New Jersey lawmakers are waffling over a bill to allow gay marriage. The story is depressing: lots of reps busily weaseling and straining to find an excuse to vote it down. There is also a poll at the site: I trust readers here to be a little more decisive.
Do you support the gay-marriage bill up for a vote in the New Jersey Senate?
Yes 30% (1,334 votes)
No 70% (3,173 votes)
Get in there an demonstrate some positive activity, without excuses.
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Job. Done.
I'm so used to getting to these polls after they have been massively pharyngulated that initially I was surprised to see the results after I voted. And then I realized that this post hasn't been up for very long. :P
Starting to slowly move.
Voted.
Done. She's starting to move, but we're also seeing the NO vote increasing, just not at the same rate:
Yes: 32% (1,546 votes)
No: 68% (3,234 votes)
Yes 34% (1,660 votes)
No 66% (3,258 votes)
Total Votes: 4,918
I lived in Jersey for a while;
Flood this poll, and make me smile.
the position of the Yes and No change after a vote, so take care to read before voting.
Yes 37% (1,967 votes)
No 63% (3,328 votes)
Total: 5,295
Do we have some sort of cheer for this kind of occasion?
Help a New Jerseyan out!
More weddings=more cake/open bars
Over 40% now. The night is young, and we have the numbers to swing this thing.
I am often embarrassed by my home state...I really need to be able to hold my head up after this senate vote.
I voted, but the 'No' list seems to be increasing too. I am sad that such an important issue has come down to a so-called 'popular' poll. Come on New Jersey! Show some spine!
Souper Genyus @ #10:
Ah, but the cake is a lie!!
Putting the "No" vote as first, with Yes second is a bit odd and probably skews the results. Most people assume yes to be the first choice. Because of the reversed order, it subtly implies that "no" is the correct choice.
Odd.
It seems to randomize the order of the answers. Though why you would bother trying to correct for the order effect in an opinion poll online is beyond me.
I don't think there is anything subtle about it, I believe it is very deliberate. It almost caught me off Guard especially because I was curious and looked at the results before I voted and the Yes is on top.
NJ's done some weird stuff. I think they were the first state to outlaw corporal punishment in (public) schools.
More recently they almost (?) passed legislation immunizing non-profits from certain types of lawsuits - most notably it would have affected child sexual abuse. (Guess which religious organization supported this.) I know next to nothing about this; any Jerseyites know?
Yes 49% (3,435 votes)
No 51% (3,637 votes)
Total Votes: 7,072
It's getting better, but not there yet!
Suggestions for future polls:
Have you ever looked at someone other than your spouse lustfully? ( ) Yes ( ) No
If yes, when will you gouge out your eye? ( ) Now ( ) I already did
Should homosexuals be permitted the same contractual rights as heterosexuals? ( ) Yes ( ) No
Should homosexuals be permitted the same contractual rights as heterosexuals? ( ) Yes ( ) Yup ( ) Uh huh ( ) You bet ( ) Right on ( ) Why not?
it's at 50-50
You can vote more than once.
Just broke 51% the right way!
I just came across this for California:
Calif. Federal Judge OKs Posting of Prop 8 Trial to YouTube
With this quote:
I guess "say it loud, say it proud" is out of their grasp.'
The answers should read "Yes, I support their right to marry" or "No, I hate gay people." Isn't that what it comes down to?
Jackal Author | January 7, 2010 12:13 AM:
Why Jackal, why are you trying to deprive bigots of the right to dishonest sophistry?
I think it comes down to thinking that women are second-class citizens as well. I suppose there might be some who oppose it who would view men as the second-class citizens, but I've yet to meet anyone of that stripe.
If there's something magically different about "man/woman" than "man/man" or "woman/woman", I don't see how sexism doesn't enter the picture. I didn't always feel this way, but the more I read about the issue, the more strongly I feel it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the "anti-" literature moves me faster towards the view of "anti-gay" as sexist.
Voted. Yes: 52%, No: 48%
Voted.
Yes 52% (4,417 votes)
No 48% (4,049 votes)
Total Votes: 8,466
Nice movememt! /:-)
Yes 54% (4,755 votes)
No 46% (4,074 votes)
Total Votes: 8,829
Still moving nicely :-)
From the article ""Given the intensely personal nature of this issue" and "They have to come to the realization that we were elected to take sometimes difficult stands"
What exactly is so difficult about upholding the constitution and equal rights?
