Reconstructionists deplore ban on gay marriage

NEW YORK (JTA)—The Reconstructionist movement condemned the passage of a ban on gay marriage in California.

In a statement adopted in conjunction with its rabbinical association and rabbinical college, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation voted at its convention in Boston to condemn the passage of Proposition 8, a state ballot initiative that restricted the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman. The measure narrowly passed Nov. 4.

"We are saddened and deeply disturbed by the denial of fundamental human rights—to marry, to adopt and care for foster children—to thousands of gay and lesbian citizens across the United States," the statement said. "We are particularly dismayed by the passage of initiatives that have reversed previously recognized equality for same-sex unions."

The Reconstructionist movement, the smallest of American Jewish religious denominations, has long been a leader in liberalizing Jewish approaches to homosexuality. In 1984, the movement became the first to ordain openly gay rabbis, followed six years later by the Reform movement and in 2006 by the Conservative movement.

Proposition 8 proved to be a divisive issue among California Jews, a majority of whom opposed the ban. Non-Orthodox rabbis vehemently opposed adopting the ban, with 93 percent of members of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California signing on to a resolution against the ban. The Rabbinical Council of California, an Orthodox group, took out an advertisement supporting the ban on gay marriage.

The JRF wrapped up its convention Sunday.

Reconstructionists deplore ban on gay marriage
Jewish Telegraphic Agency - New York,NY,USA

WATCH: Bill O'Reilly Smears San Francisco With Surreal Pseudo-Documentary

Bill O'Reilly is scared. As a daring crusader on the side of "traditional America" in the war against "secular progressives," O'Reilly fears that the "far left" will push President-elect Obama to embrace their values. As an example of the horrors that would befall us if this were to happen, O'Reilly offers up a surreal pseudo-documentary of San Francisco. O'Reilly sends producer Jesse Waters, whose sole journalistic value seems to be his utter lack of shame at chasing after and ambushing anyone O'Reilly points his finger at, to San Francisco because it represents 'far left government' at work.

Watching this video, one would think that ninety percent of San Francisco's population are either homeless, addicted to drugs, prostitutes, crazy, or some mix of all these. The video is an unbelievable smear on a great American city. The only thing worse than the video's message is the production value. After showing the video, O'Reilly interviews Waters for insight into how San Franciscans can live in such moral and physical squalor. Waters basically says the citizens of Frisco have accepted, and adjusted to, the fact their city is a hell hole. Actually, the city is so beyond the pale that O'Reilly once said he wouldn't mind if Al Qaida attacked the city. Watch and judge for yourself.

WATCH: Bill O'Reilly Smears San Francisco With Surreal Pseudo-Documentary

Amendment 2 -- a futile effort to delay the inevitable in Florida

Amendment 2 -- a futile effort to delay the inevitable

Howard L. Simon | November 13, 2008

The vote approving Amendment 2 -- the so-called marriage-protection amendment -- was a devastating but temporary setback for the cause of equal treatment for all.

By a 1.9 percent margin, Florida voters prohibited allowing same-sex couples the opportunity to have their relationships legally protected, denying the religious institution of their choice the authority of law "invested in the institution" to bless the relationship. Arizona and California also voted to add a ban on same-sex marriage to their state constitutions.

Despite the propaganda, gay marriage was not on the ballot. What Floridians approved was a prohibition on the legal recognition of anything "that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof." It will take years of lawsuits and countless lawyers to sort out the intended and unintended consequences of this measure.

The forces behind Amendment 2 have said that their mission is accomplished; marriage has been protected. But none of the economic and social pressures on marriage that have resulted in the terribly high divorce rate have been addressed. That would have been an honest program to "protect marriage."

It remains a mystery how the institution of marriage is "protected" by denying the right of some people the ability to enjoy its benefits.

Despite its passage, Amendment 2 does not bar health or other benefits that same-sex couples currently receive from public or private employers. Neither does the amendment prohibit hospital visitation, medical decision-making, or the right to make funeral arrangements for a deceased loved one.

But should other zealots target these benefits, or should any government agency decide -- wrongly -- that Amendment 2 prohibits these benefits, we will move this battle from the voting booth to the courtroom.

In America, change that matters always faces resistance; its path is never smooth or easy.

America is in the middle of a civil-rights revolution that is different, but shares similarities with earlier struggles to make the Constitution's promise of equality a reality for women, for racial minorities, for people with disabilities -- for everyone.

