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History > 2006 > USA > Gay rights (I)
Gay couples
take marriage fight to NY's top court
Wed May 31, 2006
8:50 PM ET
Reuters
By Holly McKenna
ALBANY, New York (Reuters) - New York State's highest court
started hearing a case on Wednesday that gay rights activists hope will overturn
as unconstitutional a state law defining marriage as the union of a man and a
woman.
The New York case is one of several initiatives by gay rights activists across
the United States where gay marriage has been a divisive issue in recent years,
particularly in the 2004 presidential election.
"There are 46,000 families of same-sex couples with children in New York and
there is no dispute they are stable families who are excluded from the benefits
of marriage," said Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties
Union who was representing many of the same-sex couples.
In more than two hours of argument before the State Court of Appeals, Kaplan
said the court should change the state's ban on gay marriage just as in the past
it threw out laws that had allowed marital rape and criminalized sodomy.
"Despite tradition, this court found that these laws were unconstitutional and
didn't meet rational basis," she said.
Massachusetts is the only state to permit gays to marry, while Vermont allows
same-sex couples the rights and benefits of marriage but calls them civil
unions.
In the November 2004 election, ballot measures were passed in 11 states to ban
gay marriages.
The New York case involves 48 gay and lesbian couples who filed four separate
cases from across the state. The cases are being heard together by the court in
Albany.
In one of the cases, couples were married by local clergy but denied marriage
licenses at city hall.
Dan O'Donnell, an openly gay state lawmaker who brought one of the cases, was in
the quiet but packed courtroom. He is the brother of entertainer Rosie
O'Donnell, who married her lesbian partner in Massachusetts.
"We will prevail here," he said outside the courthouse. "It's the right and just
thing to do."
Under 97-year-old state law, marriage is defined as between a man and woman. The
same-sex couples claim the law violates their constitutional rights because it
defends sex discrimination. They argue that the state constitution doesn't ban
gay marriage and can be more loosely interpreted.
In February, the law was upheld in a lower appeals court, forcing the fight to
the State Court of Appeals.
STATE LEGISLATURE
New York's Deputy Solicitor General Peter Schiff said it was a matter for the
state legislature to change the law.
"The state said it was a case for the state legislature, but I think it's a case
of discrimination that needs to be addressed," said Cindy Swadba, a lesbian who
married her partner in Massachusetts and came to show her support.
Seventeen-year-old Alya Shain came from New York City with her parents, Jo-ann
Shain and Mary Jo Kennedy, who will celebrate their 25th anniversary together in
June. "These are my two parents and they have instilled values in me and they
deserve the same rights as married people," Alya Shain said.
There was no sign of protesters against gay-marriage at the courthouse. Among
groups that filed briefs ahead of the case, the Catholic Conference of New York
State was one of the main opponents of same-sex marriage, along with other
religious and family-based groups from around the nation.
Next month, Congress is set to introduce the Protection of Marriage Amendment.
If the amendment is passed, a federal constitutional amendment will supersede
any state laws.
Gay couples take
marriage fight to NY's top court, R, 31.5.2006,
http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-06-01T001439Z_01_N31259092_RTRUKOC_0_US-RIGHTS-MARRIAGE.xml
Even deep in Dixie, gays sense acceptance
Posted 5/21/2006 12:12 AM ET
USA Today
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) It's a Bible Belt state, almost
certain to toughen its prohibition of gay marriage next month. A major candidate
for governor has called homosexuality evil, and a national gay magazine branded
Alabama the worst state for gays and lesbians. So why does Howard Bayless want
to stay? Well, his roots are here, he says. So are his friends. He's partial to
the congenial neighborhood in Birmingham that he and other gays helped rescue
from decline.
"This is where I've carved out a niche for myself," says
Bayless, who has spent most of his 40 years in Alabama. "We've created our
community here, and I don't want to leave. I'd rather do the extra work of
making my neighbors realize who and what I am."
Leader of Equality Alabama, a statewide gay-rights group, Bayless is one of many
with the same conviction. In Mobile, Tuscaloosa and elsewhere, Alabama's gays
and lesbians like their counterparts throughout the U.S. heartland are
slowly, steadily gaining more confidence and finding more acceptance.
That doesn't mean relations between gays and other Americans are settled. Gay
rights causes still endure their share of setbacks amendments defining
marriage as between one man and one woman have passed in 19 states and Alabama
is poised to become No. 20 by an overwhelming vote on June 6.
But in the long view, there has been slow, powerful momentum building in the
other direction: the quashing of anti-sodomy laws; the extension of anti-bias
codes to cover gays; the adoption of domestic-partner policies by countless
companies. Recent polls suggest opposition to gay marriage has peaked, and a
proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning it is expected to fall far
short of the required two-thirds support when the Senate votes on it in early
June.
"What Americans see increasingly is there's no negative impact on their own
lives to have gays and lesbians living out in the open," said Joe Solmonese,
president of the Human Rights Campaign. "They go from an abstract idea to a real
person with a real name and a real story. That makes all the difference."
Kim McKeand and Cari Searcy experience that phenomenon daily in Mobile, where
they live openly as a lesbian couple raising a son, Khaya, whom McKeand gave
birth to in September.
"We're out to everybody," said Searcy, 30. "We know all the neighbors. Everyone
else on our street is straight. They say 'Hey.' They all wanted to come over and
see the baby."
The couple met at college in Texas and moved to Mobile five years ago with
$1,000 between them and no jobs, but their careers have blossomed. Searcy works
for a video production company, McKeand for a broadcaster that provides domestic
partner health benefits covering them both.
"I know we have a long way to go, but we've come a long way already," Searcy
said.
