SubscribeFurthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.
"California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says that if an initiative to ban gay marriage qualifies for the November ballot, he's prepared to fight it.
California's governor spoke Friday in San Diego at the convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation's largest gay Republican group.
He has previously vetoed bills that would have legalized gay marriage. A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman did not say what prompted the governor to shift his position.
Schwarzenegger said he was confident a ban would never pass in California and called the effort 'a waste of time.'"
"I respect the Court’s decision and as Governor, I will uphold its ruling. Also, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling."Naturally, them's just words - but it's nice to hear/read such a thing from a Republican on this.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
With Marriage, Gay Couples Face Tax Tangles.
Navigating Income Taxes for Married Same-Sex Couples .
"I welcome the California Supreme Court’s historic decision. I have long fought against discrimination and believe that the State Constitution provides for equal treatment for all of California’s citizens and families, which today’s decision recognizes.
I commend the plaintiffs from San Francisco for their courage and commitment. I encourage California citizens to respect the Court’s decision, and I continue to strongly oppose any ballot measure that would write discrimination into the State Constitution.
Today is a significant milestone for which all Californians can take pride."
"I respect the Court’s decision and as Governor, I will uphold its ruling. Also, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling."
"I try very hard to be a responsible citizen and as a gay man I try very hard to keep track of the marriages I have destroyed, and there really aren't that many. I may have some secret admirers out there and I may have wreaked more havoc than I realize, but they haven't called."
"Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able."
So we should give all the power to the Supreme Court that decided Bush vs. Gore.?
Making ass-slave converts of your children
According to several sources, including Johnson and Lenore, Obama said he did not think it was “politically feasible” to secure marriage rights for same-sex couples in the country at this point. Sen. Obama acknowledged that the community wanted full marriage rights but said that he favored civil unions for now while leaving open the possibility that his position might evolve in the future.
The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.The road to progress is never, ever a smooth one -- but either we travel it, or we stay lost in the wilderness. Today's decision was one more step down that road. We will be pushed back, hard. It is simply up to us to push back, harder and longer, till we win.
kirkaracha: I think you meant to say Vernon Robinson, yes?
"The Marriage and Family Protection Act was introduced by Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, and Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, on Friday. The bill would make marriage a gender-neutral proposition in Minnesota, allowing same-sex couples to marry. It would also protect religious institutions that have moral objections to same-sex marriage from being compelled to perform such ceremonies."
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.-from MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail
"With California poised to allow same-sex marriage, battle-worn activists in the Bay State said yesterday that Massachusetts is about to be thrust into the spotlight again, this time as an object lesson in the practical ramifications and political implications of allowing gays to wed.
Those advocates said the spotlight will only intensify over the next several months, as Californians opposed to their high court's decision push for a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage that is likely to appear on the ballot in November. A similar push for an amendment in Massachusetts sparked an epic fight before ultimately failing on Beacon Hill last June.
...Many activists on both sides said they expected to be called upon to share their experiences, and their advice with their allies on the West Coast. Still, as people distilled the news and pored over the ruling, it was too early to tell how active local advocates would become in California.
But there was no question that the Massachusetts experience would be preeminent.
'Massachusetts will provide a case study to Californians, and really many other states, on what happens in this situation - what our opponents do and how the gay community should respond,' said Arline Isaacson, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus.
'We really are a case study in how our community won,' said Isaacson, who helped lead the fight to defeat the proposed ban in Massachusetts, 'so they're going to be coming here to see what we did right and what we did wrong and why we managed to prevail.'"
Nationally, the Massachusetts ruling stoked fears of liberal judges run amok, bedeviled John Kerry in his presidential bid, and goosed Congress into threatening its own constitutional amendment to prohibit gay unions. But in Massachusetts, the polls flipped by March 2005: Fifty-six percent of voters in the state were now on the side of the gay couples, with only 37 percent still opposed, according to the Boston Globe. Legislators who'd started down the path of overturning the court's ruling found themselves unexpectedly blocked.
"On May 17, 2004, when Massachusetts began marrying its gay couples, that simple declaration — emblazoned on golden stickers shaped like deputy sheriff's badges and proudly worn by ecstatic gay-rights supporters — celebrated a seismic shift. State-approved gay marriage was no longer a theoretical possibility. It was a reality.
Now, a year and more than 6,100 gay weddings later, the reviews are in. Folks in Massachusetts, the first in the nation to experience this expansion of freedom, have swung 180 degrees to favoring it.
