Gay Rights
stcynic | March 16, 2005Julian Sanchez, the always incisive assistant editor at Reason magazine, has an interesting article about yesterday's California Superior Court ruling that struck down the state's ban on gay marriage as forbidden by that state's constitution. He points out something interesting about the judge's ruling:
But perhaps the most interesting part of Judge Kramer's opinion has received surprisingly little attention. Kramer applied the lowest level of judicial scrutiny when he considered whether marriage discrimination was rationally related to any legitimate state purpose. In this, he followed the…
stcynic | March 14, 2005A California Superior Court judge has ruled that a ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional in that state. I know nothing about the California state constitution, so I have no idea if the ruling is legally justified or not, but this part certainly nails the crux of the whole issue:
"It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners," Kramer wrote.
The judge wrote that the state's historical definition of marriage, by itself, cannot justify the denial of equal protection for gays and lesbians.
"The state's protracted denial of equal…
stcynic | March 11, 2005Wouldn't you know it, the gays have riled up the Jerusalem Prayer Team by hosting a gay pride parade in that holy city. Now I'm not a big fan of such parades, but this one sounds pretty tame even according to the people opposed to them:
The global homosexual gathering, organized by InterPride, the International Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered Pride Coordinators, was last held in 2000 in Rome, where it attracted about a quarter of a million participants. Images of the Rome festivities, featured on various homosexual websites, shows throngs of shirtless men in shorts and…
stcynic | March 9, 2005My first post on In the Agora, a reprint of the open letter to gay marriage opponents that I published here a few months ago, prompted an exchange of comments with ajmac, who posts at this blog. He responded to it in comments, and in this post on his blog. He seems simultaneously to be defensive at being called a bigot (which I did not do) and derisive of those who disagree with him. He says:
Opposition to traditional views of homosexual conduct is borne not out of a desire to promote licentiousness but rather out of a misplaced empathy. First, one drinks the Kool-aid and becomes convinced…
stcynic | March 7, 2005A bit of an argument has erupted among my closest blog neighbors over the question of gay marriage and polygamy. It began with Jon Rowe's post last month in which he argued that the arguments for gay marriage do not necessarily lead logically to the acceptance of polygamous marriages. Jon was not arguing that we should ban polygamous marriages, only that there are meaningful differences between gay marriages and polygamous marriages that could legitimately be cited to justify accepting gay marriages but not polygamy. The money quote, as Jon called it himself:
Note that the grounds for…
stcynic | March 4, 2005As anyone who reads this blog knows, I stand shoulder to shoulder with a lot of good people, gay and straight, in being staunchly in favor of equal rights for gays and lesbians. Like any large group, however, gay rights advocates have our share of people who take things to such ridiculous extremes that they give ammunition to those who oppose equality. A perfect example is the recent uproar started by the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) at Harvard, who are up in arms over a presentation by actress Jada Pinkett Smith. Why are they upset? Not because Smith…
stcynic | March 1, 2005Jason Kuznicki has a fascinating exchange with a blogger by the name of Chris Byrne. Along the way, he points out the often irrational nature of anti-gay bigotry with examples from his own life. I think Jason misinterprets Byrne to some degree. He was not arguing that homophobia does not exist, only that not everyone who disagrees with homosexuality or considers it wrong is motivated by homophobia. On that question, I would agree with Byrne, but I think there is more detail required to get to the root of that question. The first thing that needs to be said is that there are many different…
stcynic | February 21, 2005Sanders has a scathing post on Alan Keyes throwing his daughter out of the house and cutting off all contact with her:
People say that blue staters and Democrats need to learn to talk the language of morality. Fine. Keyes' daughter has done one of the noblest and most moral human things possible -- claimed her right to autonomy, and pledged honesty to herself and in her relationships with others. She says she loves her father, and that she thinks "most parents would be thrilled to have a child who doesn't smoke, have sex, do drugs, hardly drinks . . . does well in school, gets good grades,…
stcynic | February 18, 2005Our new troll, mynym, has been a busy little beaver, leaving no fewer than 16 comments in under 2 hours. Looks like he is trying really hard to make his prediction of getting banned a self-fulfilling prophecy by being a major league pain in the ass. His M.O. isn't hard to discern; it appears to be a three part strategy:
A. Leave a quote from a book or article he found, then draw a conclusion from it as though the mere fact that he quoted it proves it to be true
B. Phrase the conclusion by lumping whoever he is answering into an easily dismissed category. His favorites seem to be "leftists", "…
stcynic | February 16, 2005Someone using the name "mynym" has left a couple of comments in reply to this post comparing the arguments against gay marriage with the arguments against interracial marriage. Since my response will likely be very long, I thought I'd move it up to its own post. It's an odd set of comments, addressing arguments I did not make and doing so primarily through a series of quotes from others who disagree with me. Let's look at them one by one.
