The California Supreme Court’s historic ruling on gay marriage has already turned into the hottest news item. And, natural, the reactions are coming in. Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger kept his promise and vowed to let by-gones be gay bygones: “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.”
PFLAG’s proud as pie, of course, but mama Molleen Matsumura had an especially touching – and press friendly! – response, “California has embraced our children and affirmed our families… My husband and I are proud to now live in a state where our daughter’s union will be equal to our own.” So cute!
But, there are some people raining on the parade, so to speak…
While she’s surely happy about the gay win, sappoh-journo Nancy Polikoff can’t help but offer this sobering factoid:
…Giving same-sex couples access to the “special rights” of marriage has a downside for those in the LGBT community who don’t marry, and we have four years of marriage in Massachusetts to prove it.
Some employers there no longer offer domestic partner benefits to their employees; it’s marriage or nothing. So much for making marriage a choice for gay and lesbian couples.
Good god! This is just like that episode of Sex and The City, when Carrie had a wedding shower for herself just to get a pair of shoes. That show was so progressive!
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Today’s a great one or most gay Californians, but Karen Gullo rightly points out that this ruling will make things a bit sticky for the Democratic presidential candidates:
The ruling may reverberate in the U.S. presidential race in favor of the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona. It will force candidates to explain their positions on same-sex unions, said Vikram Amar, a constitutional law professor at the University of California at Davis.
“It’s hard to see how this will end up helping Democrats,” Amar said before the ruling. “It feeds into a kind of perception that this is what liberal activist judges do.”
But wait just one second! The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center – of all places! – highlights an important political tidbit: Republican’s created California’s Supreme Court.
Center CEO Lorri L. Jean had this to say:
The California Supreme Court had the integrity and the courage to do its job and say that ALL Californians are entitled to equal protection of the law. This is not an activist court, this is a moderate court. Republican governors appointed all but one of them! And today that moderate Court did exactly what it is supposed to do–it applied the law fairly.
Social conservatives, obviously, do not agree and are already pushing for a constitutional amendment overturning the Supreme Court’s ruling. Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Glen Lavy offered this odiferous opinion,
The government should promote and encourage strong families. The only way to make sure it does so in California is to amend the state constitution to protect marriage. That’s ultimately the only avenue to ensure that no one interferes with the will of the people.
…
The court’s decision clearly demonstrates that marriage is not ultimately safe from tampering by activists and others in government until the voters have amended the constitution.
Governor Schwarzenegger won’t back such an amendment, so Lavy may be screwed, which would probably do him good.
underbear1
Arnold
thanks for NOTHING, and you were so generous with it.
Maria should have gelded you.
el polacko
looks like arnold was correct in his assessment that it was better to let this issue make its way through the courts rather than further complicating the issue. his statement today expressed full support for the court’s decision and he repeated his opposition to the looming amendment initiative to take our rights away.
don’t make him out to be anti-gay.. he has signed more gay rights bills than any governor in history. hooray for california !!
el polacko
.. should have made that ‘caleeeefohhhrrneeya’.. hahaha
ColeWake
Is there a residency law for marriage in California? Our can anyone just go and married?
CHURCHILL-Y
You do not have to be a resident of California to apply for a marriage license there.
Qjersey
Nancy Polikoff’s argument is historically blind and down right more of the same LGBT media elitist bullshit.
We only had domestic partnerships because we couldn’t get gay marriage, DP’s were the bone thrown to us.
And yes Nancy, you have the choice to get married or not, just like straight couples who choose to “live in sin” or get married.
We want to be treated like everyone else, but when we are some twit like Nancy starts with the “oh buts……”
underbear1
go over to Pam’s House Blend, the fundie bat sh*t crazies are going bezerk
btw. could it get any sweeter on the one year anniversary of Falwell’s death, we win marriage equality in our largest state.
Greling
No residency law in California or any provision requiring that the marriage be legal your home state. Get ready for this case to be appealed to the appellate court system and eventually wind up in the Supreme Court, which MUST decide that the Full Faith & Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution guarantees equality NATIONWIDE! 🙂
Philip
And you don’t have to be resident in Canada to get married here.
We also let the courts decide and the politicians pretty much kept their hands off.
Daniel
I was debating a move to Toronto or LA in the fall. Toronto was my number one choice due to this exact issue. Now that I have the choice to marry in California, this puts LA neck and neck with Toronto.
