Mark Regnerus who will claim that same sex parenting is "bad for children."  The trial began yesterday with experts testifying that the Christofascist arguments are without merit and, basically lies.   The defenders of the ban are trotting out the usual reasons to uphold the ban: gays cannot procreate, children "need a mother and father," and mob majority rule motivated by what "God wants." In short, the state is making the same arguments that were rejected in United States v. Windsor to try to justify DOMA.   Here are excerpts from the Detroit News on the first day of trial:

Detroit — Research shows a wide variety in how men and woman parent, but their gender is irrelevant to child outcomes, an expert testified Tuesday in a federal court trial challenging Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage and adoption law.

“Both men and women do the same kinds of things. They can engage in the same kind of behavior,” psychologist David Brodzinksy testified in U.S District Court on Tuesday. “It’s not the gender of the parents that matters, it’s the quality of the care.”

Brodzinsky, an expert in adoption, foster care and same-sex parenting, said children of gay and lesbians show no discernible difference in outcome and general characteristics compared with children of heterosexual couples.

“Moms and dads are important as parents. They are not important as males and females,” he said.

The testimony came as part of a lawsuit brought by lawyers for a Hazel Park lesbian couple who are challenging Michigan’s law that does not allow same-sex couples to adopt each other’s children.

April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, both nurses, amended their lawsuit against the state to include a challenge against Michigan’s ban on gay marriage. The ban was approved by Michigan voters in 2004.

Assistant Attorney General Kristin Heyse defended the state’s ban on same-sex marriage and adoption, saying this case is about the will of the people, the 2.7 million Michigan voters who defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

Meanwhile, a few dozen protesters on both sides of the issue, including Jesse Bacon of Roseville, held signs near the courthouse Tuesday.

Bacon had been out since 8 a.m. showing her support of striking down the same-sex marriage ban.

“It is not religious for me. It is political,” Bacon said. “The Constitution offers equal protection and rights to all U.S. citizens.”

Pastor Rex Evans of First Free Will Baptist Church in Ypsilanti supports upholding the same-sex marriage ban and said he was out Tuesday to exercise his freedom of speech, just as those who want to see it struck down.  “The people of the state spoke in 2004,” Evans said. “I am standing up for what God wants us to do.”

 

Religion has no place in the civil laws and Pastor Evans needs to get his head out of his ass.  Moreover, if folks like Evans and their churches continue to interfere with the civil laws, they need to lose their tax-exempt status.  Taxpayers should not be forced to indirectly subsidize hate, ignorance and bigotry.

The Courts Are Saving Virginia from Itself on Ethics and Gay Rights

If  a majority of Virginia Republicans could have their way, Virginia would remain a corrupt state full of political bribes and graft where gays would forever be third or fourth class citizens.  On the latter issue, one only need look to Republican moves in the Virginia General Assembly to kill employment protections for gay state employees and to deep six a bill that would have allowed second parent adoptions in same sex headed families.  We hear lots of blather about protecting children and families, but that only applies to heterosexual headed families.  Children of gay couples simply get kicked to the gutter.  Thankfully, as a column in the Richmond Times Dispatch, lawsuits and a federal criminal prosecution may yet force Virginia into the 21st century despite GOP efforts.  Here are column excerpts:

Former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, are of modest physical stature. But in the cavernous courtroom of U.S. District Judge James Spencer, Virginia’s former first couple — he in a gray suit, white shirt and blue tie; she in a dress and dark-colored jacket — looked positively small.

The scene Friday morning — at the McDonnells’ arraignment at which they pleaded not guilty to corruption charges announced 11 days after he left an office once occupied by Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and James Monroe — speaks to the humbling effect of the law.

Such power was on display Thursday, as well, three blocks south of the gleaming courthouse, in a shabby state office building on Main Street.

There, the new attorney general, Mark Herring, announced that he would not defend in federal court Virginia’s 2006, voter-approved prohibition on same-sex marriage. He said he had concluded it is unconstitutional, wrongly denying gay couples a right that straight people take for granted. Herring had supported the ban as a Loudoun County senator. As his ambition swelled, his attitude shifted, making him acceptable to a Democratic base for which gay rights is a non-negotiable demand.