It is important to appreciate how far we have come, and how quickly. Thanks to even a very conservative U.S. Supreme Court, it is no longer a crime to be gay in America. Within 17 years (from Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 to Lawrence v. Texas in 2003), the Supreme Court reversed itself and declared that states could not criminalize sexual intimacy among same-sex couples.

The world is changing. The forces behind Amendment 2 can delay the inevitable, but they cannot stop it.

Soon, same-sex marriage will be legal and ordinary. It is already happening; Ontario, several northern Europe countries, Spain, South Africa and, as of this writing, Massachusetts and Connecticut, allow same-sex marriage. New York and Rhode Island recognize such marriages that are conferred elsewhere.

Bigotry and prejudice frequently ride in on a horse of high-sounding moral principles. Sometimes even the best leaders can convince themselves that their support for a mean-spirited proposal is based on something other than bigotry and prejudice or animus.

Religious leaders who sold Amendment 2 as "biblically based" public policy need to rethink whether that washes in America. In this nation -- the most religiously diverse on Earth -- the laws must reflect the fact that we live in different religious traditions, with different interpretations of the Bible, and, indeed, different bibles.

One day, we will look back on the idea that government could have the power to dictate whom adults can marry with as much bewilderment and embarrassment as we now, shamefully, wonder how we allowed government the power to ban interracial marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court ended the legal basis for that prejudice in the landmark 1967 ACLU case of Loving v. Virginia.

Howard L. Simon of Miami is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

 

What It Felt Like to Be Equal

Judith Warner

I had barely finished sniffling over Barack Obama's victory when I received an e-mail message from Amy Silverstein, the wife of my best friend from high school, Angela Padilla.

She had been glad to read last week's piece on "the groundbreaking immensity of the election of our country's first African-American president," she said.

Up to a point.

"I wanted to make sure you knew and appreciated that despite this seeming like an amazing step forward for all who have suffered discrimination and/or who are deeply committed to eliminating it, this election was anything but that for G.L.B.T. people and our families," she wrote. "Especially in California, but in three other states as well, the electorate convincingly voted to deny us basic civil rights and made clear that we are a long way from being seen and treated as equal. Protecting traditional marriage is simply code for discrimination. There is no 'triumph' for us, and the long period of pain, indignity and injustice continues."

There's nothing worse than being told you have a major blind spot. That your self-assured joyousness is built upon exclusion.

Particularly when the person telling you this is right.

Now, I hadn't exactly ignored the spate of anti-gay ballot initiatives that had passed — in California, Arkansas, Florida and Arizona — on Nov. 4. I'd read about the success of Arizona's long-attempted gay marriage ban and California's Proposition 8, which prohibited gay marriage just six months after the state's Supreme Court ruled that the right to marry was fundamental, and constitutionally protected, for all.

I'd read about how voters in Florida had decided to target not only same-sex marriage but all relationships that were the "substantial equivalent" of marriage, like domestic partnerships and civil unions, and how in Arkansas, where gay marriage was already banned, voters had decided to deny anyone "cohabitating outside a valid marriage" the right to adopt or be a foster parent.

How strange, I'd thought, reading about how, on the day of progressive victories — Obama's historic win, South Dakota voters' rejection of a wide-ranging abortion ban, Californians voting down a ballot initiative that would have required parental notification for abortion — these states had passed such uniquely reactionary and discriminatory measures. How ugly. That's really too bad.

And then I'd moved on. As most people who were not directly affected by the anti-gay rights measures did. There was just too much else to feel good about.

"I think the country was like, 'Look, you get Obama, call it a day and go home," is how Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic state representative in Arizona, who'd opposed her state's anti-gay ballot initiative, put it to The Times last week.

Ed Swanson couldn't move on.

The day after the election, the San Francisco lawyer and his husband, Paul Herman, a stay-at-home dad, had had to face the fact that Proposition 8 could mean that their marriage would be invalidated. They'd also had to go to parent conferences and tell the teachers that their five-year-old daughter, Liza, might be struggling in school because she was scared that her family might fall apart.

Liza, who has a twin sister, Katie, had peppered Swanson and Herman with questions once she'd realized that marriages uniting "a boy and a boy" were no longer allowed.

"They can't take yours away, right?" she'd asked her parents. "They can't take yours away when you have children, can they?"

"That's when we realized she was afraid something would happen to us," Swanson told me by phone on Wednesday. "We said, 'They can't take us away from you. We will be here for you forever.'"

