"Dangerous" Lesbians married-50 years together

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sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/13/MNGUQ50F0J1.DTL&type=news

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Here's the same thread at ChemtrailCentral

www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000682.html

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www.strike-the-root.com/4/machan/machan21.html


Gay Marriage Hysteria

by Tibor R. Machan

After the Massachusetts Supreme Court legally validated the idea of a gay marriage for that state ­ but as a matter of Constitutional law, for any state in the USA­-conservatives like Rush Limbaugh had a conniption fit. First there came to feigned shock-­reminiscent of Claude Rains in Casablanca vis-à-vis gambling going on at Rick’s­-with the court’s making law. As if this were the first time that happened and, more importantly, as if conservative justices didn’t indulge in judicial activism big time, whenever they get the chance. (For my money it is high time some of them do a bit more judicial activism in some areas, such as restoring the right to private property to its proper position in Constitutional law!)

Next we see all the hand wringing about the tearing apart of our country’s moral fabric-­as if what really troubled our society has anything at all to do with a bunch of gay unions gaining the designation “marriage.” Preventing that will surely stop people cheating on their test at Annapolis or harassing female cadets at the Air Force Academy, defrauding their employees at various big corporations, faking news reports at major papers and magazines! Yes, stopping gay folks from marrying will be the ticket to moral rejuvenation for sure. How gullible can folks get.

There is just no reason for the fuss. To start with, the tradition of freedom of speech should inform us that we are all free to call our unions by whatever word we choose, however this may ultimately square with good sense. Related to this is also the peculiar idea, which is due for serious challenge, that the government somehow is in the business of determining what a marriage is all about. This is hokum­-state bureaucrats, even judges, have no special expertise about this at all. Marriage is an age old institution that will either survive intact because it’s a good idea, or it will bite the dust because there is something strange about it-­maybe because we now live much longer than when it was invented, or perhaps because with the rise of individualism and pluralism, let alone multiculturalism, the one-size-fits-all approach to how human beings should work out their romantic plans is obsolete.

Yes, of course, in line with traditional Christianity marriages are made in heaven. But does anyone really know this? Has anyone been there to check it out? At most the idea is revered based on faith and as such in a free country it is wrong for the legal authorities to impose it on everyone. Indeed, it is interesting how easily the fundamentalist case against gay sex falls apart on the very biblical grounds on which it is supposed to rest. As one friend of mine has noted in a recent missive of his, is it not odd that the Bible says not a thing about lesbian unions? And if it doesn’t shouldn’t fundamentalists confine their worries to gay male sex alone? And doesn’t such a Biblical doctrine then come off as arbitrary and capricious? It sure does.

It always amazes me how Left and Right tend to unite on some basic fronts without even being aware they are doing it. The Left wants desperately to control how we deal with the economic aspects of our lives­-they love to extort money from everyone so they alone can then determine how it is used. They hate the right to private property because it stands as an obstacle to this imperial goal. The spirit of the American legal system is, after all, capitalist, despite what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., maintained, unfortunately very influentially, in his dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New York (1905). Yes, the conservatives are eager to get some judicial activists on the courts to reverse the Holmesian influence, and in this case for very good reasons. But this kind of activism the Left hates, which is why liberal Democrats in Congress have been so vehemently opposed to George W. Bush’s nomination of Janice Brown (currently Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court) to the United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, because of her opinions involving, e. g., property rights and parental authority.

But the Right is also itching to control us on numerous fronts and using the law as their weapon. They want to call the shots when it comes to how we think, what we believe, whom we worship, what religious edicts we declare official­-as well as with whom and how we associate and what we call these associations. So, they hate it when those on the Left are making use of certain provisions of the U.S. Constitution, such as the Ninth Amendment, so as to identify basic principles such as the right to privacy, a right that if protected pretty much shuts the state out of deciding the various voluntary unions among people that may occur and whether they may be called “marriage.”

At the heart of all the frantic nauseating blabber about gay marriage is the desire to control people, to refuse to let them be, as if something truly insidious were to be unleashed by not invalidating their unions. Nothing is at stake in this prohibitionist effort other than the blatant prejudice of people on the Right against those who do not share their view of who may bond with whom. Sorry Limbaugh & Co., this is still America, not Iran.