The courts — the federal courts — are taking Virginia where Virginia — through its elective government — has refused to go. This North-facing Southern state, at times paralyzed by divided government, is lurching forward at the point of a bayonet: federal judicial edict, actual and perceived. It is forcing those who govern to catch up with the governed.

It happened in the 1950s with the collapse of Virginia’s defiance to court-ordered school desegregation. It happened in the 1960s with the death of the state statute banning interracial marriage.

It happened in the early 2000s when a previous attorney general — Republican Jerry Kilgore — said, as Herring is on the gay marriage ban, that he would not argue in federal court on behalf of a comparatively mundane constitutional restriction: a limit on how churches manage their business affairs. Kilgore decided the measure was unconstitutional

For too long the law rested on a flawed assumption: That because Virginia politicians are presumed to be ladies and gentleman, they do not need to be reminded how to behave.

Tidying up Virginia may require more than straightening out ethics laws. Higher legislative salaries — they have been frozen at about $18,000 a year since 1989 — might discourage solons from walking around with their hands out. It could attract a broader range of candidates and professionalize a General Assembly that looks less like Virginia because, for example, it has more and more retirees.

Further, redistricting thwarts shifts in public opinion, freeing a Republican-dominated legislature to ignore the sentiments of Virginians, as a whole.

Nearly eight years ago, 56 percent of the electorate backed the constitutional amendment under which the state refuses to recognize same-sex marriage. A recent public-opinion poll shows that a similar percentage now favors same-sex marriage.

Virginia had a glorious group of leaders in the early days of this nation.  Leaders who were progressive for their time and had a vision of how government should be.  Sadly, for most of the last two centuries, Virginia's leadership has preferred to be backward thinking, supporting bigotry and prejudice rather than accepting the Founders statements that all men are created equal and that all of us are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  And most of the time it has been "religious conservatives" who have championed backwardness and bigotry.  It's a very, very ugly legacy.  What the GOP controlled General Assembly refuses to do voluntarily, hopefully the federal courts will make it do.

 

Virginia Republicans Set Precedent of Opposing Laws Deemed Unconstitutional

As expected one is already hearing shrieks from the far right that the Virginia Attorney General is "supposed to defend the state's laws."  The refrain is riddled with hypocrisy - as is just about everything that comes from the far right and Christofascists - because it is the Virginia GOP itself and past Republican attorney generals who solidified the precedent of not defending laws alleged to be unconstitutional.  While reporting on Mark Herring's decision to not defend Virginia's gay marriage bans, the Richmond Times Dispatch lays out the precedent established by Republican attorney generals, including Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli.  Here are relevant parts of the story:

Today, Herring will argue that it is the role of the attorney general to speak out when he believes state laws violate the Constitution — and that he wouldn’t be the first to do so.

Last year, Cuccinelli said his office would not defend one of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s key education measures in an anticipated legal challenge. The attorney general’s analysis concluded that the law creating a statewide school division to take over academically failing local schools was unconstitutional.

In 2003, Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore joined attorneys general from 43 states in signing a court brief on behalf of Virginia. It stated that an attorney general is duty-bound to challenge any statute he or she believes to be unconstitutional, thereby serving a vital role in a constitutional system founded upon a separation of powers, Qualls said.

Once again we see the GOP double standard: one rule for themselves and a diifferent one for anyone who disagrees with them.  Here are some further highlights from the piece:

In Norfolk next week, Virginia Solicitor General Stuart Raphael will argue on behalf of the two couples, Qualls said. “But the attorney general will probably be attending the hearing,” she said.

“This is a great day for the commonwealth of Virginia, ” said the plaintiff's’ lead co-counsel, Theodore B. Olson. “Virginia’s marriage laws are needlessly mean-spirited and cause harsh and gratuitous pain and humiliation to gay and lesbian Virginians and their families.

"Attorney General Herring’s actions have brought Virginia that much closer to the quintessential American ideals of equality under the law and the freedom to pursue happiness," Olsen said.  "We are grateful for his leadership and look forward to working with him to strike down Virginia’s odious marriage ban.”

James Parris h, president of the gay rights organization Equality Virginia, said the time for a change has come. “Banning the freedom to marry for couples only because they are gay or lesbian has no constitutional basis. If Attorney General Herring finds the … amendment is no longer defendable on this point, that is a decision with which all LGBT Virginians and Virginians that believe in fairness and equality can agree.”