"It's difficult to explain to a five-year-old why it is people don't want your parents to be married," he continued. "They're young enough that there was a chance they could have grown up thinking all their lives that their family was equal and accepted. Now they're not going to have that chance. They'll have to spend at least part of their lives knowing that their family is something that people don't feel is acceptable."

Jeanne Rizzo, the C.E.O. of the Breast Cancer Fund, can't quite move on either. She spent election night in a reception room at San Francisco's Westin St. Francis Hotel. She and her long-term partner, Pali Cooper, were married in September, one of 18,000 California couples who managed to wed in the short space of time between the California Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage and the passage of Proposition 8.

In one room, Obama supporters were jubilant. In another, opponents of Proposition 4 — the parental notification initiative -– shouted their glee. In hers, the opponents of Proposition 8 saw their joy at Obama's election turn quickly to "absolute disbelief and pain" as the results of the ballot initiative came in. "It was such a kick in the stomach. The whole hotel was just rocking with joy. We felt so disconnected from it," Rizzo recalled when I talked to her on Wednesday.

It wasn't that she begrudged Obama his victory. It was just that his historic triumph made the insult to her community all the more painful. An awful thought came to her that night: Now we're the designated cultural outcasts. "It's almost like we're the last group you can be openly bigoted about," she told me.

"You look around and you think more than half of the people in this state voted to take this away from us? At a time when we're celebrating the election of an African American to the White House? I don't know how you heal from it," she said. "It's hard to get it out of your bones."

It's easy, if you're straight, to file away the gay marriage issue in a little folder in your mind, to render it, essentially, inessential. It can fall into the category of "bones you throw the religious right because things could be so much worse." Or "things that would be great in a perfect world." Or "what's the big deal?" because you don't actually get what a big deal it is to be able to get married when you've never had to consider the alternative.

Many of the gay men and lesbians I spoke or e-mailed with this week didn't fully realize what a big deal it was to be married either. Until they were.

"I don't think I had realized until then what it felt like to be equal," Swanson told me. "Paul and I went on a honeymoon in Santa Fe. People would ask and we'd say we're on our honeymoon; we just got married. We could say it not because it was a political statement but because it was a fact.

"I don't feel equal anymore. It was a great feeling, while it lasted."

What It Felt Like to Be Equal

Bush Rolls Back Regulations

Having promised to "sprint to the finish" of his second term and "to remain focused on the goals ahead," President Bush is "working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules" aimed at protecting workers, consumers and the environment, the Washington Post reports. "The administration wants to leave a legacy," said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, "but across the board it means less protection for the public." Indeed, the Bush administration is implementing over 90 new regulations which "would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo." The wide array of new regulations includes proposals to undercut outpatient Medicaid services, weaken the Endangered Species Act, and allow increased emissions from older power plants. In some instances, the administration has allowed federal agencies to circumvent public feedback methods by limiting the period for public comment, "not allowing e-mailed or faxed comments or scheduling public hearings." Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama, meanwhile, "have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies." The kind of regulations they are looking at are those imposed by Bush for "overtly political" reasons, said Dan Mendelson, a former associate administrator for health in the Clinton administration's Office of Management and Budget. 

CUTTING BACK MEDICAID: On Friday, the very same day that the Department of Labor announced that the U.S. unemployment rate is at a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, Bush "narrowed the scope of services that can be provided to poor people under Medicaid's outpatient hospital benefit." The new regulation arrives at a time when states are considering limiting Medicaid eligibility and Americans are losing their jobs -- and by extension, employer health benefits. According to the Kaiser Foundation, a 1 percent increase in unemployment results in 1 million more people enrolling in Medicaid and the State's Children's Health Insurance Program, and another 1.1 million more people becoming uninsured. Public hospitals and state officials immediately protested Bush's proposed action, saying it would "reduce Medicaid payments to many hospitals at a time of growing need," the New York Times reports. Ann Clemency Kohler, the executive director of the National Association of State Medicaid Directors, said that "the new rule is a pretty sweeping change from longtime Medicaid policy. Since the beginning of the program, states have been allowed to define hospital outpatient services. We have to question why the rule is being issued now, three days after the election, with a new administration coming in."