February 16, 2004

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New Un-Constitutional Amendment would end rights for unmarried couples of any preference


www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=14928&c=101

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Now, That's San Francisco
Nothing like a few thousand gay marriage ceremonies to reignite your urban pride

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Wednesday, February 18, 2004

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friendly sex shops. Peet's. Dog parks. Stellar restaurants. Superlative tattoo artists. Fabulous weather. Unparalleled natural beauty. Organic foods. Fewer SUVs, more Priuses. Mission burritos. An overwhelming anti-Schwarzenegger sentiment. Sushi. Bush never visits.

There are things that make you happy to live in San Francisco, truly grateful, along with plenty of things that make you hyper-aware that you live in the country's most progressive open-minded convoluted messed-up liberal bubble, for both good and ill.

But few are the things that transcend mere gratitude, things that our struggling budget-strapped modern metropolis has offered of late that makes you say, oh my God, I am right now so incredibly proud to say I live here, I mean just look what we're doing, look what ground we are breaking, what stagnant trends we are blasting, what history we are making.

But for the moment, that's all changed. There is one astounding beacon of political and social (and romantic) action about which San Franciscans can be truly emboldened: The move to legalize same-sex marriage, to hold genuine same-sex wedding ceremonies, this should make any progressive soul proud to live in this amazing city. Deeply, genuinely, thoroughly.

Here's why: No matter what the final outcome, this past week will go down as one of those defining moments, a seminal point in American history. It hearkens back to the civil rights movement and to women's suffrage, though with less screaming chanting effigy-burning marches and beatings by angry cops, and more roses and warm-hearted grins and life-affirming smooches on the steps of city hall.

It was a delicious and heartwarming historic spectacle indeed, and there was simply no way for any person of any elevated consciousness or spiritual awareness -- anyone with any heart whatsoever -- to witness the huge line of happy, eager same-sex couples snaking around city hall and not be deeply moved, profoundly touched.

I was there. I saw the lines, the smiles, felt the intense emotional energy. It was simply irrefutable: These are people in love. These are couples who have been together for years, decades, who have started families and raised children and set up homes replete with dogs and dinner parties and antiques and regular shopping excursions to Safeway and the mall. You know, just like "real" Americans.

These are couples who are willing to go the distance, to commit and connect, and who are eager to prove to themselves and the world that their love is something true and real and momentous, something that, in truth, can only serve to reignite and reunite our stagnant, fractured, contentious, 50 percent-divorce-rate nation. Hey, we need all the help we can get.

And one other thing was very apparent: It was a situation in which you simply could not imagine anyone hurling gobs of intolerant hate at it. It would have required a serious amount of nasty, inbred ignorance and appalling nerve to march up to any of the passionate and committed couples waiting patiently in line for their marriage ceremony and say, you know, God hates you for this, you immoral disgusting sodomites, and it's intolerable and unacceptable that you wish to love and honor each other till death do you part.

Which, yes indeed, is exactly what a great many antigay groups are doing, in effect, right now.

But here's the best part: The City's brave move was not merely a giant well-manicured middle finger to the Christian Right and indignant homophobic conservatives everywhere.

Nor was it just an audacious act of civil disobedience, guaranteed to raise the ire of Bible thumpers and so-called pro-family groups hailing everywhere from Orange County to Colorado Springs. That's just a nice bonus.

It was, more than anything, an incredible celebration of love. The more than 2,600 wedding ceremonies performed so far were the purest evidence, an irrefutable outpouring of the most wondrous and messy and baffling and orgasmic and desperately needed of human emotions, the air electric and warm, the ceremonies themselves radiant and poignant and genuinely tearful.

And no question became so clear, so obvious, as the one being asked by same-sex-marriage advocates around the world: What, really, is so wrong about this? What is the horrible threat about two adults who love each other so intensely, so purely, that they're willing to commit to a lifetime of being together and sleeping together and arguing over who controls the remote? And what government body dares to claim a right to legislate against it?

It is a question no group, no homophobic senator, no piece of antigay legislation, no BushCo stump speech, no Bible-humping pastor has been able to answer with any clarity or conviction.