ILOVEZ
OH NO! I got happy for nothing!
thatguyfromboston
Now, don’t waste your hard earned wedding dollars on those west coast johnny-come-lately’s. Come to Massachusetts where we’ve been hitching homos for years!
forbesfart
We do not have to be a residents of California to apply for a marriage license there!
I proposed earlier.My, we are in our forties now and have and are raising a family….I have loved and adored my intended all of my life. It is him I adore,and I asked him to marry me in the great state of Cailfornia in late June 2008.He said yes.
I cannot believe I did it over the phone, duh!!! What was I thinking? Should I get rings, what do we call it? Do we or will we tell anyone, friends and family? We have never given of thought ofactually ‘getting married’.We live in the heartland with marriage bans,will not change our realitie here however it will give me the strength to continue our struggle for full equality everywhere. it will not change anything here except I have wanted to marry him for over twenty five years! We are closer than everbefore.I have never asked him before because, suddenly Iam light on my feet and emotional and happy, I am getting married!
Congrats to everyone!!! Congrats to all who have been waiting to say I do in our country we love. Thank you California
jobradfield
The ruling says it’s unconstitutional to ban gay marriage.
CA can’t not give us marriage, but does that mean we automatically have gay marriage or do we have to wait for another ruling that actually gives us gay marriage?
JJ JJ
This is a good step, however, let’s be clear – there is still not equality. Not until the federal government extends the same marriage righs to gay marriages (ie. taxes) will there be true equality.
The problem truly is a federal issue but under the republican “states rights” bullshit they choose not to address it. Compare that with the republican’s stance on medical marijuana where states pass laws in support, but the fed refuses to support the state’s rights there.
It is a start, but we are not there.
shivadog
Great news, wish it had happened after the election though. This will really bring the right wing nuts out in force.
Jason
you can get married in california today, from what i understand.
of course, all the crazy fundies need is a bare 50% of the popular vote in november if this goes on the ballot (which looks extremely likely). if the voters overturn this, it would be a devastating blow… one thing that preventing voters overturning the mass. decision was the fact that so many ppl had gotten married by the time it would have come up for a vote, and it seemed weird to take physical marriage licenses away from them. also the gov was really supportive. the bar to overturn the decision in california is pretty low–much, much lower than it was in mass. plus it’s coming right on the heals of the decision, and that’s not much time to counter their efforts. so things aren’t looking great on that front. def get married before november if you are planning to at all.
Jason
sorry… i was mistaken. you can’t get married for 30 days.
M Shane
It’s pretty disgusting that this group of “family values” breeders have the nerve to impose their fucked up religious mores on other people’s legal rights. I wonder what these boobs will do when a much needed policy is established to restrict the number of ofspring they can produce.
With respect to the later, It seems that there should be some kind of population restriction currently since it has become impossible apparently to teach anyone to read and write.or do more than teach hatred.
Interestingly, the California Supreme Court was appointed by republicans. They are consevative but not of the criminal ilk Bush has been pushing around.
D. Noonan
Life for me is so EAASSSSYYY now, after all it was Anita Bryant, AND THE Brigg’s Initiative against gay teachers, and other people against any type of equlity in the 70’s. It was that great AIDS in the 80’s It was “Don’t ask Don’t tell,” in the 90’s and now we can all fight over this for the next ten years by then I will be dead, must life be so long and hard??????????
WeTheSheeple
50% + 1. That’s all the religious wackos need to overturn this decision in the fall. They will come out to specifically vote on this amendment, regardless of who the presidential candidates are. That’s how they passed these type of amendments in other states. It’s going to take the pro-equality people getting the same kind of response to have a chance of defeating this. We can’t just sit around and hope enough people will vote against it.
underbear1
D Noonan,
“and now we can all fight over this for the next ten years by then I will be dead, must life be so long and hard??????????”
I was there through all you mentioned, and have fought a three year life prognosis with AIDS,(twenty three years ago)lost my lover in 1990, and lost a dozen friends, and countless aquaintnces.
Yeah life has been hard, but we are “the” generation of gays who finally STOOD UP, and FOUGHT in the open. I won’t see the equality in America, other LGBT youths will win, but I was there fighting every year for my time here, which is the best I could do.