Bay State voters now overwhelmingly support gay marriage, 56% to 37%, according to a Boston Globe poll in March. That's a breathtaking turnabout from February 2004. Back then, after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that gays had to be allowed to marry but before the marriages began, voters opposed the change, 53% to 35%.
...While the outside world debates how to treat its gay couples, Massachusetts sees that fire-and-brimstone predictions didn't come true.
Religious institutions haven't been forced to bless the civil marriage of any gay couple, though many have done so voluntarily. Nor did supporting the court's order to extend all the state-conferred rights and responsibilities of marriage trigger a ballot-box backlash against gay-friendly lawmakers.
Having lived with gay marriage, Massachusetts seems a bit smitten with it. By 65% to 34%, voters say it hasn't weakened the institution of marriage. Only 13% say gay marriage has had a negative effect on married heterosexuals. And 71% expect the state to 'become more and more accepting of same-sex marriage,' Decision Research found in surveying 600 registered voters for MassEquality, a pro-gay marriage group."
"Cuba's gay community celebrated unprecedented openness — and high-ranking political alliances — with a government-backed campaign against homophobia on Saturday.
The meeting at a convention center in Havana's Vedado district may have been the largest gathering of openly gay activists ever on the communist-run island. President Raul Castro's daughter Mariela, who has promoted the rights of sexual minorities, presided.
...Mariela Castro joined government leaders and hundreds of activists at the one-day conference for the International Day Against Homophobia that featured shows, lectures, panel discussions and book presentations.
...Cuba's parliament is studying proposals to legalize same-sex unions and give gay couples the benefits that people in traditional marriages enjoy.
In the days leading up to the California Supreme Court's historic same-sex marriage ruling Thursday, the decision "weighed most heavily" on Chief Justice Ronald M. George -- more so, he said, than any previous case in his nearly 17 years on the court.
The court was poised 4 to 3 not only to legalize same-sex marriage but also to extend to sexual orientation the same broad protections against bias previously saved for race, gender and religion. The decision went further than any other state high court's and would stun legal scholars, who have long characterized George and his court as cautious and middle of the road.
But as he read the legal arguments, the 68-year-old moderate Republican was drawn by memory to a long ago trip he made with his European immigrant parents through the American South. There, the signs warning "No Negro" or "No colored" left "quite an indelible impression on me," he recalled in a wide-ranging interview Friday.
"I think," he concluded, "there are times when doing the right thing means not playing it safe."
wiki: Lithuanian men competed in two of the pre-war Eurobasket competitions for the European championship. They won both [..]. The 1939 team [...] helped popularize basketball in the country [...].They aren't exactly newcomers.
During the Soviet era, Lithuanian players frequently formed the core of the Soviet national team. This was especially so for the 1988 Olympic gold medal winners, which got most of their scoring from four Lithuanians, namely Valdemaras Chomičius, Rimas Kurtinaitis, Šarūnas Marčiulionis and Arvydas Sabonis.
Lithuania won bronze medals in the first three Olympics to feature NBA players—1992, 1996, and 2000, and finished fourth in 2004.
The Lithuanian team won the Eurobasket 1937, 1939 and Eurobasket 2003.
"...Mr. Paterson said he believes deeply that gay men and lesbians today face the same kind of civil rights battle that black Americans faced. He acknowledged that this position put him at odds with some black leaders, who bristle at such comparisons. 'In many respects, people in our society, we only recognize our own struggles,' Mr. Paterson said. 'I’ve wanted to be someone in the African-American community who recognizes the new civil rights struggle that is being undertaken by gay and lesbian and transgendered people.'"
However, that perspective seems to have been formed at a very young age:
"Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald, he said, were a gay couple, though in the 1960s few people described them that way. They helped young David with his spelling, and read to him and played cards with him. 'Apparently, my parents never thought we were in any danger,' the governor recalled on Thursday in an interview. 'I was raised in a culture that understood the different ways that people conduct their lives. And I feel very proud of it.' ... 'All the time when I’d hear Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald and my parents talk, they were talking about the civil rights struggle,' Mr. Paterson said. 'In those days, I knew I wanted to grow up and feel that I could change something.'"*
By the way, do I even need to mention that with the Rapture-ready blissfully ensconced behind the pearly gates the rest of us will be left in peace to enjoy our bedrooms and our most personal intimate relationships on our own terms?Plus the economy would rebound, teens would get proper sex education, stem cell research would be an all-go, and religion wouldnt be a core part of the supposedly areligious government.
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