Gay Marriage MERGED

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040515/ap_on_re_us/gay_marriage_courts&cid=519&ncid=716





Supreme Court Won't Block Gay Marriages


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By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON - The Supreme Court refused Friday to block Massachusetts from allowing gay marriages beginning Monday, removing the last legal impediment to what will be the nation's first state-sanctioned same-sex weddings.


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The justices declined without comment to intervene and block clerks from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples in Massachusetts. The state's highest court ruled in November that the state Constitution allows gay couples to marry, and declared that the process would begin Monday.



The Supreme Court's decision, in an emergency appeal filed Friday by gay marriage opponents, does not address the merits of the claim that the state Supreme Judicial Court overstepped its bounds with the landmark decision.



A stay had been sought by a coalition of state lawmakers and conservative activists. The stay request had been filed with Supreme Court Justice David Souter (news - web sites), a Massachusetts native who handles appeals from the region. He referred the matter to the full nine-member court.



Mathew Staver, president and general counsel of the Florida-based Liberty Counsel, which sought the stay, said he was disappointed by the ruling. He is still looking forward to arguing the case next month before the federal appeals court, and then this fall before the Supreme Court.



Advocates for same-sex couples were relieved to hear the Supreme Court declined to intervene.



"Couples who aren't tied in to the recent legal and legislative actions have been nervous wrecks about whether they could marry starting Monday," said Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. "Now they can all breathe a sigh of relief."



A federal judge ruled against a coalition of state lawmakers and conservative activists, including groups in Boston, Michigan, Florida and Mississippi, on Thursday. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) upheld that decision Friday, setting up the Supreme Court appeal. The appeals court agreed to hear arguments on the request to bar same-sex unions in June, after several weeks of legal gay marriages.



"This is a setback. This is certainly not the end of the road," Staver said, adding that the Supreme Court rarely issues emergency injunctions. "We're going to continue to the next step, and after that, we look forward to arguing the case before the Supreme Court, whether we win or lose — that's where the case will ultimately end."



Mary Bonauto, the lead attorney for the seven same-sex couples who sued the state for the right to marry, said she was relieved, but not surprised.



"Reduced to its essence, this has always been a case where people unhappy with the court ruling were trying to dress it up in a federal constitutional claim that Massachusetts was a tyranny," Bonauto said.



But all the SJC did in its ruling, she said, "was what courts have been doing for hundreds of years ... reviewing laws for compliance with the Constitution and saying when laws deny basic rights to a group of people."



At an anti-gay marriage rally in Fanueil Hall on Friday, a crowd of about 500 booed when it learned of the Supreme Court's decision. Several speakers spoke of the need to fight against what members of the largely Christian crowd called "sexual sin."



"The problem is they're being told that their sin is wonderful and fine," said Sandy Rios, former president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative public policy organization. She warned that gay marriage could have negative effects on families.



Staver had told justices in a filing that they were not asking the Supreme Court "to take any position on the highly politicized and personally charged issue of same-sex marriage."



Instead, Staver wrote, they wanted the court to consider whether the Massachusetts judges wrongly redefined marriage. That task should be handled by elected legislators, he said.



In the Supreme Court's last ruling involving gay rights, justices ruled last year that states may not punish gay couples for having sex. In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) complained that the court "has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda" and was inviting same-sex marriage.





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This is great. T4P (thanks for posting)

 

Either way, the terms sounds silly and stupid. With this sort of terminology, it seems as if a black and white couple would have to indicate to the world each time that it is an interracial couple.

"Are you married, single, divorced or widowed?"

"I'm married."

"To a man or to a woman?"

"To a woman, but to a woman of another race."

I don't think we'll ever hear something like that. I don't approve of the term gay marriage. What if one of the parties is bi-sexual? What if two people of the same sex are actually both straight? Anyone ever think of that?

Of course, the right wingers would have a field day with the term "same-sex marriage" because then they would say that a human male would be able to marry his male Weimaraner.

Ugh !

 

you are exactly right. it's completly irrelavent. but society always runs way far behind in understanding almost anything. it's gonna be a LOOOOONG time before things are fully changed (if they ever are).

 

things will eventually get changed compleatly...it may take a long long time, but it will happen. Society cant keep us a secret forever and theyre going to have to face that sooner or later.
Someday, someday.

 

and now look where we are.

 

Where are we?

 

Just curious:

Has anyone heard that wearing a wedding band on your right hand is a sign for gay couples making a marriage like commitment.

My friend told me this, and I'd never heard about it before.

Thanks

 

Not sure about this. The whole gay marriage thing has been blown out of all proportion though. I know in America you've got the whole morality issue, but here they could just introduce a civil partnership as an alternative to marriage and be done with it.

 

I have always seen it done on the left hand.

 

i've had gay friends who wear their rings on their left and i've had gay friends who wear theirs on their right. i've also got irish friends (straight) who wear theirs on their right. huh. well my partner and i are irish AND gay and we have two wedding rings: one for each hand. we had our civil union in VT 2 years ago.

 

ive heard of the idea... but gay love/straight love, its all the same, so why try to create new differences by implying somehow your marriage differs from the straight couple's marriage next door?

 

"SAN FRANCISCO - [size=-1]A judge ruled Monday that California's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional — a legal milestone that, if upheld on appeal, would open the way for the most populous state to follow Massachusetts in allowing same-sex couples to wed. "[/size]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20050315/ap_on_re_us/gay_marriage_13

has anyone heard about this?

 

nup but it sounds cool! u know what sux tho? is that because george bush decides to ban gay marraiges my prime minister (john howard-im australian) decides he doesnt wanna loose his "street cred" n bans them too. NO FAIR. *sigh* i guess thats life but that reely is a good sign that there is hope n there is someone who believes that politicians dont have the right to dictate someones peronsonal life that wont even effect the politician him/her self
peace!

 

Yes, I did. The problem is that the judge made his ruling based on the California state Constitution. And conservatives are already preparing to mount a campaign to put a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the June 2006 California ballot.

I'm still waiting for a court to REALLY "do the right thing" and invoke the FEDERAL Constitution to strike down these anti-gay-marriage laws. They all violate the First Amendment separation of church and state by constituting a government endorsement of an anti-gay religious doctrine that is not universally accepted by every faith.

The U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately have the last word. In the wake of its 2003 ruling that struck down the last remaining anti-sodomy laws, the only justification that remains to ban gay marriage is religious. The state cannot use that justification without violating the First Amendment.

--Skeeter

 

i really hope that the gay-marriage issue gets better!

 

im straight but i thought i would come and say this. I FUCKING WANT TO KILL ALL THOSE REDNECKS THAT ARE OPPOSED TO GAY MARRIAGE. OMFG.

ah thats better.

They have no reason to ban it. All they have is their stupid false religion which they mis-interpret anyway.

 

Right, man!
(so difficoult here in Italy, where new pope is again so important for country laws and he's taking day by day abnorm power in italians mind, since few years ago really a-religious)

 

I agree..... I don't get it, they arn't hurting anybody, they just want to marry the one they are madly in love with just like evryone else, what's so bad about that. and I for one think they make very great parents, they'll have very loving, and open-minded kids, who probably wont be very judging of other people. and just cuz their parents are gay DOES NOT mean they will be gay, that's a load of shit!!

 

Of course I'm in favor of recognizing gay marriage, but the rednecks fascists and other assorted idiots are still in the majority and likely to stay that way for a while. Thanks to our screwed up education system which is so politicized in the first place, and so underfunded that people wonder why some "Third World" countries are beginning to overtake us (America) in technology!