The couple loves Mobile but might consider leaving if Searcy's application to
become Khaya's adoptive parent is rejected in the courts.
"How can they say that we're not a family?" Searcy asked as she cradled Khaya in
her arms.
The courts weren't accommodating to social worker Jill Bates, who lives in
Birmingham with her lesbian partner. She lost custody of her daughter, now 16,
to her ex-husband after a legal battle in which her sexual orientation was held
against her.
Yet Bates remains undaunted.
"One thing that gives me hope is seeing all my daughter's friends, even some who
go to a fundamentalist church," Bates said. "To them, it's just so not a big
deal."
There are other signs of acceptance. An openly lesbian candidate, Patricia Todd,
has a strong chance of winning a seat in Alabama's legislature this year that
would be a first. Mobile's recent Pride Parade drew upbeat local news coverage
and only a handful of protesters. Gay-straight alliances are active at most
universities; in the cities, if not the suburbs and small towns, gay-friendly
churches are proliferating.
Those trends hearten gays and their allies, but concern Alabamians who support
the same-sex marriage ban and believe homosexuality is sinful.
They are dismayed that same-sex partnerships are recognized in three New England
states, they've resented the empathic portrayals of gays on "Will & Grace" and
in "Brokeback Mountain" and they wonder if states like Alabama can resist what
Rev. Tom Benz calls "the erosion of traditional values."
"We're here in the Bible Belt, but all these things that happen around us affect
us," said Benz, who combines mission work in Ukraine with presidency of the
conservative Alabama Clergy Council. "There's a feeling here of, 'I want my
country back.'"
Benz lives in Millbrook, a suburb of Montgomery, the capital. One of his
political allies, from the nearby town of Eclectic, is Donna Goodwin, a school
board employee who disputes the theory that familiarity with gays leads to
support of gay rights.
"I have a lesbian cousin I can continue to love her without approving of the
way she leads her life," Goodwin said. "We see each other three or four times a
year. We hug. We find out how each other is doing but I don't ask her about
her girlfriend."
Gay activists can readily list recent cases of anti-gay violence and harassment
incidents which contributed to Alabama's ranking as the least gay-friendly
state in Out magazine. But Goodwin says most Alabamians, however conservative,
strive for civility.
"We believe in hospitality being kind to people whether you approve of their
lifestyle or not," she said. "But the homosexual community is trying to force us
into accepting something that's immoral. If they try to do that, we're going to
consolidate and do something about it at the ballot box. We can say, 'This far
and no farther.'"
One development that worries her is the increased visibility of gay rights
causes at Alabama's colleges, including the University of Alabama, which her son
attended.
"The university breaks down the moral values of children," she said. "It's like
an open door to whatever is popular at the time a hang-loose,
do-your-own-thing attitude. It's asking for trouble."
At the campus in Tuscaloosa, political science department chairman David Lanoue
doesn't see the kind of sweeping, pro-gay culture some may fear. But he does see
young Alabamians even those from conservative rural areas getting messages
they might not get at their local high schools and churches.
For example, he said, numerous faculty members display rainbow symbols at their
offices, signaling they would provide an empathetic ear to any troubled gay or
lesbian student.
"Young people have a more liberal attitude toward sexual preference than their
elders," Lanoue said. "Through the national media, they've been brought up on
the message that gays and lesbians are part of our society."
Ashley Gilbert, a sophomore at Birmingham-Southern College, knew by age 15 that
she was a lesbian, but waited until reaching college to let her family in
Montgomery know.
"My brother's still in the high school I went to he's on the football team,
but there's been no hassle from his teammates," she said. "He's very supportive.
He wants to know when I'll get married and have kids so he can be an uncle."
At college, Gilbert is president of the gay-straight alliance and proud that
more than half its members are straight.
"Everything that sticks out since I came out has been really positive," she
said.
Not all young Alabamians find coming out so comfortable.
Patty Rudolph, wife of a doctor in the affluent Birmingham suburb of Mountain
Brook, said her son knew by age 12 that he was gay, told his family when he was
14, and by 16 choose to go to school in the Northeast because he felt despite
his family's support that Alabama was too inhospitable.
The son is now 18 and returns home periodically, reconnecting with friends and
family.
"He loves to see us, but after a couple of days he says, 'I need to get out of
here,'" Rudolph said. "There's no overt ugliness. But he has a sense it isn't as
open and welcoming a place as he wants it to be."
Since her son left, Rudolph has plunged into a new world of activism, doing what
she can to make Alabama a state he would one day want to stay in. She speaks at
forums and heads the Birmingham chapter of a national support group, Parents,
Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
"By telling my family's story, it has a ripple effect. It humanizes the issue,"
she said.
Rudolph describes herself as impatient but hopeful buoyed by support from even
the most conservative of her close friends, and by encounters such as one with a
young bank officer who casually asked Rudolph about her advocacy group, scanned
a pamphlet, then told her, "This is wonderful, what you're doing."
It's moments like that which make Rudolph believe that the push for gay rights
can't be held back. "I think the train has left the station," she said. "It's
not moving fast enough for me but it's happening. I'm seeing it change."
Suzanne Cleveland, office manager for a Mobile law firm, has followed a similar
path since her son came out a decade ago.
"It was hard for me at first I wanted to get over the knot in my stomach but
now I make a point of telling people my son is gay," she said. "I have not lived
the life I thought I would, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's been
wonderful."
Among Cleveland's many gay friends is Charles Smoke, community development
director for the Mobile Arts Council and a resident of the port city since 1970.
"I've never made a secret of my orientation and I've never encountered in all
this time any kind of hostility," he said. "We're not that far behind. It makes
me feel it's not so bleak, that we're not living in a monstrous place."