RPCV
Sorry supporters of gay marriage, but, in my view, it’s time for Congress to speak on this matter and pass a constitutional amendment one way or the other. With states going here and there on the issue, it’s just going to get more and more complicated for anyone to understand what’s the law in each of the 50 states.
And, in acting, Congress should uphold the sanctity of male-female marriage with civil unions permissible for gays. The country is not ready for gay marriage, and quite frankly, I don’t think the gay community as a whole is sufficiently mature to treat the privilege responsibly. I can just see all the twinks on meth running to a judge just to get hitched as a joke. Bottom line: The gay community as a whole is flaky, wierd, and undeserving of special rights.
Dave
@RPCV: That’s funny, because in Massachusetts, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, South Africa and the states that provide marriage-lite, including Hawaii, California, New Jersey, Vermont and Connecticut, this hasn’t been the case. Same-sex relationships form and fail at the same rate as heterosexual ones and the dynamics are identical as well.
Civil unions, which differ from marriage primarily in that they are valid only where they are issued, are not useful.
Furthermore, the same diminutive insults could be made about straight people. Or whites. Or blacks. Or Jews. Or Christians. Pick your group, really. But they can all marry within or without their communities.
Rowen
like the straights treat it any more solemnly. not to mention that it’s rather difficult and costly to get a divorce, so anyone who does get married as a joke is in for a big surprise.
John
The sovereignty of the California Republic must be respected. Congress has no right to poke their noses into our business on marriage. This clearly falls under the purview of the 10th amendment. And we can allow the gays to marry (or not) in the Golden State as we please.
I know that’s an alien concept to many other regions. But we’re an independent bunch out West. And we don’t like DC bureaucrats and outsiders from the Midwest / South telling us what to do. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about a conservative state like Nevada or a liberal one like California.
Hands off, Mr. President!
Dexpat Mike
Can someone please explain to me why the whole gay marriage lobby does not shoot back and idiots like Michael Reagan who complain about ‘activist judges.’ Democracy is not about the rule of the majority, this is the tyranny of democracy. Just because 8 out of 10 people want to ban gay marriage does not make it right. The courts exist to protect against the tyranny of the majority and our not activist. This f’s me off to no bloody end.
RPCV
To Dexpat Mike: what in the world are you talking about? Please re-read your comment when you’re off the meth (see my earlier comment) and try to re-write your opinion in a coherent, concise manner.
And gays deserve the right to marry????????? Yikes, that scares me as much as Barack does…….
reversion
@RPCV
HAHA. OH WOW.
Love the ad hominem argument.
Obvious troll is obvious.
RPCV
To Reversion: are you the one selling Dexpat Mike his meth? You wrote: “Obvious troll is obvious.” I must be missing something because I don’t get it. Did you pass 8th grade English writing? And, you probably support gay marriage, too.
Thanks Reversion for helping me prove my point that the gay community is by and large flaky, wierd, and undeserving of special rights.
Jay
RPCV:
It’s spelled WEIRD you moron. Did YOU pass 8th grade English?
And since 50% of straight marriages end up in divorce, it seems like straights aren’t ready for marriage either and should have their rights to do so taken away.
You are pathetic.
reversion
*facepalm.jpg*
lrn2internets
RPCV
Jay, you’re correct, it’s WEIRD. Mea culpa.
The issue is not whether the marriages “work.” Rather, the issue is whether they are permissible under law.
reversion
And that’s why laws can be changed!
Trolls – if they had brains, they just might be dangerous!
Steve
A lot of people seem not to understand the ruling. It is a long, dense read. The ruling does not say that it is unconstitutional to ban “gay marriage”.
It actually says there is no such thing as “gay marriage”. The dispute is about the use of a word, “marriage”, and whether or not a class of people can be denied the use of that word. The court decided that same-sex couples have the same right to use the word “marriage” as opposite sex couples. And if the state denies the use of that word to anyone, it must deny the use of that word to everyone.
The ruling was based on “equal protection” clause of the California constitution. The state is free to choose a different word to denote an intimate committed relationship between two people. But, whatever word they choose, the same word must apply to all such committed relationships. There can be no distinction between classes of people.
This is a critical detail. If the voters pass an amendment to restrict any class of people from “marriage”, then EVERY couple is restricted, and NO couples may be married. Unless, of course, they also repeal the “equal protection” clause.