"This argument, the so-called Loving analogy (after Loving v. Virginia) has force, but it overlooks a major distinction between miscegenation laws and the…
stcynic | February 16, 2005Colbert King wrote a fascinating column in the Washington Post the other day about the history of laws against interracial marriage, or miscegenation. He points out that the appeal to natural law, longstanding tradition and religious tenets, so often heard as arguments against gay marriage, were also used in opposition to interracial marriage:
The Georgia Supreme Court in 1869 based its interracial marriage ban on natural law, observing that "the God of nature made it otherwise, and no human law can produce it, and no human tribunal can enforce it."
Hear the 1871 Indiana Supreme Court…
stcynic | February 14, 2005Maya Keyes has finally been disowned by her father, the uber-right Alan Keyes. According to Maya, not only have they thrown her out of the house and refused to pay for her tuition at Brown University, they've also stopped speaking to her. She'll be able to stay with friends, and the Point Foundation, a charity that helps pay tuition for gay students, has stepped up to help with the cost of college. But how do you replace contact with your parents? What they are doing isn't love, it's sick and twisted and destructive. Maya has it right:
"They say most parents would be thrilled to have a child…
stcynic | February 11, 2005Eugene Volokh has a post about Michigan's new law against gay marriage, passed by referendum in November, being used as a weapon against state and local governments offering benefits to gay couples. During the ugly campaign for and against the referendum last fall, opponents of the referendum pointed out that the language was broad enough that it could also be used to take away domestic partnership benefits that are part of collective bargaining agreements between states, localities and corporations and their employees. Proponents of the referendum denied that this would happen:
Citizens for…
stcynic | February 7, 2005Chris Geidner has a roundup of the reactions from around the blogosphere to last week's New York court ruling in favor of gay marriage, including analysis of the decision from Jack Balkin, Patterico, Kip Esquire and others. I've not read the decision yet, but my friend Dan Ray sent me it to me last night. He had the same reaction to it that Jack Balkin had, which is that while he agreed with the outcome, he thought it was pretty strange decision that would either give the court of appeals ample room to overturn it, or would require them to affirm it on substantially different legal grounds.
stcynic | February 4, 2005A New York state court ruled today that gay couples must be allowed to marry in that state. Like the decision in Massachusetts, this decision is based upon the NY state constitution, not the U.S. Constitution, so it only is enforcable in that state. But it is still an enormously important ruling. The judge, Doris Ling-Cohan, correctly said, "Simply put, marriage is viewed by society as the utmost expression of a couple's commitment and love." There simply is no rational reason why gay couples should be denied that opportunity when they are every bit as capable of making that loving commitment…
stcynic | January 21, 2005And does so with his usual brilliance and clarity. His post is in response to this one by Mark Olson. Jason sums it all up so perfectly:
I must begin by saying that I do not seek respect for the gay community. Far too often, the gay community has been spoiled, immature, ignorant, and yes, purely anti-family. I don't seek to apologize for these people. In return, I ask that you do not judge me along with them. I ask to be considered as an individual--not as a member of some shadowy, vaguely-defined gay community.
The gay community is the receptacle, Mr. Olson, of all the stereotypes you have…
stcynic | January 20, 2005First it was Jerry Falwell publicly claiming that Tinky Winky was gay; then a bunch of "pro-family" groups actually claimed that the animated movie A Shark's Tale was encouraging kids to be transvestites; now it's James Dobson's turn, taking aim at Spongebob Squarepants. His spokesman says that a new video by the We Are Family Foundation, featuring about 100 cartoon characters dancing to the song We Are Family to encourage tolerance and caring for one another, is "an insidious means by which the organisation is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids."
Yeah, what could be more…
stcynic | January 11, 2005I found the actual text of the bill proposed by Alabama Representative Gerald Allen, the runaway winner of last month's Robert O'Brien Trophy (formerly the Idiot of the Month award). It's pretty ridiculous stuff, and it goes even further than I thought. It even prohibits public universities and colleges in Alabama from using any public money to purchase any books that even recognize homosexuality:
No public funds or public facilities shall be used by any state agency, public school, public library, or public college or university for the purchase, production, or promotion of printed or…
stcynic | January 10, 2005I am very disappointed to report that the Supreme Court has refused the cert petition in Lofton, the case that seeks to overturn the Florida ban on adoption by gay individuals or couples. They will not hear the case, which leaves the appeals court ruling that upheld the law in place. This does not necessarily indicate that the court would not have struck down the law; many considerations go into deciding which cases to hear.
In upholding a Florida law prohibiting gays from adopting children, a lower court had challenged the logic behind the Supreme Court's landmark 2003 opinion striking…
stcynic | January 4, 2005Tony Mauro has a column up about the Lofton case I mentioned a few days ago. The ACLU is asking the Supreme Court to hear this case challenging the Florida law that bans gays from adopting children, the only law of its kind in the nation. The case involves a gay couple who have taken in six children, all high risk, from infancy and raised them successfully as a family. Mauro notes, as I did, that all of the leading child welfare organizations are on the side of the plaintiffs and argue that the law inhibits the ability to place children into stable families.