Activists say the sternest anti-gay rhetoric comes mainly from evangelical
pastors and politicians. Among them is Republican gubernatorial candidate Roy
Moore, who was ousted as state chief justice after refusing to remove a Ten
Commandments monument he had placed in the judicial building.
Moore has many fans and many critics, including Birmingham city councilor
Valerie Abbott. After the judge wrote in a court ruling that homosexual conduct
is "abhorrent, immoral, detestable," Abbott persuaded the council to condemn
those assertions.
"I expected to get hate mail from the crazies it didn't happen," she said.
Her district includes Howard Bayless' neighborhood, the formerly rundown
Crestwood area. "Gay people came in and took to that area and made it a
wonderful place," Abbott said.
Like Bayless, she firmly believes gay rights will come to Alabama, albeit slowly
and with minimal help from the statehouse.
"Our legislature is like no other place on earth it's stuck back in the dark
ages," she said. "But Alabama is changing, like the rest of the country is
changing. Like every new idea, it takes a while to absorb."
Rev. Jim Evans, a Baptist minister in Auburn, received numerous thank-you notes
from gay-rights supporters after he wrote a newspaper column criticizing the
ban-gay-marriage ballot item as an unnecessary and cynical attempt to frighten
voters.
Evans hasn't endorsed gay marriage, and he knows opposition to it is
deep-seated. But he also sees change coming as Alabamians such as Bayless, Cari
Searcy and Patty Randolph expand the conversation about gays' place in the
state.
"In the South, where we don't talk about unpleasant things, that trend has
forced us to talk about it more," Evans said. "Once you begin to talk about a
prejudice, it begins to die."
Even deep in
Dixie, gays sense acceptance, UT, 21.5.2006,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-05-21-gay-tide_x.htm
Same-Sex Marriage Amendment Is Struck Down
by Georgia Judge
May 17, 2006
The New York Times
By SHAILA DEWAN
ATLANTA, May 16 A state amendment banning
same-sex marriage was struck down Tuesday by a judge who upheld the voters'
right to limit marriage to heterosexual couples but cited procedural flaws in
the wording of the amendment, which was approved by more than three-quarters of
voters.
The decision is one of the first successful challenges to a ban on same-sex
marriage, one of a spate of similar amendments passed in 11 states in November
2004, said Jack Senterfitt, a senior staff lawyer in the Southern regional
office of Lambda Legal, a national gay rights group.
Lambda Legal filed the suit along with the American Civil Liberties Union of
Georgia. Besides Georgia, 18 states have such laws, a spokeswoman for Lambda
Legal said.
The Georgia amendment defined marriage as between a man and a woman, banned
same-sex civil unions and said that same-sex unions performed in other states
would not be recognized. The judge, Constance C. Russell of Fulton County
Superior Court, ruled that the amendment violated Georgia's single-subject rule,
which limits each amendment put before voters to one topic.
"People who believe marriages between men and women should have a unique and
privileged place in our society may also believe that same-sex relationships
should have some place, although not marriage," the judge wrote. "The
single-subject rule protects the right of those people to hold both views and
reflect both judgments by their vote."
Mr. Senterfitt said he expected the ruling to be appealed.
Same-Sex Marriage Amendment Is Struck Down by Georgia Judge, NYT, 17.5.2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/us/17georgia.html
From TV Role in 'Dobie Gillis' to Rights Fight in
Legislature
May 14, 2006
The New York Times
By JESSE McKINLEY
SAN FRANCISCO, May 13 Sheila Kuehl has done a few things
that someday may merit mention in the history books: more than a decade in the
California Legislature, a public crusade against domestic violence and a stint
as the tenacious busybody Zelda on the classic sitcom "The Many Loves of Dobie
Gillis."
But if such immortality were to happen, Ms. Kuehl says, she would want one fact
listed with the rest of her accomplishments: she is gay.
So this year, Ms. Kuehl, a state senator representing western Los Angeles,
introduced a bill to assure that lesbians and gay men get what she feels is
their due in California textbooks. The bill, which passed the Senate on Thursday
and is now headed to the Assembly, would forbid the teaching of any material
that "reflects adversely on persons due to sexual orientation," and add the "age
appropriate study of the role and contributions of people who are lesbian, gay,
bisexual or transgender."
For Ms. Kuehl, 65, the bill seems to have as much to do with school security as
it does with the A B C's.
"One of the things that contribute to a safe or unsafe environment for kids are
the teaching materials," Ms. Kuehl said. "If you have teaching material that
didn't say anything at all about gay and lesbian people, it is assumed that they
never did anything at all. But if it said anything about gay and lesbian people,
the whole atmosphere of the school was safer for gay and lesbian kids, or those
thought to be gay and lesbian."
At a time when same-sex marriage is a polarizing presence in the courts and in
voting booths across the country, any issue dealing with gay rights is bound to
cause a fluster, and this bill is no exception. The Capitol Resource Institute,
a conservative organization, labeled the proposal "the most outrageous bill in
the California Legislature this year."
Concerned Women for America, a Christian public policy group, filed a letter
with the Senate suggesting that such studies were the domain of the home, not
the schools.
Cindy Moles, the state director of Concerned Women for America, said the bill
was trying to indoctrinate children to "dangerous sexual lifestyles" and was
unnecessary from an educational standpoint.
"We don't need to list all the behavior of historical figures," Ms. Moles said.
"Certainly not their sexual behavior."
Representatives for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to comment on the bill,
as did Jack O'Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction.
Ms. Kuehl says she traces her quest to include material on gay figures in
textbooks to her days as a student in Los Angeles public schools in the late
1940's and early 50's.