They can only mumble about immorality and quote some vague Scripture about sodomy that makes them all tingly, as wary biblical scholars all over the world roll their eyes and point to a thousand proofs that demonstrate, over and over again, how the Bible is basically a reinterpreted regurgitated piece of classic patriarchal misogynistic mythmaking that says exactly what the church rewrote it to say.

But I might have part of an answer. From what I can glean from some of my hate mail and the general conservative outcry, here is what the homophobes fear about same-sex marriage: bestiality.

That is, they are utterly terrified that same-sex marriage is a slippery slope of permissive debauchery that will lead to the utter breakdown of social rules and sexual mores, to people being allowed to marry their dogs, or their own dead grandmothers, or chairs, or three hairy men from Miami Beach.

In short, to the neocon Right, a nation that allows gays to marry is a nation with no boundaries and no condoms and where all sorts of illicit disgusting behaviors will soon be legal and be forced upon them, a horrific tribal wasteland full of leeches and flying bugs and scary sex acts they only read about in chat rooms and their beloved "Left Behind" series of cute apocalypse-porn books.

You know, just like how giving blacks the right to own their own land meant we had to give the same rights to house plants and power tools, or how granting women the right to vote meant it was a slippery slope until we gave suffrage to feral cats and sea slugs and rusty hubcaps.

This, then, is why it is a time to be incredibly proud. San Francisco is slapping this moronic worldview back to the dank basement of subhuman intellect, where it belongs. We have broken the taboo, challenged the ignorant and the easily terrified, made it beautifully clear that what matters most in a modern society is not unfounded, naive fears, not uptight religious puling, but a humane and equal, joyous sense of love for all.

The war is far from over. It will be a brutal battle, with much hate yet to be spewed, much Bible waving and law mangling accompanying what will undoubtedly be a slow, painful sea change for a very uptight, easily terrified American society.

But S.F. has taken the lead, has sounded the battle cry, has defined itself anew. And for that, more than any other of its wonders, I am incredibly proud that I live in San Francisco, the best city in the whole goddamn world -- gay, straight or anywhere in between.

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Will Chicago be next city to issue gay wedding licenses?

Mayor: 'Marriage has been undermined by divorce, so don't tell me about marriage. Don't blame the gay and lesbian community.'

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


CHICAGO — Mayor Richard Daley said he would have “no problem” with Cook County issuing marriage licenses to gay couples in Chicago, the nation’s third largest city.
Entering a national debate over gay marriage, Daley urged sympathy for same-sex couples because “they love each other just as much as anyone else.”<br>
Daley also dismissed a suggestion Wednesday that marriage between gay couples would undermine the institution.

“Marriage has been undermined by divorce, so don’t tell me about marriage,” he said. “Don’t blame the gay and lesbian, transgender and transsexual community.”<br>
Daley said only the county clerk’s office can issue marriage licenses, and he stopped short of saying he would follow San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom by approving marriage licenses for same-sex couples.

County Clerk David Orr said he was “game to looking at options,” but only if a consensus could be built between Daley, city and county government and advocacy groups.

“I’m fed up with people being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation,” Orr said. “(But) whatever you do when it comes to challenging laws, you want it to be effective and not knee-jerk.”<br>
Last fall the county board authorized Orr to issue certificates of domestic partnership that carry no legal rights.

Rick Garcia, political director for the gay rights group Equality Illinois, welcomed Daley’s comments, saying they represent “another step in the right direction.”<br>
At least 38 states, including Illinois, and the federal government have approved laws or amendments barring the recognition of gay marriage. Meanwhile, gay and lesbian couples from more than 20 states and Europe have flocked to San Francisco since city officials decided to begin marrying same-sex couples last week.

Massachusetts’ highest court also recently ruled that its state constitution allows gay marriages.

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www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/02/18/fioreagenda.DTL

[Thetaloops]

Fiore comes through again with another hilarious cartoon animation, that goes right to the core of this issue.

Cruelty on one side and apathy on the other, when all these people want is 'RESPECT' for their lifestyle.