Where Does the Gay Rights Movement Go in 2014?

A new year dawns over Hampton Roads harbor - Norfolk Naval Base is right of center

In many ways, 2013 was a momentous year for gay rights with the addition of more states granting marriage equality and, of course the ruling in United States v. Windsor, which has led to the federal government and its agencies recognizing gay marriages regardless of couples' state of residence.  Here in Virginia November saw the election of a slate of Democrats to statewide office all of whom endorse full gay marriage.  Yet in 29 states, LGBT citizens can still be fired at will from their jobs and left with little legal recourse.  Here in Virginia, even state employees continue to lack statutory protections from summary firing.  And we continue to see anti-gay bullying fully sanctioned by numerous hate groups masquerading as "family values" organization underscoring the fact that religion - fundamentalist religion in particular - in general remains the enemy of LGBT equality.   Socially, in urban areas, gays are increasingly accepted as demonstrated by the neighborhood New Year's Eve party we attended along with a dozen other gays (some Republicans at the party were brutal in their comments on the Christofascists).  So where do things go from here?  A piece in The Daily Beast ponders on this question.  Here are excerpts:

“On one level, our movement has been a staggering, if controversial, success; yet on another level, gay and lesbian people remain profoundly stigmatized, struggling against the same crises—in health, violence, discrimination and social services—that have plagued us for decades.”

These words were written not in 2013 but in 1995, in Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation, a seminal text by prominent activist and intellectual Urvashi Vaid.  But the words ring true today.  Here we are, ending what some are calling “the greatest year in gay rights”—and yeah, it’s been a big year from the unprecedented legal breakthroughs, especially in marriage equality, to the cultural markers of more and more celebrities and sports figures coming out of the closet. And yet it’s not just that declaring victory in the culture war, or even in skirmishes, feels premature—as though minimizing the enduring and infectious influence of the right-wing backlash. Even more, with 2013 over, we should ask whether all the achievements so far—and the path on which the LGBT movement is headed—indeed add up to true equality and liberation.

I always thought I was fighting for the right to be different from straight folks, not the same—that the quest of liberation meant that I should have equal rights and treatment regardless of those differences, rather than accessing basic rights and equality only if I conformed to a heterosexual norm.  In other words, my family should be recognized and respected whether my partner and I get married or not.

[T]he more interesting question at this juncture is whether the attainment of hetero-normative rights leads to homo-liberation and social justice more broadly.  On the one hand, ending bans on gay folks in the military is arguably a form of co-optation that serves to reinforce a military-police industrial complex that has historically been hostile toward “deviant” sexuality. . . . On the other hand, does the lovable mainstream Ellen DeGeneres being on television make it possible for the trans actress Laverne Cox to be on television?  Arguably.  And arguably both make it easier for LGBT folks across the country and around the world to express their identities and their desires. 

We should certainly celebrate the great leaps forward for gay rights in 2013, in marriage equality but also with cultural markers and especially polls showing that the public is becoming more accepting. But in 2014, we must revisit the guiding philosophy of the gay movement and whether our strategies and tactics are pursuing liberation for all—gay and straight, black white and brown, women and men and trans—or merely some. . . . . If 2013 was the year that Americans of all stripes and social movements joined the careening bandwagon for gay rights, may 2014 be the year in which the LGBT movement returns the favor with a vision of liberation for all.

Here in Virginia huge amounts of work needs to be done.  Homophobia remains rampant in the black community and in rural areas.  Virginia still lacks any meaningful anti-bullying laws.  And the foul hate group, The Family Foundation, continues to push the Virginia GOP to oppose rights and dignity for LGBT Virginians.