"When I was a kid, there were no women in the textbooks, no black people, no
Latinos," she said. "As far as I knew, the only people who ever did anything
worthwhile were white men."
Ms. Kuehl said the practical applications of the law would be limited to
including the accomplishments of gay figures in textbooks and class studies
alongside those of other social and ethnic groups. For example, a teacher
talking about Langston Hughes would not only mention the fact that he was a
black poet, but also mention his sexuality, Ms. Kuehl said.
If the law were to pass, new textbooks probably would not hit desks until 2012,
by which time Ms. Kuehl, who is recognized as the state's first openly gay
legislator, might merit a mention or two. What might she like it to say?
"I'd like to be remembered as a person that fought for civil rights and social
justice," she said.
But what of "Dobie Gillis"? "I'm proud of that work, too," she said.
From TV Role in
'Dobie Gillis' to Rights Fight in Legislature, NYT, 14.5.2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/us/14gays.html
California okays lessons on gays in
textbooks
Thu May 11, 2006 7:57 PM ET
Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's state
Senate passed a bill on Thursday that would require textbooks in public schools
to instruct students on contributions by gays and lesbians in the state's
development.
The Democrat-led state Senate passed the bill on a 22-15 vote and forwarded it
to the state Assembly.
The bill by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, the legislature's first openly gay member, would
also mandate public school textbooks to include lessons on contributions by
transgender people.
Kuehl told Reuters she believes her bill is the first of its kind at the state
level and predicted it would win support in the Assembly, where Democrats also
have a majority.
"I think it has a very good chance in the Assembly because its members voted for
marriage equality," Kuehl said, referring to the chamber's endorsement of
same-sex marriage. "I think this is a lot easier vote."
"It would help to shape attitudes of what gay people are really like," Kuehl
said, noting their absence in state history textbooks.
Karen England of the conservative Capitol Resource Institute said in a statement
the bill "seeks to indoctrinate innocent children caught in the tug-of-war
between traditional families and the outrageous homosexual agenda."
A spokesman said Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not taken a position
on Kuehl's bill.
California okays lessons on gays in textbooks, R, 11.5.2006,
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-05-11T235723Z_01_N11352907_RTRUKOC_0_US-RIGHTS-GAYS.xml
Cheney's daughter on family dinners, Kerry and coming
out
· Book outlines battles with Republicans on gay rights
· Father accepts lesbianism and supports relationship
Wednesday May 10, 2006
Guardian
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
For much of the world, the bald man with the crooked smile
is a scary figure who operates in the shadows of a superpower, dragging the US
into wars, defending torture, making oil companies rich. For Mary Cheney, he's
just dad.
In a memoir published yesterday the second daughter of
Vice-President Dick Cheney gives her version of what it is like to be the child
of one of America's most powerful men, and what it is like to be a lesbian and
senior political operative in a party opposed to gay rights.
In the literature of White House offspring, Now it's My Turn: A Daughter's
Chronicle of a Political Life bears no resemblance to the angry exposι by Patti
Davis, Ronald Reagan's daughter, who described her father as remote and her
mother as abusive.
Ms Cheney's tightly controlled account of life in high places is one of happy
families. The vice-president is a cuddly, good-humoured man, who liked to talk
fly fishing, not politics, at the dinner table, and who, when she came out at
the age of 16, reacted by telling his daughter that he loved her. So did her
mother, though she burst into tears first. They also love her partner of 16
years, Heather Poe.
It was as the vice-president's lesbian daughter that Ms Cheney became known to
the broader American public when she essentially ran his 2004 re-election
campaign. She was also involved in the 2000 race, but at that time her mother,
Lynne Cheney, was saying in public that her daughter had not come out as a
lesbian. By the time of the 2004 elections the Republicans were using their
opposition to gay marriage to win votes.
Homosexual rights were an election issue, and so was Ms Cheney's sexuality as
she worked to restore an administration opposed to gay marriage to the White
House. Republicans were denouncing gays and lesbians as "selfish hedonists".
Ms Cheney admits her discomfort with that position. She writes that she had
planned to be in the gallery for the president's state of the union speech in
2004, but cancelled when she saw a text in which he pledged to defend the
sanctity of heterosexual marriage.
"I didn't want to be there when the members of the House and Senate and all the
invited guests applauded the president's declaration," she writes. "I sure
wasn't going to stand up and cheer."
Later, when President Bush decided to endorse a constitutional amendment to ban
same-sex marriage, Ms Cheney remained silent. Her father, in one of the
presidential debates, said he did not agree with the amendment. In the book, Ms
Cheney calls it "fundamentally wrong - and a gross affront to gays and lesbians
everywhere". "Society may not recognise gays and lesbians as deserving of the
same rights and protections as other citizens, but nowhere in the constitution
are they specifically excluded from having them," she writes. "The Federal
Marriage Amendment would change that."
She says she thought about returning home to Colorado when Mr Bush came out in
support of the amendment. But she did not, and she rejected the president's
offer to issue a dissenting statement. Instead, she reserved her greatest anger
for the Democratic challenger, John Kerry, who referred to her sexuality in one
of the debates.
"She herself called him a profanity, she recounts with relief," the Washington
Post said yesterday.
In the spotlight
Barbara and Jenna Bush
The 25-year-old twin daughters of George and Barbara have made headlines as
socialite party girls: Jenna once carried fake ID and was photographed after
falling on the floor of a student party, while Barbara eluded her secret service
bodyguards at university to go out drinking
Chelsea Clinton
The only child of Bill and Hilary was 12 when her father was elected. Although
uneasy in the public eye at first, Chelsea, right, soon wowed the press. She
gave her first political speech in November 2004 with five other prominent
daughters as part of a last-minute campaigning tactic by the Democratic party.