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sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/27/MNG1H59R5Q1.DTL


Gay couples can be as stable as straights, evidence suggests
Bush quote makes longevity an issue

Rona Marech, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, February 27, 2004



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



When President Bush stated Tuesday that "marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots" without weakening society, some advocates viewed his choice of words as an embrace of an old stereotype: That gay couples would undermine the institution because they value sex over lasting, emotional bonds and they don't understand lifelong commitment.

But how to square that with the widespread image of thousands of gay newlyweds, many of whom have been together for years and even decades?

The equation doesn't add up, advocates for gay rights say, and a growing body of research supports their claims that gay couples can and do stick together -- and legalizing same-sex marriage will only contribute to the creation of more stable relationships.

"There are studies that find that the majority of gay men and lesbians want enduring relationships," said Esther Rothblum, a psychology professor at University of Vermont who is conducting her own study on couples united in civil unions in Vermont in 2000-2001, the first year after the legislation was enacted there. Moreover, while very few longitudinal studies on gay legal unions exist, "my guess is that, again, what you're going to find is that lesbians and gay men who get married are going to stay in relationships longer than the ones who don't," she said.

On average, the 400 couples in Rothblum's civil union study had been together for 11 to 12 years by the time they made it official, she said. Their relationships were comparatively shorter than those of their straight, married siblings, but for good reason, Rothblum said.

"Heterosexuals get more socialization to marry. They are much more likely to have children and it's easier to break up relationships if you don't want children," she said. "Heterosexuals also have legal marriage and up to that point gays and lesbians did not."

But Bill Maier, vice president of the conservative evangelical organization Focus on the Family, said "the research seems to indicate that (long-term relationships) are very rare and that promiscuity is still very common. ... Men tend to be less into commitment."

Not so fast, said Darren Spedale, a law and business student at Stanford University, who studied divorce rates in Denmark in 1996-97, seven years after same-sex registered partnerships were legalized. He found that 17 percent of gay partnerships ended in divorce compared with 46 percent of the straight relationships.

"Same-sex couples who enter into marriage-type relationships have obviously given it much more thought. ... A lot of them, in general, have had longer relationships previous to tying the knot," which decreases the likelihood of divorce, said Spedale, who is completing a book on the subject.

Gay couples don't have to contend with family pressure or unexpected pregnancy, said Ted Guggenheim, 35, who married his partner of 17 years last week. "It's truly about love."

Dale Bullock founded Bonds Limited, an organization devoted to bringing together gay couples seeking lifelong, monogamous relationships. Over the past decade, he's made 228 matches. One hundred sixty of his couples are male; all but seven are still together.

San Francisco is full of gay couples who "believe they're capable of manifesting a happy marriage," he said. "These are the lines of people we see at City Hall."

Caitlin Ryan, a researcher at San Francisco State University, said that most of the lesbian, gay and bisexual youth in a study she's conducting, said they would like to have families, long-term relationships and children.

But many conservatives disagree.

Most gay men "are not interested in monogamous relationships, which is the traditional definition of what marriage is," said Gary Glenn, president of American Family Association of Michigan.

In Rothblum's study, gay men were more likely to be non-monogamous than straight couples or lesbians, but she and others say there are numerous explanations for those findings.

"Let's say, for example, that you're raising a child and you tell that child I'm going to legislate against you to become college educated because you aren't smart enough. How many children are going to get a college education?" said Bullock, who agrees that gay couples seeking monogamous relationships are still the minority.

"Historically, the media hasn't focused on long-term relationships among gay men and lesbians, even though they existed," Ryan said. "I think that has an impact on believing you could have a relationship like that." Increased visibility, including the thousands of gay newlyweds, offers young people "a sense of possibility that didn't exist before," she said.

In any case, gay advocates say that non-monogamy is hardly restricted to gay couples. Some add that the consensual, non-monogamous agreements some gay couples have are honorable and preferable to the typical straight version of affairs and cheating.

If promiscuity were limited to gay men, then prostitution wouldn't be a multi-billion dollar business," said Renate Stendhal, author of "True Secrets of Lesbian Desire: Keeping Sex Alive in Long-term Relationships."

As for conservative complaints about longevity among gay couples, "It makes me laugh because half of all heterosexual couples in America divorce," she said. "One should look at so-called normal, straight couples and see that there is no longevity there at all."