And if its so bloody personal why does everyone else get to vote on it?
Shall we get married? ...oh I don't know, lets ask the neighbours what they think about us having a legal contract together.
A "difficult stand"? What's so difficult about it unless you're christian, believe in the christian USA myth, and in the totalitarian mantra that "some are more equal than others". It's embarrassing that people can't accept that homosexuals are just normal people in society - no, some people must deny that homosexuality is a fundamental human trait. It also happens to be a trait humans share with other apes and even non-apes. Yet more evidence for evilution!
I voted yes five times. Just so I could make Cuttlefish smile.
*I would have voted yes regardless, but the opportunity to repay Cuttlefish with a smile required an extra couple votes. It's the least I could do!*
Meanwhile, PORTUGAL is set to legalize gay marriage on Friday...
Update:
Yes 59% (5,825 votes)
No 41% (4,118 votes)
Total Votes: 9,943
From negentropyeater's link:
It's a miracle!!11!!1!
This is so that they may yell out "surprise!!!", no doubt. :-)
Yes 60% (6,196 votes)
No 40% (4,191 votes)
Total Votes: 10,387
Yeap, that will bring the list of sovereign nations with legalized same-sex marriage to 8 :
The Netherlands 2001
Belgium 2003
Spain 2005
Canada 2005
South Africa 2006
Norway 2009
Sweden 2009
Portugal 2010
Next in line are Iceland, Luxemburg and Slovenia
So, let's attempt to predict when all 203 sovereign nations in the world will have legalized same-sex marriage :
geometric ?
2000-2004 : N1 = 2
2005-2009 : N2 = 7 = N1 x 3.5
2010-2014 : N3 = 22 = N2 x 3.5
2015-2019 : N4 = 77 = N3 x 3.5
2020-2024 : N5 = 203 !
:-)
or
arithmetic ?
2000-2004 : N1 = 2
2005-2009 : N2 = 7 = N1 + 5
2010-2014 : N3 = 12 = N2 + 5
.
.
2200-2204 : N = 203
:-(
So, sometime between 2024 and 2204, we should have the whole world with legalized same-sex marriage. I know, that's not a very precise prediction...
N1 = 2
N2 = 7
If the rule is N(n+1)=2*N(n)+3,
then N3=17 (2014), N4=37(2019)...
with 157 by 2029
If the rule is N(n+1)=3*N(n)+1,
then it will be 202 by 2024
If the rule is N(n+1)=0.5*N(n)+6, then the number will stop at 12
Two N values is dreadfully little to work with.
isn't it ? :-)
It will most probably follow some kind of S curve : the progression will accelerate until a majority of countries are covered and then it will take a long time to get the rest.
It's probably more like this:
Deffuant, Guillaume (2006). 'Comparing Extremism Propagation Patterns in Continuous Opinion Models'. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 9(3)8
with countries that completely legalize marriage* at one end and countries that prosecute for homosexuality at the other.
*No words are missing here: if some of your adult population can't marry, your marriage laws are incomplete.
Voted several times. Up to 61%--which is a bigger majority than I suspect the bill will get, if it passes at all.
Voted a few times from Denmark. I often wonder why these local polls don't at least restrict voting to only IP-addresses in the US. But I'm happy they don't as I'd be left out of the fun. :)
Wow I am in as ConcernedJoe and did not have to use Baccala - Yippy (until the next time it decides to not work)!
MadScientist #33 (and others) - EXACTLY!
It seems so elementary, natural, good, and so NON-threatening to us (I can speak for my "Trophy Wife" on this).
I've been made uncomfortable by a range of weird, boorish, and/or obnoxious people in my long years. I've even felt literally in danger to the max by a few.
But sexual orientation was not the issue - nor love between "adult" consenting people of same sex. Why should that bother me? I just do not get it?!?
PS I quoted adult in my #45 because even in my day (before the general public used the term gay) as a teenager I knew closet gays. Legally not adult - but to me then and to me now - they were in many ways more mature than the real adults who could not see the danger of their passive acceptance of McCarthy and of other things like war and of the fight against rights.