Luc Torres
Cheney's daughter
on family dinners, Kerry and coming out, G, 10.5.2006,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1771332,00.html
A Gay Soap (and Soapbox) in the Bronx
May 7, 2006
The New York Times
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
It's tough being a drag queen. It's even tougher being a
drag queen in the Bronx. You get no respect. You can count the gay-friendly bars
on one hand. But at least one night a week, at precisely 11 p.m., you have one
thing to call your own.
A soap opera.
Every Saturday evening, one of the longest-running programs on Bronx public
access television entertains and confounds viewers with a 30-minute burst of
gender-bending camp and low-budget intrigue. The television show is called
"Strange Fruits," and it is everything the Bronx is not flamboyantly
irreverent, unabashedly gay and teeming with men in high heels and pantyhose. It
is like "Dynasty," if "Dynasty" starred mostly untrained, unpaid actors and
followed the exploits of a transsexual Southern belle turned Bronxite with a
knack for stealing babies, poisoning people and cursing.
"Strange Fruits," which first went on the air in 1997, has become one of the few
public displays of homosexuality in a blue-collar borough that is a bastion of
Latin machismo. None of the borough's movie theaters bothered showing "Brokeback
Mountain." There has not been a gay pride parade here in years. Yet, each
Saturday on Channel 68 on BronxNet, the public-access station, "Strange Fruits"
pops up on television screens, courtesy of Eric Stephen Booth.
Mr. Booth, the show's director, writes outlandish parts for his straight, gay,
lesbian and transsexual friends and acquaintances, creating a convoluted soap
opera universe that, almost by accident, has given the borough's small gay
population its zaniest, boldest advertisement for itself. Some gay communities
have produced vibrant neighborhood enclaves, cultural organizations and
nightclubs. The Bronx, for the most part, has "Strange Fruits."
"It's about crazy drag-queen, transgender, gay people, straight people, living
in the Bronx," said Mr. Booth, 54, a gay Bronx playwright and actor who
videotapes and edits the show in his off-hours, when he's not doing marketing
research for two Connecticut newspapers. "The 'Strange Fruit' world has no
gender. Miss Onassis, who had the baby, is a drag queen. But in 'Strange Fruit,'
she can get pregnant and have babies. There's no logic. The reality is really
weird."
The main star is Billie M. Nelson, a transsexual Bronx resident and mental
health counselor who plays Miss Bebe Montana, a seductive villainess with a
Southern drawl on the prowl for a man and money. The previous star was James
Monaghan, 49, a former Dolly Parton and Bette Midler impersonator who lives in
the Bronx. His character, Miss Brandy Alexander, was killed off the show so he
could spend more time with his ailing mother. Now Mr. Monaghan has a smaller
role, the streetwise "baby detective" named Jeffrey (as in Dahmer, the serial
killer and cannibal) Cunanan (as in Andrew, who murdered Gianni Versace).
"We just have a ball," said Mr. Monaghan, a records clerk for a city agency.
"It's ours. If people don't like it, we don't care."
There have been dozens of other supporting and cameo roles over the show's
40-episode run. Vampira is played by a boisterous drag queen named Jaimee L.
Sommers ("I stole the name from the Bionic Woman," he explained). Robert
Preston, a coffee bar manager and Bronx resident who stars as the
black-wig-and-eye-patch-wearing Cockney Dai, said television specifically, the
1970's series "Welcome Back, Kotter" was crucial to his sexual awakening. "I
had a crush on Travolta," he said.
Viewers never know what or who might turn up on "Strange Fruits." Paul
Lipson is well known in the borough as the chief of staff for Josι E. Serrano,
the Bronx congressman; as the former executive director of the Point, a
community group; and as his "Strange Fruits" alter ego, the corrupt Councilman
Mark Davenport. Majora Carter, executive director of the environmental group
Sustainable South Bronx, has also been on the show.
"He is our Fellini," Mr. Lipson, one of a handful of straight people involved in
the show, said of Mr. Booth. "He had this burning desire to do this, with no
money and no resources and with people who are his friends. It's a great little
snapshot of a moment in the history of the Bronx."
Cablevision, the cable provider that hosts BronxNet, reaches about 270,000
households in the borough. But it is anyone's guess as to how many watch Mr.
Booth's show, because BronxNet has no way of tracking a program's viewership.
The show's cast members say they are occasionally recognized by strangers, and
Mr. Booth, whose show won two BronxNet awards in 2001, said he had received a
number of comments and phone calls over the years from random fans. Nonfans,
too.
Mr. Booth was at home one Saturday night a few years ago when his phone rang, he
said. "You should be ashamed of yourself," the caller said.
"Strange Fruits" is also broadcast the first Friday of the month on the
Manhattan Neighborhood Network and the third Wednesday of the month on Queens
Public Television. In the Bronx, the program has lately been in reruns, shown in
no particular order, making it almost impossible for new viewers to make sense
of a rather complicated plot line of double-crossings and dalliances, one more
reason the show is a kind of brilliant mess.
One of the reasons the plot has taken so many twists is not because of Mr.
Booth's love of melodrama, but because he uses ordinary people instead of
actors.
Some have moved away, some have been too busy to make a taping and some have
just been hard to reach. Many of the show's characters are members of Gay Men of
the Bronx, a group founded in 1990.
Mr. Booth describes his soap opera as community theater on video, in the style
of "The Benny Hill Show." Indeed, his dialogue is peppered with enough sexual
innuendo to make the girls from "Sex and the City" blush. There is also
crotch-grabbing, man-to-man French kissing, anatomical insults and drag-queen
screaming matches.