Federal Judge Strikes Down Utah's Gay Marriage Ban

In a surprising but welcomed move, a federal judge has struck down Utah's gay marriage ban ruling that the U.S. Constitution requires the same equal protection and due process rights for same-sex individuals to marry the person of their choice that are given to heterosexual individuals. Expect howling and spittle erupts from the Christofascists and their Mormon cousins.  Simply put, religion has no place in the civil laws governing marriage and while knuckle dragging, bigoted individuals and ignorance embracing denominations are free to do whatever they want within their houses of worship, they should have zero influence on the civil marriage laws.  In his ruling, Judge Shelby rightly found that the motivation of the ban on gay marriage was aimed at demeaning gays and that the ban had no reasonable basis.  The full opinion can be found here.  Sadly, Utah's governor and attorney general support the dangerous belief that the majority should be able to deny rights to minorities.  In contrast, Salt Lake City Mayor Becker began performing marriages immediately.  Here are highlights from the Salt Lake Tribune:

A federal judge in Utah on Friday struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, saying the U.S. Constitution offers the same equal protection and due process rights to same-sex individuals to marry the person of their choice that it gives heterosexual individuals. 

"The state’s current laws deny its gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry and, in so doing, demean the dignity of these same-sex couples for no rational reason," wrote U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby in the 53-page decision. "Accordingly, the court finds that these laws are unconstitutional."

 

In the ruling, Shelby enjoined the state from enforcing two different statutes that ban same-sex marriage as well as Amendment 3 to the state’s constitution, approved by Utah voters in 2004.

As news of the ruling broke, hundreds of people descended on county clerk offices around the state to request marriage licenses. At the Salt Lake County Clerk’s Office, a First Baptist pastor was on hand to conduct wedding ceremonies.

Hours later, the Utah attorney general’s office appealed the decision to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver and also filed a motion asking Shelby to stay the ruling while it seeks to defend Utah’s Amendment 3.   "The federal district court’s ruling that same-sex marriage is a fundamental right has never been established in any previous case in the 10th Circuit," it said.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert released a statement that said he was "very disappointed an activist federal judge is attempting to override the will of the people of Utah" and said he would work with Acting Attorney General Brian L. Tarbet "to determine the best course to defend traditional marriage within the borders of Utah."

The ruling is the first federal decision on a state law banning same-sex marriages or denying recognition of legal same-sex marriages since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision this summer that struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). 

The Utah judge ruled just 16 days after he heard arguments in the case and well before his self-imposed deadline to render a decision by Jan. 7, when the next hearing in the matter was to be held, relying on extensive briefs filed in the case by both sides.

New IRS to Allow All Married Gay Couples To File Jointly; Medicare to Follow Suit

In a welcomed move to many, the Internal Revenue Service has announced new rules that will allow all same-sex married couples to file joint tax returns.  The move will, however, cause additional tax preparation work for same sex couples in anti-gay states like Virginia where apparently, the Virginia Department of Taxation will recognize their marriages and separate returns will be still required.  Just another reminder that in Virginia and other Neanderthal states gays are not equal citizens and are continued to be punished for not conforming to Christofascist religious dogma.   The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the develop.  Here are excerpts:

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that new IRS policy for same-sex couples during a conference call with LGBT leaders today. The IRS will now accept joint returns from married same-sex couples no matter where they live.

According to the Huffington Post, under the new Treasury policy, filing status, employee benefits, IRA contributions, earned income, child tax credits, and income, gift and estate taxes, will apply to same-sex couples in exactly the same manner as they do with heterosexual couples, even if they live in a non-equality state. Unfortunately, the new policy does not extend to civil unions.

The IRS policy change comes on the heels of a similar announcement by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius earlier today. Like the IRS, Medicare will now use a “place of celebration” standard to grant Medicare benefits to same-sex couples.  

That leaves the Social Security Administration the “odd man out”. Currently the SSA is processing claims only from same-sex couples who live in marriage equality states while they review their policy.

Obviously, Social Security survivor benefits represent a huge issue and it is important that the current discriminatory policy be ended as quickly as possible.   Meanwhile, it is wonderful to see the discrimination based on anti-gay animus of the Christofascists steadily being undermined.  No doubt these hate merchants will be shrieking and wailing that the sky is falling merely because they cannot punish us for not buying into their ugly version of Christianity.