GUTTING ENDANGERED SPECIES: In what would be the biggest change to Endangered Species Act since 1998, the Bush administration wants to allow federal agencies "to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants." Currently, federal agencies are required to consult with an independent agency -- the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Service -- to determine whether a project would harm an endangered species. As Sharon Guynup of the Baltimore Sun points out, "[T]aking wildlife experts out of the equation eliminates the checks and balances that have kept the [Chesapeake] bay's bald eagles, shortnose sturgeon, Delmarva fox squirrels, piping plovers and other rare creatures from disappearing" and would only encourage agencies to "revert to pre-Endangered Species Act tactics of cutting big projects into a series of small ones that fall under the radar." The draft rules also would also "bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats," the AP reports. 

INCREASING POLLUTION: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working on regulations that would allow increased emissions from older power plants while also rolling back existing air quality regulations for national parks and wilderness areas. While "the Clean Air Act requires older plants that have their lives extended with new equipment to install pollution-control technology if their emissions increase," Bush's proposed rule would "allow plants to measure emissions on an hourly basis, rather than their total yearly output. This way, plants could run for more hours and increase overall emissions without exceeding the threshold that would require additional pollution controls," McClatchy reports. The industry-friendly rule -- which the administration tried to implement in 2003, before it "was vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in July"-- is now being opposed by EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and Robert Meyers, the assistant administrator in charge of air issues. According to McClatchy, "the EPA official said that concerns in the agency were that the analysis justifying the rule change was weak and the administration didn't plan to make the analysis public for a comment period, as is customary." Three computer models, released by the EPA, have also shown that the proposed rule "would increase carbon dioxide emissions by 74 million tons annually," "roughly equivalent to the total annual CO2 emissions of about 14 average coal-fired power plants."

Commentary: Latinos should see gay marriage a civil right

Editor's Note: Fernando Espuelas is the host and managing editor of Café Espuelas, a Los Angeles Spanish-language radio talk show and a media entrepreneur.

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- It's a done deal: Proposition 8, making same-sex marriage illegal in California, has been approved by voters.

The constitution of the state was amended to take away rights recognized by the California Supreme Court under the equal protection clause of the California constitution just this May. And Latinos were in the vanguard, providing critical support for the passage of Prop 8.

For the past few weeks, Latinos have called in to my radio show, horrified at the idea of same-sex marriage. Callers said they would vote for Obama for change -- and for Proposition 8. They told me that the future of their family was at stake.

Biblical passages were quoted, divinely inspired indignation given voice. The vision of a collapsed society, where men abandon their wives in droves to "become gay,"' consumed these callers.

Is this simply a case of cognitive dissonance? By now, the media has reported the importance of the Latino vote to Obama's win in such key states as Florida, New Mexico, and Colorado. President-elect Obama, by some early estimates, garnered the largest share of the Latino vote of any candidate in history, carrying it by more than 2 to 1 over John McCain. More here @ CNN

Michael Patrick King: Gays In A Cage

What? Does the voting public of this great state of California, who correctly voted to pass Proposition 2 -- which legislated to give caged chickens more room in their cages -- have to actually see the cage that gay people have been put in all theses years to get it? Does it take actual physical evidence of the cage to understand the cruelty of being called "not equal" by Proposition 8? If being in a cage will do the trick -- if that will be the image that our fellow citizens need to see on their television screens to move them to action -- then we will do it. I will call some of my brilliant, gay, Californian, tax-paying citizen designer friends and ask them to design and build a giant cage. Then, I will ask some of my politically savvy, gay, Californian, tax-paying citizen fundraising friends to raise the money. Then, they will call the always charitable, gay, Californian, tax-paying citizen friends who support any worthwhile humanitarian cause in this state and country. Then, I will call 100 to 200 of my successful, tax-paying, Californian gay brothers and sisters to take time off from their jobs as doctors and lawyers and accountants and writers and waiters and nurses and -- I should stop there -- because the list of careers and jobs performed every day by gay citizens to keep California running would go on forever. So -- if that's what it takes -- I'm sure we would all agree to take time off from our busy lives to meet at the Pacific Design Center and cram ourselves into that giant cage. We will poke our heads out of the barbwire. We will stay there in front of the TV cameras until this image makes it clear that it is unnatural and quite frankly cruel to do anything like that to animals or your fellow citizens. We will do it -- if that's what it takes -- because leading our lives with dignity and privacy as vital tax-paying members of society doesn't seem to be doing the trick.