The man responsible for all this outrageousness is not very outrageous himself.
Mr. Booth is a soft-spoken Brooklyn native who also directs a Spanish and
English gay-themed talk show on BronxNet, "Fruta Extraρa," Spanish for "Strange
Fruit."
He used to work on Wall Street, on the trading floor of the American Stock
Exchange. He has never been one to cause a scene, other than the time he drank
too much at the Exchange, was dragged out by the police and woke up the next day
in Bellevue Hospital Center, tied to a bed. He went through rehab and was
allowed to keep his job.
One recent Sunday afternoon, Mr. Booth and his cast met at the Bronx Academy of
Arts and Dance in Hunts Point, a performing arts center that is a hub for the
gay community in the Bronx. It felt more like a family reunion than a soap opera
set. Madame Zelda made chocolate cake.
Miss Bebe, in keeping with being the star, showed up late and took forever to
get dressed. She sat in a back room of the dance studio, as Miss Onassis, a buff
and tattooed Christopher Jones, applied makeup to her face.
Ms. Nelson, the transsexual who plays Miss Bebe, enjoys improvising her
dialogue, especially the parts that call for clever R-rated insults. She is not
from the South, but she is from the South Bronx. "I tried to play it virginal,"
Ms. Nelson said of Miss Bebe. "I really did."
Mr. Booth forgot to e-mail the script to one of his actresses. He had a funeral
scene to tape, but the actor who played Miss Bebe's deceased fourth husband was
not around, so he persuaded a friend to fill in, and had him lie down on some
tables, since a coffin was out of the question.
He had to reshoot a scene several times because one cross-dressing diva was
having trouble being a mere extra. Mr. Monaghan, or Jeffrey Cunanan, sat back on
a chair, taking it all in, waiting for his big scene, which called for him to
rough up Cockney Dai in the hallway.
"This," he said with a sigh, "is very strange."
A Gay Soap (and
Soapbox) in the Bronx, NYT, 7.5.2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/nyregion/07access.html
4 Proposals on Same-Sex Unions Compete for Favor of
Coloradans
May 7, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK JOHNSON
DENVER, May 6 Colorado is set to become a bruising and
confusing battleground over marriage and same-sex unions this year, with up to
four conflicting proposals competing for a spot on the November ballot.
So far, the only proposal with a guaranteed place on the ballot approved on
Thursday by the state House of Representatives and sent directly to the voters
is the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Responsibilities Act, known as 1344 for
its bill number in the Legislature.
It would give same-sex partners many rights of married couples, including the
ability to adopt each other's children and to make medical decisions on the
other's behalf.
After that things become more complicated.
Opponents of 1344 have mounted an effort to get enough voter signatures for a
proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would short-circuit the
Partnership Act, by barring legal recognition of any status "similar to
marriage."
A third proposal would attack 1344's attackers. The sponsors of that proposal
want to enshrine in the Constitution a statement intended to protect the
Partnership Act by declaring that such unions are not "similar to marriage." A
fourth ballot proposal would strengthen the law banning same-sex marriage by
putting that ban into the Constitution.
"Clear as mud, right?" said Sean Duffy, a spokesman for Coloradans for Fairness
and Equality, which supports 1344.
At least six other states Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee,
Virginia and Wisconsin are offering similar proposals.
Colorado's discussion is messier because it has one of the lowest thresholds for
direct citizen participation. Signatures of only 5 percent of the people who
cast votes for the secretary of the state in the last election are required to
get a constitutional proposal on the ballot about 68,000 people this year.
Most of the 17 other states that allow direct petition for constitutional
amendments require signatures of 8 percent to 15 percent of voters in a past
election.
People involved in the petition process said that competing efforts would surely
make for a tougher fight through the summer and fall.
Television advertising has already begun for 1344, including a spot showing a
distraught-looking man pacing a hospital corridor, frozen out of making medical
decisions for his male partner, the announcer says, because Colorado does not
recognize their relationship.
Opponents of 1344 say it basically creates gay marriage while avoiding the
phrase.
People on both sides say that no matter what voters do a court fight is likely,
if only to define "similar."
Kevin Lundberg, a Republican legislator who is fighting the Partnership Act with
his proposal to ban "similar" conditions to marriage, said his effort would give
voters "a very thorough range" to weigh in on.
Mr. Lundberg opposed 1344 in the Legislature, but conceded that having it on the
ballot would help in gathering signatures for his effort. The deadline for
petitions is Aug. 7.
A spokesman for Coloradans for Marriage, which is backing a constitutional
amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman with support of
conservative groups like Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs said
that 1344 would probably galvanize conservative voters in some places.
"Some segments just want the marriage amendment passed and don't care about the
domestic partnership stuff," said Jon Paul, the group's executive director.
4 Proposals on
Same-Sex Unions Compete for Favor of Coloradans, NYT, 7.5.2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/us/07ballot.html
Gay fairy tale sparks civil rights debate
Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:27 PM ET
Reuters
By Jason Szep
LEXINGTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - The crown prince
rejects a bevy of beautiful princesses, rebuffing each suitor until falling in
love with a prince. The two marry, sealing the union with a kiss, and live
happily ever after.
That fairy tale about gay marriage has sparked a civil rights debate in
Massachusetts, the only U.S. state where gays and lesbians can legally wed,
after a teacher read the story to a classroom of seven year olds without warning
parents first.
A parents' rights group said on Monday it may sue the public school in the
affluent suburb of Lexington, about 12 miles west of Boston, where a teacher
used the book "King & King" in a lesson about different types of weddings.
"It's just so heinous and objectionable that they would do this," said Brian
Camenker, president of the Parents Rights Coalition, a conservative
Massachusetts-based advocacy group.