ACLU to Challenge Pennsylvania Gay Marriage Ban

As noted in a post back in March, a Harvard Law School professor predicted that combined decisions as handed down in Perry and Windsor would open a flood gate of lawsuits challenging gay marriage bans and disparities on federal benefits based on the state of one's residency even if couples legally married in a pro-gay marriage state.  That prediction seems to be about to come true as the ACLU prepares to file a lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania's gay marriage ban.  Similar lawsuits are likely to multiple in other states with gay marriage bans.  The Daily Times looks at this development.  Here are story highlights:

The American Civil Liberties Union said it will file the first known legal challenge Tuesday seeking to overturn a state law effectively banning same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania, the only northeastern state that doesn't allow it or civil unions.

The lawsuit, to be filed in federal court in Harrisburg, also will ask a federal judge to prevent state officials from stopping gay couples from getting married. It names Gov. Tom Corbett, Attorney General Kathleen Kane and three other officials. The plaintiffs are one widow, 10 couples and one of the couples' two teenage daughters, and they include four couples who were legally married in other states but whose marriages go unrecognized by the state of Pennsylvania.

The plaintiffs, including Deb and Susan Whitewood, who have been together for 22 years, said their willingness to join the lawsuit was driven both by a desire to have the same legal and financial protections afforded to opposite-sex couples and the emotional satisfaction of seeking social justice.

"I wanted our relationship to be respected like everybody else's relationship," said Susan Whitewood, 49, who lives in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bridgeville. "That was first and foremost the reason for doing this. I wasn't looking for legal validation."

Her 16-year-old daughter, Abbey, who is also a plaintiff, said she is excited to fight for her family's values.

In the lawsuit, the ACLU said banning gay marriage satisfies no legitimate government or child welfare concerns of the state, since Pennsylvania judges routinely grant adoptions to same-sex couples that are viewed as in the best interest of the child.  "It serves only to disparage and injure lesbian and gay couples and their families," the lawsuit said.  For instance, the suit says, same-sex couples do not have access to a long list of legal and financial protections as do opposite-sex couples.

Those include an inheritance tax exemption for widows; an automatic power of attorney for spouses in health care decisions; damages and legal recourse under workers' compensation laws for a spouse who dies or is injured in the workplace; assistance programs for same-sex widows and widowers of military personnel and veterans; pension and survivor benefits for widows and widowers of public employees; Family Medical Leave Act provisions; and a spouse's Social Security retirement benefits.

In Pennsylvania, recent polls show a majority are in favor of gay marriage. In 2012, the state voted for President Barack Obama, a Democrat who supports gay marriage, and in 2010 for Corbett, a Republican who supports a constitutional amendment to permanently ban it. Bills to legalize gay marriage have gone nowhere in recent years in the Legislature, and Corbett's predecessor, Democrat Ed Rendell, did not favor the legalization of same-sex marriage while in office.

DOMA and Proposition 8 Rulings To Come Tomorrow

Having tuned into SCOTUS Blog, official word is that the rulings in Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor will be handed down tomorrow at 10:00 AM.  The prediction is that Chief Justice Roberts will deliver the ruling in Perry and Justice Kennedy will deliver the ruling in Windsor.  The wait for these rulings has been like a slow torture.  I sincerely hope the Court embraces modernity and equality rather than religious based bigotry.

Obama Under Pressure on Gay Rights

As noted before on this blog, I feel that 2013 is a reprise of 2009 when Obama and the national Democrats gave the Democrat base little reason to be motivated and enthusiastic.  The result here in Virginia was a clean GOP sweep of Virginia's statewide offices.  This year, things in Virginia are even more frightening with the GOP slate comprised of some of the most extreme - and out right insane - slate in Virginia history.  One of the issues where Obama and the national Democrats dropped the ball in 2009 was on gay rights issues.  Fast forward to 2013 and it's the same landscape all over again.  And, if the U.S. Supreme Court, fails to strike down DOMA or rules narrowly on same sex marriage, Obama will be facing an open revolt combined with a motivation by gays to stay home on election day.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at why Obama's lip service for gay equality just isn't cutting it with many.  Pretty words are nice, but actions far more significant and motivating for elements of the Democrat base.  Here are highlights:

With the Supreme Court only days away from major rulings on same-sex marriage, President Obama faces the prospect of having to make his own difficult decisions about the definition of wedlock.

Gay rights advocates are already pressing Obama to immediately broaden the federal government’s recognition of legally married same-sex couples if the court strikes down a ban on providing federal benefits to them.