Proposition 2 -- Yes: 63.2 % ... No: 36.8 %
Proposition 8 -- Yes: 52.5 % ... No: 47.5%

Michael Patrick King: Gays In A Cage

WHat's more Important than Stopping Same Sex Marriage?

gay opinion gay men lesbian opinion

An internet lie about Obama and the American Flag

The advent of personal computers and email enabled lies and rumors to fly freely around the world in a matter of minutes. Nowhere has this been more prevalent or damaging than in political campaigns. This election season has seen all sorts of garbage peddled as fact: Obama's religion, his background, his contributors, etc...

The only thing worse than Republicans fabricating and spreading lies and rumors about their Democratic opponents, is that there is a large chunk of the population so desperate for "evidence" to support their pathetic fears about someone whose view are different than their own that they will believe any crap that's put in front of them. 

The people who start and spread these rumors and lies do so knowing they can rely on others to spread this stuff around without ever taking the extra minute it takes to find out if it's true. Both groups, the rumor-starters and the rumor-spreaders do tremendous damage to the democracy they pretend to love by breeding mistrust and fear. "There's a sucker born every minute" is often attributed to PT Barnum, and it applies here. The rumor-mongers are the circus hucksters peddling trash to the suckers who then pass this stuff along to other half-wits. The hucksters are conscienceless thugs who would rather peddle scum than deal with real issues. And those who pass this stuff along without taking the time to see if something so outlandish could possibly be true are, at best, ignorant and, at worst, malicious and deliberately harmful.

I received the (completely fabricated) story at the bottom of this email that is apparently making its way to in-boxes around the world. It concerns Barack and Michelle Obama and the American flag. Before you even read it, a few notes:

1. Using the web, it took me less than a minute to determine that every word of it was a lie. Any single individual who received it could have taken that 60 seconds to determine its authenticity before forwarding it to others, BUT THEY CHOSE NOT TO.

2. The attribution is to an appearance by Barack Obama on "Meet the Press" on September 7, 2008. Obama was not even a guest on that show on that date. Here's the show's transcript: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26590488/page/

3. Here are three examples I found WITHIN SECONDS debunking what apparently started as satire and ended up as something entirely different: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_can_you_find_the_%27Meet_the_Press%27_transcript_for_Sept_7_2008_Obama_US_flag_stance

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/stance.asp

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barackobama/a/obama_anthem.htm

4. This instance is simply the tip of the iceberg. Please take a minute to look over some other rumors and lies that the Obama campaign has been vigilant about responding to: http://www.fightthesmears.com/

Paul

Here's a copy of the email:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A must read From Sunday's Televised 'Meet the Press' Senator Obama was asked about his stance on the American Flag.

Obama Explains National Anthem Stance

Sun, 07 Sept. 2008 11:48:04 EST, General Bill Ginn' USAF (ret.) asked Obama to explain why he doesn't follow protocol when the National Anthem is played.

The General also stated to the Senator that according to the United States Code, Title 36, Chapter 10, Sec. 171...During rendition of the national anthem when the flag is displayed, all present except those in uniform are expected to stand at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. At the very least, 'Stand and Face It'

Senator Obama Live on Sunday states, 'As I've said about the flag pin, I don't want to be perceived as taking sides, Obama said. 'There are a lot of people in the world to whom the American flag is a symbol of oppression. And the anthem itself conveys a war-like message. You know, the bombs bursting in air and all.

It should be swapped for something less parochial and less bellicose. I like the song 'I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing.' If that were our anthem, then I MIGHT salute it.'We should consider to reinvent our National Anthem as well as to redesign our Flag to better offer our enemies hope and love. My wife disrespects the Flag for many personal reasons. Together she and I have attended several flag burning ceremonies in the past, many years ago. She has her views and I have mine'.

WHAAAAAAAT??? !!!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you heard it right.  This could possibly be our next President.

I, for one, am speechless. Dale Lindsborg, Washington Post

WAKE UP AMERICANS,

I THINK OBAMA IS NOT A REAL BELIEVER IN AMERICA

God, gay marriage and one furious man

Al Martinez:

 

I know a man in Riverside named Harvey who goes ballistic whenever I broach the subject of Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex marriages in California. His eyes narrow, his voice rises and he gets absolutely squeaky with rage over the possibility of Gus and Homer getting married.

Gus and Homer are not their real names. They live down the block from Harvey and try to be as friendly as possible even though they know he loathes them. They have been together for years and only recently have begun talking about tying the knot.