So adult to me are people acting like responsible adults - for that comment.
*sigh* America is still backwards. God damn we live in a country of idiots. When can the intelligent take it back!?
It's probably a little revisionist to say they ever had it. My personal hope is that Proposition 8 gets overturned. "The will of the people" will always result in one form of tyranny or another -- cf. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem -- and some things should never be subject to a vote.
Voted yes.
Not optimistic about the real world legislative vote, though I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised.
It's now up to 62% for Yes!
Voted Yes
Yes 64% (8,864 votes)
No 36% (5,063 votes)
Total Votes: 13,927
This is something I feel good about breaking out of my longstanding lurkerdom to post.
Shouldn't the UK be added to the list of countries which have legalised same-sex marriage? It is called a 'civil partnership' but I understood that it gave exactly the same rights as marriage.
If 'marriage' is to be preserved as a term for religious unions between a man and a woman, civil partnerships need to be made available to all. That's a different battle.
Quit wussying out, folks. Polls are worthless. Contact those legislators and tell them you want gay constituents to have the same rights as straight ones.
In US jurisdictions that have that have civil partnerships, the legal rights are less than those which attach to civil marriage.
I don't know what the situation is in the UK.
Jessie... Not exactly. The legislation for partnerships is separate from that of marriage. It certainly gives most of the same rights but it's different to having legal marriage opened up to couples of the same gender.
It also seems that the UK legislation does not travel well. You won't get into the USA as the spouse of your partner if they have a work permit (or is even a citizen), for example.
So no, we are most certainly equal here.
It's insane. The bigots, as evidenced by the comments, really think that personal disgust with the idea of homosexual activity is a valid reason to not only call them perverts, but to deny them civil rights. And of course, as always, they instantly lump homosexuality in with pedophilia.
Damn, can we please find out a way to make their ignorant little shitbrains understand?
What are you scientists waiting for - develop than anti-bigotry vaccine, GO!
For the record, I'm hetero, married, and not part of any "gay agenda". I'm just an intelligent person not afraid to use his brain. It just can't be that it takes an IQ of 130+ to get these simple things straight, can it?
The National Organization for Marriage is crowing about how much money they've spent in New Jersey.
See also http://nomblog.com/647/#more-647
In the meantime, this secretive organization (first founded by Mormons for purposes of running anti-gay campaigns, but now in hiding as to who its donors are) puts up a front that it is a "grass roots" organization made up of concerned individuals, but it refuses to reveal those supposed grass roots.
The state legislature is stalling on purpose. Governor Elect Christie takes office in about two weeks and has promised to veto it. Corzine said he would sign it. By waiting for Christie to take office they can appear to be doing the right thing while being fairly sure it ultimately won't pass.
The dating for Canada is a little off - individual provinces began allowing same-sex marriages as early as 2003 - I know, I got one! In slightly more positive news - the Rhode Island legislature has overruled that governor's veto and gay partners can now indeed make funeral arrangments etc.
But yeah, way to weasel an excuse for bigotry, NJ.
Ah, yes, the famous "Citizens Committee of Concerned Citizens".
#55
I always thought the rights granted under civil partnerships and civil marriage are exactly the same.
Can you give an example of a difference ?
#60 that's why I wrote "sovereign nations".
It depends on the particular jusrisdiction. There is no standard definition of what rights are covered.
The whole point of 'partnerships' is to have fewer rights, hoping that will be enough to shut us up about it. It's a strawman to talk of merely avoiding the word 'marriage'.
#64
in the UK, can you name an example of a right granted by civil marriage that is not granted by civil partnership ?
#65
Not a direct answer to your question, but the problem with "separate but equal" is that it doesn't work. If they are equal, why make them separate?
#56
but the same problem applies for a same-sex couple who is fully married under Spanish or Dutch law.
US immigration rights are granted by the USA, not Britain, Spain or The Netherlands.
tsg,
I'd just like to know what's the difference, that's all.
So if you can name me a difference, you'll answer my question.
Betty Bowers talks about anti-gay campaigns and other right-wing oddities. The latter half of the video really puts the screws to the mormons.
and again, I'm talking UK.
I know a lot of diffeences between civil union (PACS) and civil marriage in France for example.
But I don' know any in the UK.