The question for Obama turns on whether the federal government should extend full benefits to gay couples living in states that don’t recognize their marriages. 

Obama would face rare, concrete decisions on the politically combustible question of same-sex marriage — an area he has largely left to the purview of courts and state legislatures.

 

Advocates have pressed the issue of benefits with White House aides in recent months, according to people familiar with the discussions. The advocates have pushed for a uniform standard that would make the most benefits available to legally married couples across the board. Officials have not signaled what Obama would do. 

Obama’s potential dilemma stems from the fact that eligibility for some federal benefits — including Social Security payments to spouses and marital tax deductions — is determined based on the marriage laws of the states where the couples live and not where they were wed.

If the Supreme Court overturns the Defense of Marriage Act, full benefits would be available to same-sex couples who marry and live in the dozen states that legally recognize their relationships. But legally married gay couples that live in states that don’t recognize their marriages would be ineligible for a range of federal benefits.

Advocates say Obama could eliminate the discrepancy with an executive order or new regulations setting a couple’s “place of celebration” as the deciding factor in whether the U.S. government recognizes a marriage for the purposes of providing benefits.

“Equal protection means that every family should have access to the same protections they need regardless of state borders,” said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign . . . . 

As president, Obama has largely sidestepped the marriage issue. He endorsed same-sex marriage rights in the midst of his reelection campaign, spurring a flood of campaign cash from gay donors, and his administration joined in the effort to overturn the benefits provision of the Defense of Marriage Act. But Obama has said the question of legalized marriage should be left to the states.

“There will be tremendous pressure on the White House and on the president personally to move very quickly to implement the judgement and to implement it broadly,” said Richard Socarides, a longtime gay rights activist who was an adviser in the Bill Clinton White House. 

“Thirty days is what he’s got,” Socarides added. “These are real people suffering real injury. If anybody tries to argue that they need six months or a year, there are going to be riots in the streets.”

The issues raised are real.  The boyfriend and I have considered getting married in New York or Washington, D.C.  Our marriage should not evaporate the moment we travel to the south side of the Potomac River.  Obama - and the national Democrats - need to act quickly.

France: Gay Marriage Signed into Law

Friday French President Francois Hollande signed gay marriage into law after an eleven hour appeal by the far right challenging the constitutionality of the law.  The Constitutional Council rejected the challenge and it is expected that marriages will begin before the end of the month.   It goes without saying that the child rapist enablers in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and their accessories in crime in the pews are big time unhappy.   France is yet a former Catholic bastion which has ignored the Church's hysteria and anti-gay bigotry and embraced modernity and equality.  The BBC reports on this final step in passage of marriage equality.  Here are excerpts:

On Friday, the Constitutional Council rejected a challenge by the right-wing opposition, clearing the way for Francois Hollande to sign the bill.

He said: "I have taken [the decision]; now it is time to respect the law of the Republic."  The first gay wedding could be held 10 days after the bill's signing.

The anti-gay marriage lobby, backed by the Catholic Church and conservative opposition, argues the bill will undermine an essential building block of society.

Opinion polls have suggested that around 55-60% of French people support gay marriage, but only about 50% approve of gay adoption.

France is now the 14th country to legalize gay marriage after New Zealand last month.  It is also the ninth country in Europe to allow same-sex marriage after legalisation in the traditionally liberal Netherlands and Scandinavia, but also in strongly Catholic Portugal and Spain. Legislation is also moving through the UK Parliament.

I continue to believe opposition to gay marriage ultimately stems from several things: (i) the reaction of the Catholic Church  and other anti-equality churches to finally losing undeserved rights and privileges, (ii) the need for some individuals to have others subjected to discrimination so that they can feel superior about themselves, and (iii) gay marriage sends a strong message that a handful of Bible passages used against gays are wrong and this threatens the make believe world of the Christofascists.  The irony is that a far bigger threat exists to the Christian story line:  The human genome project has confirmed that Adam and Eve never existed as historical individuals.  As a result, there was no "fall" in the Garden of Eden, there is no such thing as original sin inherited from Adam and Eve, and there was no need for a Messiah to redeem mankind from original sin.  Gay marriage is ultimately the least of the Christofascists problems.