Harvey, being an evangelical Christian, cannot stand the idea of two men walking down the street holding hands, much less indulging in more intimate expressions of love in the privacy of their bedroom. He considers himself a real man and would gladly beat the crap out of both Gus and Homer if they weren't bigger and stronger than he is.

I personally don't care about what anyone does in his bedroom or who marries whom.

Gays seem to be the only ones who actually want to be married anyhow.

Heterosexuals have taken to just playing house until the glow wears off, maybe through the weekend.

I was thinking about this the other day and created a ritual for those who would like to legitimize a temporary arrangement, not through holy matrimony, but through a ceremony of holy relationship, which is the key word in today's random coupling.

It would in some ways soothe the consciences of the more sensitive rutting couples and save money on gowns and rings.

My relationship ritual would begin, "Do you, Susan, take Roger as your temporary sexual partner to have and to hold as long as the weekend shall last? And do you, Roger, promise to lust, perform and pay for dinner and drinks until the Monday you do part? Therefore in the name of Bacchus and Aphrodite, I now pronounce you hunk and hot mama. You may pour the cosmopolitans."

I mentioned my idea to Harvey, who didn't think it was a bit funny because, you see, he doesn't think much of anything is funny. I recall that he almost laughed once at a humorous comment by Sarah Palin on television but then realized it was Tina Fey; he had accidentally turned on "Saturday Night Live," the program bent on the destruction of morality, or what's left of it. He hasn't laughed since.

Harvey, by the way, considers Palin a great American even though she does happen to be a woman and he doesn't feel women should vote or lead. I keep in touch with him because it gives me inroads into the blurry thinking of the religious right.

Harvey believes, among other things, that God intended marriage to be between only man and woman, that abortion for any reason is a mortal sin, that women should be confined to cooking and bearing children and not clutter the culture by working, that only the Bible and not evolution should be taught in schools and that only white males should be eligible to run for president.

I am fascinated by the rigidity of his thought process, and in those rare moments when we argue about God and evolution it feels less like a Darrow-Bryan debate than it does like someone monologuing on the existence of an entity no one has ever seen. Only if Harvey would actually trot God out of a back room and introduce him in person to an audience of atheists would I say you're right, man, you win; there is a God.

I'm more pantheist than theist, which includes believing there is something almost godlike in the glory of rain and sunset, in love and an aqua ocean, and in little children and puppies. If there turns out to be more than one god, well that's OK too. I'll go back to being a Catholic and we can all march together to kingdom come.

Those of us appalled by Proposition 8 are not trying to interpret morality. There are human rights at stake beyond anyone's capacity to give or take away, and I believe that compassion is an emotion that acknowledges few barriers.

If guys like Harvey had their way, cultural evolution would come to a screeching halt and we would be in danger once more of outlawing interracial marriage and bowing to the archaic ecclesiastical rules that determine what is and what is not sinful.

I'm going to get Harvey's thinking on that too and then see how he feels about forbidding marriage between a man and woman with IQs lower than 75 to prevent more idiots from populating the world.
 

God, gay marriage and one furious man
Los Angeles Times - CA,

NYT FALSELY REPORTS CAPAF CEO PODESTA HAS ALREADY WRITTEN OBAMA'S INAUGURATION

 On Saturday, the New York Times published an article sensationally claiming that Center for American Progress Action Fund founder and CEO and the head of Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) transition team John Podesta "has been mapping out the transition so systematically that he has already written a draft Inaugural Address for Mr. Obama, which he published this summer in a book called 'The Power of Progress.'" Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) seized on the claims, claiming that Obama has decided "it's time to move forward with his first inaugural address." "Maybe Barack Obama will even have his first State of the Union address before you head to the polls," McCain told a crowd in New Mexico. Unfortunately for McCain, the New York Times story is wrong. Podesta's book was in the works for over a year. There is a sample inaugural address at the end of the book, which Podesta explains he used as "a literary device" to "sum up the arguments in the book." In fact, the sample inaugural address was submitted to the publisher in March, when Podesta was still supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) candidacy. On Sunday, the New York Times's Caucus blog fact-checked its own reporters, noting that Podesta's book was written while he was a Clinton supporter, while the LA Times rightly labeled the report an "erroneous New York Times story." Rhis morning, NBC's Andrea Mitchell reported that the Times "confused a sample speech in a book by John Podesta, Obama's transition director, a former Clinton supporter, written as advice for whomever gets the nomination."