@negentropyeater
If I could, I would have. Not being from the UK I'm not terribly familiar with UK marriage law. My point, ultimately, is that whether they are the same or not is immaterial. If they are the same thing, don't give them different names. If they aren't, then it isn't equal rights.
negentropyeater (@39):
No bet. I just hope it's not in the year 2525!
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and progress is not inevitable.
I wouldn't even bet on western Europe.
Which way is Mecca?
tsg,
As a homosexual, I want equal rights. As long as I have equal rights, the name of the piece of paper that grants me these rights matters very little to me. Nothing stops me from calling myself "married", or inviting my friends to my "marriage ceremony" if that's what I want.
Why call it differently if it grants the same rights is beyond me, and frankly, as someone who is suffering a lot from not being able to mary my life long Malaysian partner, of very little importance.
One more vote cast for equality.
--------------------
@Douglas Watts [#15],
Reload the page/poll a few times. They're (randomly?) alternating positions of yes & no in order to (attempt to) foil poll crashing.
As a married heterosexual, I want you to have the exact same rights I do, and I think the best way of not only granting them now, but ensuring that you keep them, is by calling them exactly the same thing in the law. I do understand your question is important. All I'm trying to say is that if there weren't two separate institutions, you wouldn't have to ask it.
tsg and negentropyeater:
I agree with both of you. On one hand, like tsg, I want you both to have exactly the same rights without regard to your sexuality; on the other hand, like neg, I don't much care what the nomenclature is; but on the gripping hand, like tsg, I think equality of nomenclature matters.
Personally, I don't think the state has any legitimate interest in people's private, consensual sexual behavior, and my ideal would be for all reference to consensual sexual behavior to be stricken from the public law... including implicitly any presumption about the sexual behavior (or gender) of people who enter into the civil domestic partnership we currently call "marriage" (and thus confusingly conflate with the sacramental pair bonding practiced by many religious communities under the same name). My preferred solution (which I've mentioned here before) would be to do away with civil marriage altogether, and replace it with some form of domestic partnership that would encompass the same legal and economic rights and responsibilities, but which would make no reference whatsoever to sexuality.
But, as I ain't waitin' underwater for any such utopian development, the next best thing is precisely equal treatment of "marriage" for hetero and non-hetero couples. I'm confident we'll get there, at least in "the West," sometime before the year 2525.
Re: #69
Mrs. Betty Bowers is made of awesome.
I don't know. Would the UK have passed a bill allowing same-sex marriages faster than the civil partnership act ?
I agree.
Look, I of course prefer if the law calls it marriage. But if I can get equal rights faster by calling it differently, I'll take whatever they want to call it.
That's how desperate I am.
Bill,
If they'd drop the "same-sex requirement" from the civil partnership act in the UK, that's exactly what you'd get.
But that probably won't happen as long as Cameron is PM.
Negentropyeater
Sadly, the UK would not have passed a bill allowing same-sex marriage at all. I didn't expect to see anything like civil partnerships in my lifetime though.
So if all formal domestic partnerships entered into as life-long commitments were called 'civil partnerships' and 'marriage' were an optional religious ceremony, that would mean parity in the law and the religious could not claim that 'marriage' had been hijacked, weakened, tainted etc. I think that could work in the UK. Could it work in the US?
Incidentally, does the US recognise all heterosexual marriages of foreigners, including those of people who would be too young to marry in the US or polygamous ones?
I believe this to be a bad idea for several reasons, not the least of which is that the opposition to gay marriage has been largely on the presumption of protecting marriage, and the very last thing we need to do is hand them a bill that they can say is eliminating it. Yes, I know that's not what it would be doing, but politics is all about appearance and very little about actual fact.
Secondly, I can think of no clearer way to say to everyone, "these rights that we have, you now have, too" than by opening the existing institution to the group that has been excluded from it for so long. Personally, I don't want the bigots to even have the opportunity to say "you're not really married". Gays should be able to look them right in the eye and say, "according to the state, the very same body that says you are, I am. What your god has to say about it matters not the least either to me or them."
Lastly, it also means that insurance companies and hospitals will have to go out of their way to discriminate against gays. Redefining marriage to include gays means there won't be any of these battles over the details taking place every time there is a separate but equal policy that turns out to be not quite equal.