Camenker said he believes the school, Joseph Estabrook Elementary, broke a 1996
Massachusetts law requiring schools to notify parents of sex-education lessons.
"There is no question in my mind that the law is being abused here," he said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if in the next couple of weeks there was some kind of
(legal) action taken," he said.
Lexington Superintendent of Schools Paul Ash said the school was under no legal
obligation to inform parents the book would be read to the classroom of about 20
children.
"This district is committed to teaching children about the world they live in.
Seven-year-olds see gay people. They see them in the schools. They see them with
their kids," he said.
"I see this as a civil rights issue. People who are gay have a right to be
treated equally," he said.
"If it were North Carolina, this would be a whole different story. But the law
in Massachusetts is that gay marriage is legal. We have lots of gay families in
Lexington."
The issue erupted in Lexington when parent Robin Wirthlin complained to the
school's principle after her 7-year-old son told her about the reading last
month. She then turned to the Parents Rights Coalition, which released a
statement on the issue to Boston media last week.
Since then, Ash has been swamped by e-mails on the issue from across the
country, some in support but many written in anger including one from a North
Carolina man who threatened "to beat his head into the ground", he said.
"I handed that one to the police," said Ash.
CULTURAL DIVIDE
The issue underscores a growing cultural divide over the issue of gay rights at
a time when legal challenges seeking permission for gays and lesbians to marry
are pending in 10 states. Two U.S. states have legalized civil unions.
It also comes as California considers introducing school textbooks highlighting
the role of gays in its history.
Some legal scholars said the depth of emotion on the issue nationwide means
educators should include parents in the debate on exactly when to start
educating children on homosexuality.
"There is a difference between what is required and what is the right thing to
do," said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, which
produces guidelines for schools and teachers on issues such as same-sex
marriage.
"Some people believe that we are moving toward a kind of normalization of
homosexuality as part of the fabric of our life. Others believe we are going in
the other direction. Because we are now in a fork in the road where we are
debating this, public schools are not the place to settle it," he said.
"King & King" was ranked eighth among the top 10 books people wanted removed
from libraries in 2004, according to the American Library Association. Its
Berkeley, California publisher, Tricycle Press, said complaints over the 32-page
book first surfaced in 2004 in North Carolina.
An Oklahoma legislator last year cited the book as reason to impose new
restrictions on library collections.
Written by two Dutch women, the book has sold about 15,000 copies in the United
States since it was translated and published in 2002. A sequel, "King, King and
Family," about a royal same-sex family written by the same authors, was
published two years later.
"We believe all children deserve to see themselves in books and these books were
published for the children in gay families and for their friends" said Tricycle
publisher, Nicole Geiger.
Gay fairy tale
sparks civil rights debate, R, 24.4.2006,
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-04-25T002740Z_01_N24332559_RTRUKOC_0_US-RIGHTS-GAYS-MASSACHUSETTS.xml
Outrage at Funeral Protests Pushes
Lawmakers to Act
April 17, 2006
The New York Times
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
NASHVILLE, April 11 As dozens of mourners
streamed solemnly into church to bury Cpl. David A. Bass, a fresh-faced
20-year-old marine who was killed in Iraq on April 2, a small clutch of
protesters stood across the street on Tuesday, celebrating his violent death.
"Thank God for Dead Soldiers," read one of their placards. "Thank God for
I.E.D.'s," read another, a reference to the bombs used to kill service members
in the war. To drive home their point that God is killing soldiers to punish
America for condoning homosexuality members of the Westboro Baptist Church of
Topeka, Kan., a tiny fundamentalist splinter group, kicked around an American
flag and shouted, if someone approached, that the dead soldiers were rotting in
hell.
Since last summer, a Westboro contingent, numbering 6 to 20 people, has been
showing up at the funerals of soldiers with their telltale placards, chants and
tattered American flags. The protests, viewed by many as cruel and unpatriotic,
have set off a wave of grass-roots outrage and a flurry of laws seeking to
restrict demonstrations at funerals and burials.
"Repugnant, outrageous, despicable, do not adequately describe what I feel they
do to these families," said Representative Steve Buyer, an Indiana Republican
who is a co-sponsor of a Congressional bill to regulate demonstrations at
federal cemeteries. "They have a right to freedom of speech. But someone also
has a right to bury a loved one in peace."
In the past few months, nine states, including Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Indiana,
have approved laws that restrict demonstrations at a funeral or burial. In
addition, 23 state legislatures are getting ready to vote on similar bills, and
Congress, which has received thousands of e-mail messages on the issue, expects
to take up legislation in May dealing with demonstrations at federal cemeteries.
"I haven't seen something like this," said David L. Hudson Jr., research
attorney for the First Amendment Center, referring to the number of state
legislatures reacting to the protests. "It's just amazing. It's an emotional
issue and not something that is going to get a lot of political opposition."
Most of the state bills and laws have been worded carefully to try to avoid
concerns over the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech. The laws
typically seek to keep demonstrators at a funeral or cemetery 100 to 500 feet
from the entrance, depending on the state, and to limit the protests to one hour
before and one hour after the funeral.
A few states, including Wisconsin, also seek to bar people from displaying "any
visual image that conveys fighting words" within several hundred feet or during
the hours of the funeral. The laws or bills do not try to prevent protesters
from speaking out.
Constitutional experts say there is some precedent for these kinds of laws. One
case in particular, which sought to keep anti-abortion picketers away from a
private home, was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1988.
"A funeral home seems high on the list of places where people legitimately could
be or should be protected from unwanted messages," said Michael C. Dorf, a
constitutional law professor at Columbia University Law School.