Is Google violating its own ad policy?

Is Google violating its own ad policy?
When blogger Bil Browning found ads supporting Proposition 8, the California ballot issue that would restrict marriage rights, on his blog, he wondered how they got there. He investigated and found that it's possible that the ads, which are served by Google, violate the Web giant's own advertising guidelines. Click here to read more at Bilerico Project.

Prop. 8 ads' invisible gays

By Jonathan Rauch
October 26, 2008

These days, it's pretty hard to walk the streets of a California city without seeing same-sex couples -- shopping, strolling, holding hands, sometimes accompanied by children. What used to be called, self-consciously, "public displays of affection" are now merely public displays of ordinary family life. For gay folks, then, it is all the more stinging an irony that the one place where same-sex couples are invisible is in the advertising war over Proposition 8.

Proposition 8, of course, is the constitutional ballot initiative on whether to retain or reject same-sex marriage, which was legalized by the state Supreme Court in May. Given California's power to shape national trends, the stakes for both sides could not be much higher. But given the sheer size of the state's media market, TV advertising could not be much more expensive. For both sides, the premium is on common-denominator messaging that appeals to the largest possible number of swing voters while causing a minimum of political backlash.

The need to walk that tightrope helps explain why the actual subjects of next month's initiative, gay couples, were "inned" by the "No on 8" campaign's ads. (Full disclosure: I am a "No on 8" donor.) One ad, for example, features a gray-haired straight couple. "Our gay daughter and thousands of our fellow Californians will lose the right to marry," says mother Julia Thoron.

A subsequent ad, all text with voice-over narration, mentions marriage only once ("Regardless of how you feel about marriage, it's wrong to treat people differently under the law") and never uses the phrase "gay marriage" or even the word "gay." Just as oblique was a spot, released Wednesday, in which state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell reassures viewers that "Prop. 8 has nothing to do with schools or kids. Our schools aren't required to teach anything about marriage." A casual viewer could have come away from these ads puzzled as to exactly what right thousands of Californians might be about to lose. See Prop. 8 ads' invisible gays Los Angeles Times

gay opinion gay men lesbian opinion

Editorial: Prop 8 = "do the right thing: Vote no on Prop 8"

Same-sex marriage has been legal in California since May, when the state's highest court found that a ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

 

Gay marriage opponents immediately started gathering signatures and got Proposition 8 on the ballot. Prop 8 would amend the state constitution by eliminating the right of these couples to marry.

 

Supporters of the measure (primarily the Mormon Church and other religious conservatives) have been pouring money into advertisements that suggest schools will be required by state law to teach kindergarteners about gay marriage.

 

These are extravagantly distorted claims and are clearly an attempt to scare undecided voters into supporting Prop 8. The fact is that the passage or failure of Prop 8 will have no impact on education in California. Jack O'Connell, the state's public schools chief, said it himself this week, calling the ads alarming and irresponsible.

 

"Our public schools are not required to teach about marriage," O'Connell said. "And, in fact, curriculum involving health issues is chosen by local school governing boards."

 

Ted Mitchell, president of the State Board of Education, confirmed this.

 

"Let me be clear, there is nothing in California state law that would require the teaching of marriage and that will not change," he said.

 

Though the state education code does say that instruction should "teach respect for marriage and committed relationships," it's not as simple as that, as Peter Schrag pointed out in a Sacramento Bee column last week. Local school districts must approve all educational materials before they enter the classroom, and parents have the right to opt out of sex education they find offensive.

 

The advertisements don't stop at schoolchildren though. One online video put out by the Mormon Church (available online at preservingmarriage.org) essentially says if Prop 8 doesn't pass, churches will be forced to accommodate gay marriage ceremonies, doctors morally opposed to homosexuality will be forced to artificially inseminate women in same-sex marriages and faith-based adoption agencies will be forced to allow gay couples to adopt.

 

Again, the fact is that the failure of Prop 8 would do none of these things. The legal definition of marriage in California has no bearing on any of these issues, and to suggest otherwise is misleading and contributes nothing of value to the debate.

 

Prop 8 is not about children or schools. It's not about churches, and it's not about doctors or adoption agencies. None of those things would change if Prop 8 fails.

 

This proposition is about amending the constitution to strip a civil right from an otherwise equal group of California citizens. That's why Californians should look past the scare tactics and do the right thing: Vote no on Prop 8.

 

See Editorial: Prop 8
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