You do have a point. As a heterosexual, I have the luxury of being more idealistic and waiting for what I consider to be the proper solution rather than a partial solution which could make it hard to get true equality later. I consider anything less than true equality (which I don't think is possible with "separate but equal") to be a loss. But then, it doesn't directly affect me.
tsg:
Well, keep in mind that [a] I already acknowledged that my "ideal solution" is not a viable political solution, and I'm not offering it as a proposal for legislation, and [b] my ideal approach to regularizing marriage is part of my larger philosophical goal (which I also recognize is not viable as a real-world political initiative) of making the public law entirely sex-blind. That is, I don't accept that the state — any legitimate state, regardless of its political model — has any compelling interest in regulating, or even noticing as a matter of law, the private, consensual behavior of its citizens (unless that behavior constitutes a crime on some other objective, nonsexual basis).
My ideal expunging of sexuality from the law would not only take sex out of domestic partnership arrangements, it would also have the effect of legalizing (or preventing the future criminalization of, as applicable) prostitution and other sex work, contraception, so-called "sodomy," sex toys, pornography... all the things that are only touched by the law in the first place because they relate to sexuality. I'm fully aware that this is a utopian position that would be fraught with political peril if anyone tried to act on it within our political world-as-it-is. But as a matter of principle it's how I'd set things up if I were made king of the world for a day, or if we were building our society from scratch.
All that said, though, what I'm talking about isn't really ending marriage, but returning the allegedly spiritual aspect of marriage to the realm of the churches, and deconflicting that aspect with the secular civil law. One argument against legalizing gay marriage is that it would amount to the state sanctioning, presumably on behalf of all its citizens, a sexual practice that some of them consider sinful. On plausible remedy is for the state to stop sanctioning (or condemning) any sexual behavior, because what reason does it have to do so in the first place?
The more rational religious folks should welcome such a change, much as some of them actually support a strong separation of church and state in other areas: My idea should really seem, from the religious POV, to be an instance of "render[ing] unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's." What's not for them to like? ;^)
Ahh, but the intersection of religion and politics (in the U.S., at least) is, sadly, not occupied by such relatively rational, liberal-minded believers.
The Neanderthals won the day 20-14 (apologies to anthropologists who study actual Neanderthals). :-(
Chin up! The tide is on the side of the tolerant and rational. :-)
Boo on NJ. You jumped onto the wrong side of the fence.
As a person with many gay friends I too want them to have what I have (totally equal marriage rights)and yet I want them to have they need also (hospital visitation rights,insurance and property rights, adoption and childbearing rights, etc). So I have always voted for civil unions when the question came up (and failed in Colorado, sad to say) but I do think it is wrong for the state to say "...you can only have this". I think that the real solution has to be judicial, a recognition of equal rights under the constitution, rather than legislatively chipping away at the inequity. But it seems that is what we are left with.
As a dutchie i would like to comment that we in the Netherlands first had the so called homo-huwelijk, a domestic partnership, before marriage was opened to same-sex partners.
So now we have this situation where you can live together and have nothing arranged (but if on welfare you'll be treated as a couple), live together and file taxes and such together, live together or apart and be in a domestic partnership (for arrangements for kids and wills and such you have to get more apart expensive settlements) or a marriage in which all things are settled at once, but if it's not to your liking you still have to get a sollicitor. The first two are for every adult, the last two only for those who are not else closely related.(eg no incest)
I know both homo- and hetero-couples in domestic partnerships and mariages.
It took years and it came in little steps. I'm not saying that one must be patient, be as loud as you like, just don't expect immediate results. Or migrate to the Netherlands. (^.^)
Man that's disappointing. It must feel like the US is going backwards rather than forwards, as time after time the cowards and bigots win : NJ, Maine, California. Just another reason for my partner and I not to visit the US.
@Bill Dauphin #54
I apologize. I wasn't trying to imply that you advocated this stance as a practical solution. However, I have had conversations with a number of people who do and felt it necessary to expand on why it is not.
------
In other news...
From here:
This is precisely what I was talking about when I mentioned "partial solutions that may make it harder to get full equality later." We have the appearance of equal rights, so the fact that they aren't really equal doesn't matter.
The US is increasingly left in the dust as Portugal approves same-sex marriage. Though that doesn't include adoption rights.