Gay Marriage
milhayser | April 4, 2016In January, Hillary Clinton still possessed the benefit of the doubt. Memories of her and Bill snarling at Barack Obama in 2008 had faded, and despite her long and dreadful record, it's always possible to turn over a new leaf. But Clinton's ongoing response to Bernie Sanders shows why she is unfit for the presidency. Even as the frontrunner, Hillary shows no leadership ability; she, too, follows Sanders, trailing him to the left as he takes meaningful positions on issues like income inequality and campaign finance reform. Her saccharine smile says "I can do that too!" but truly she should be…
denialism | January 28, 2013I was bewildered by this LA times article over the weekend describing the latest tactic of the DOMA defenders planning to argue before the Supreme Court, that is, that marriage is necessary for heterosexuals only because of the possibility of accidental child bearing.
Marriage should be limited to unions of a man and a woman because they alone can "produce unplanned and unintended offspring," opponents of gay marriage have told the Supreme Court.
By contrast, when same-sex couples decide to have children, "substantial advance planning is required," said Paul D. Clement, a lawyer for House…
gregladen | October 5, 2012This WILL be an historic year at the polls when it comes to the issue of same-sex marriage. The question remains, though, what will this year's election, and the society voting in it, be remembered for? There four states with ballot items related to this issue: Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington.
I heard the following from a state legislator the other day. The pages who come from all over the state, brought in by elected members of both of our ruling parties, get together and do political and educational stuff. One thing they do is to vote on issues. Here are two things this…
sastyk | May 10, 2012Let's be honest, when you work on energy and environmental issues for a living, good news is always welcome. And when it is good news that makes your kids happy, well, even better. President Obama's coming forward in support of gay marriage didn't fix all problems, but it made everyone in our home more cheerful.
All the children living in my house have close family members - parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles etc... who are gay. I would say that there is more than passable odds that one of these days one of the little boys in my house will be coming out. All of them know that…
sastyk | December 1, 2011
This video is making the rounds of the internet, and of course, is particularly meaningful to me. Like this young man, I'm the child of a lesbian family with a mother and step-mother. Like him, no one every looked at me and said "you can tell she was damaged by her upbringing in a gay family."
I wouldn't add much to his testimony, but because I'm 20 years older, I would add this. Not only are gay families just like everyone else, but gay and heterosexual households demonstrate this over and over again by the way gay marriages and straight marriages derive and build upon one another.
That…
sastyk | June 27, 2011Friday was a fabulous day, after a very, very long week. For a week, we frantically prepared for our final home visit. Some of it was pretty normal stuff - minor repairs, etc... Some of it, I think was pretty weird - who knew that freshly washed window screens were a requirement to be a good foster parent (yes, they did explicitly require that). They gave us hoops, and we jumped through like trained tigers ;-).
But we passed - in what is still the first biggest news here in our particular tiny household in New York, Eric and I will be (as soon as the paperwork is processed) New York State…
sastyk | April 25, 2011Ed Brayton has a post showing a series of polls that indicate that a majority of Americans now approve a gay marriage.This is good news for a whole host of reasons, among them that gay marriage is good for straight folk too - particularly in a society struggling with economic and environmental issues. I've written about this before, and about why I think gay marriage may be a gift to all marriages:
As long as we view the establishment of a marital household as the creation of something discrete and apart from the families from which they emerged, in both economic and social senses, we find…
sastyk | June 29, 2010This weekend in the Washington Post, there's an article about a couple who first met while serving in various capacities during WWII, who just celebrated their marriage in DC this weekend after a "62 year engagement." This would be a romantic story in any context - but it isn't a story of parted lovers who finally found each other again after decades apart. Instead, it is of two men who have lived a life almost wholly together, sharing work, family and community, but who lacked legal and social recognition.
What's interesting about this story to me is not simply that it is a charming love…
razib | May 14, 2009I heard on the radio several times in the past few weeks commentators refer to minority opposition to gay marriage, specifically the fact that New York and California have large numbers of blacks and Latinos who are voters. I was curious if Latinos really are notably more opposed to gay marriage than non-Hispanic whites. So I looked in the GSS. I limited the data to the years 2006 and 2008 for the variable MARHOMO, which asks:
Do you agree or disagree? j. Homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another.
The sample sizes for the groups are as follows:
Non-Hispanic whites = 2,292…
cwilcox | December 1, 2008A few years ago, there was a lot of debate around a penguin couple at the Central Park Zoo. The couple were clearly very much in love - at least as much as any penguin couple can be, and had been for years. They spent their days making love, singing sweet penguin nothings, and cuddling. They even raised a child - and did a "great job", according to their primary keeper, Rob Gramzay (as quoted in the San Fransisco Chronicle). But still people felt they should not be together, and even tried to ban the book in the gift store about their life. Why? Because Roy and Silo are both males.
Read The…
cwilcox | November 4, 2008I try not to be overtly political, but I personally believe that America has made the right choice today in electing Barack Obama. I was rediculously tired tonight. I wanted nothing more than to go to bed at 9 PM. But I decided that I had to stay up to witness this historic event. Of course, there I was, waiting to hear how Florida's votes would go, and Obama won without them, as soon as Cali, Washington, and Oregon reported. Obama won by a landslide - I couldn't be more relieved. With this election, the US has taken one more step towards true equality and freedom.
However, my joy is tainted…