Bertha Vanation
I’ve heard a very interesting legal opinion that I hope is true. One of the reasons given by opponents of gay marriage for not granting marriage to gay couples is that the California constitution does not specifically call marriage a protected right. It was never specifically stated in the constitution because it was always assumed to be a right. But apparently in their ruling the Cal Supreme Court Justices wrote that the Cal constitution does protect the right to marry. This is the first ruling to specifically state that. According to the analyst, now that the constitutional right to marry has been affirmed by the court, the court could strike down as unconstitutional and constitutional amendment that would effectively deny a specific class of Californians the right to marry. In other words, the court’s ruling this week includes language that would make it possible to strike down the constitutional amendment limiting marriage to only straight couples if it passes in November. I hope this is true, and hope to hear more about it as the ruling is studied.
Rex
You would think these so-called ” religious Folk” would be upset about….oh, I don’t know…..$3 Billion a week going to WAR to KILL people…Hunger in America and Around the world, 47+ Million Americans WITHOUT Healthcare…the economy, Gas Prices…the environment…you know, the Things that REALLY Effect society as a whole? Nahhh – they’re too busy worrying about 2 consenting,committed adults loving each other….PRIORITIES?
Bill Perdue
How do the Pope, Clinton, McCain and Obama differ on same sex marriage?
The unending barrage of bigotry by catholic cultists is closely connected to campaigns of violence and harassment against us. Their opposition to same-sex marriage, in consort with their political partners in crime, the Republican/Democrats in the US and the Tories in England and Canada provide a rallying cry for thugs and skinheads. These violent scum fully understand the message that if we can’t get married it’s because we’re not quite human. And if we’re not quite human, if we’re subhuman, untermensh, second class citizens, it gives them an excuse for violence. Not that they need much in the way of excuses.
The alarming numbers of murders and violence here and elsewhere verify the deadly effects of bigotry by catholic, muslim and protestant cultists and their political allies, the Democrat/Republicans.
When cultists and politicians provoke violence they should be harshly punished, sued and taxed to the limit. They forfeit their cult’s tax free status when they remove their roman collars and put on their brown shirts. Their symbiotic relationship with rightwing and conservative political groups puts us in continuous danger.
Unfortunately we can’t have them persecuted because the Republican/Democrats trash canned the Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes bill and refuse to consider hate speech legislation.
Goat
wow, Bill. Hate speech legislation? Isn’t there a little thing called the first ammendment that would get in the way of that? You know, that same ammendment that gives you the right to say everything you just said?
Don’t be an extremist, unless you’d prefer to resemble the neocons that you supposedly hate so much.
Bill Perdue
Goat, the link between hate speech and violence is pretty well proven beyond a doubt. Such laws exist side by side with free speech provisions in Canada and other nations and provide a deterrent to hate speech and violence.
No one has the right to advocate violence against us. If you think that’s extremism you must not be able to use ketchup because it’s way too hot.
RPCV
Bill Perdue is so full of hate he’s as dangerous (and perhaps even more so) as the groups he rants against. I find hate to be an underlying theme of the writing of and a predominant personality characteristic of many hard core gays activists. That’s why I think that the gay community, by and large, is comprised of flaky, weird, and potentially dangerous people undeserving of special rights such as gay “marriage” (whatever that might be).
southerncharm
Gentlemen,
Please stop arguing about such petty things as how someone spells a word or how someone voices their opinion. Consider yourselves lucky that you live in a state where you can at least have your partner on your insurance or even wait thirty days to get a “married” (I used quotations on purpose because no one is really sure what the bill says obviously). I live in southern Alabama where I can’t even walk down the street holding my partner’s hand without the fear of someone attacking us, verbally or physically. Now I am only twenty-five and haven’t been through as much as many of you, but I think that if we all just stop arguing and try to find a way to resolve this matter peacefully and repsectfully, then we will reach our intended goal when society is ready. The ranting of angry gays are not going to solve anything; just give the opposition more to combat us with. I never thought when I came out that I would one day be able to go anywhere in my own country and be “married” or recieve a civil union with the person that I am intended to be with. We will not be able to grasp the concept of equality until we stop fighting amongst ourselves and start showing the nation and the world that we are people just as they are. With all that said I hope that we can one day pull our community together and stop being as angry and hateful as the people who don’t like us for being us.
southerncharm
Sorry I should proof read it better.