The Westboro Baptist Church, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, is not affiliated with
the mainstream Baptist church. It first gained publicity when it picketed the
funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was beaten to death in 1998 in
Wyoming.
Over the past decade, the church, which consists almost entirely of 75 of Mr.
Phelps's relatives, made its name by demonstrating outside businesses, disaster
zones and the funerals of gay people. Late last year, though, it changed tactics
and members began showing up at the funerals of troops killed in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has put
it on its watch list.
Embracing a literal translation of the Bible, the church members believe that
God strikes down the wicked, chief among them gay men and lesbians and people
who fail to strongly condemn homosexuality. God is killing soldiers, they say,
because of America's unwillingness to condemn gay people and their lifestyles.
Standing on the roadside outside Corporal Bass's funeral here under a strikingly
blue sky, the six protesters, who had flown from Topeka, shook their placards as
cars drove past or pulled into the funeral. The 80-year-old wife of Mr. Phelps,
slightly stooped but spry and wearing her running shoes, carried a sign that
read "Tennessee Taliban." She is often given the task of driving the pickup
trucks that ferry church members, a stack of pillows propping her view over the
dashboard.
Next to her stood a cluster of Mr. Phelps's great-grandnephews and
great-grandnieces, smiling teenagers with sunglasses, digital cameras and
cellphones dangling from their pockets and wrists. They carried their own signs,
among them, "You're Going to Hell."
Careful not to trespass on private property, the group stood a distance down the
hill from the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ. Police cars parked nearby,
keeping watch, but mostly making sure no one attacked the protesters.
"God is punishing this nation with a grievous, smiting blow, killing our
children, sending them home dead, to help you connect the dots," said Shirley
Roper-Phelps, the spokeswoman for the group and one of Mr. Phelps's daughters.
"This is a nation that has forgotten God and leads a filthy manner of life."
At the entrance of the church, Jonathan Anstey, 21, one of Corporal Bass's best
friends, frowned as he watched the protesters from a distance. Corporal Bass,
who joined the Marine Corps after high school, died with six other service
members when his 7-ton truck rolled over in a flash flood in Iraq. His family
was reeling from grief, Mr. Anstey said.
"It's hurtful and it's taking a lot of willpower not to go down there and stomp
their heads in," Mr. Anstey said. "But I know that David is looking down and
seeing me, and he would not want to see that."
Disturbed by the protests, a small group of motorcycle riders, some of them
Vietnam War veterans, banded together in October to form the Patriot Guard
Riders. They now have 22,000 members. Their aim is to form a human shield in
front of the protesters so that mourners cannot see them, and when necessary,
rev their engines to drown out the shouts of the Westboro group.
The Bass family, desiring a low-key funeral, asked the motorcycle group not to
attend.
"It's kind of like, we didn't do it right in the '70s," said Kurt Mayer, the
group's spokesman, referring to the treatment of Vietnam veterans. "This is
something that America needs to do, step up and do the right thing."
Hundreds of well-wishers have written e-mail messages to members of the
motorcycle group, thanking them for their presence at the funerals. State
legislatures, too, are reacting swiftly to the protests, and the Westboro group
has mostly steered clear of states that have already enacted laws. While
Corporal Bass's family was getting ready to bury him, the Tennessee House was
preparing to debate a bill making it illegal for protesters to stand within 500
feet of a funeral, burial or memorial service.
The House joined the Senate in approving it unanimously on Thursday, and the
bill now awaits the signature of the governor.
"When you have someone who has given the ultimate sacrifice for their country,
with a community and the family grieving, I just don't feel it's the appropriate
time to be protesting," said State Representative Curtis Johnson, a Republican
who was a co-sponsor of the bill.
Ms. Roper-Phelps said the group was now contemplating how best to challenge the
newly passed laws. "This hypocritical nation runs around the world touting our
freedoms and is now prepared to dismantle the First Amendment," she said. "A
piece of me wants to say that is exactly what you deserve."
Outrage at Funeral Protests Pushes Lawmakers to Act, NYT, 17.4.2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/17/us/17picket.html
Gay marriage battles loom across US
Fri Mar 31, 2006 8:03 PM ET
Reuters
By Jason Szep
BOSTON (Reuters) - Citing polling that suggests opposition
to same-sex marriages is receding, gay rights advocates expressed confidence on
Friday that such weddings would spread, despite a ruling by Massachusetts'
highest court that bars homosexuals from other states from marrying there.
Activists on both sides of the issue were awaiting a court ruling on whether
Washington will follow Massachusetts and become the second U.S. state to
legalize gay marriage, at least among residents.
"Washington state's Supreme Court right now, any day, is going to deliver their
ruling on marriage, so it's something that we've been waiting for a while now to
happen," said Brad Luna of gay rights group Human Rights Campaign.
After hearing arguments in March 2005, Washington state's top court will decide
whether to overturn two lower court rulings in favor of same-sex marriage. The
case was brought by eight same-sex couples denied marriage licenses.
Legal challenges seeking permission for gays and lesbians to marry are pending
in 10 states. New Jersey's Supreme Court is expected to rule this year on a bid
for gay marriage. Two cases are also winding through New York's court system and
could end up in the state's highest court this year.
Massachusetts's highest court ruled in 2003 that it was unconstitutional to ban
gay marriage, paving the way for America's first same-sex marriages in May the
following year.
But on Thursday, that court quashed any chance of Massachusetts becoming the
nation's gay wedding capital, ruling that homosexual couples from states that
ban same-sex marriages cannot legally be wed in Massachusetts.
The ruling, upholding a 1913 state law barring nonresidents from marrying if
their home state would not recognize the marriage, was in response to a lawsuit
by gay couples from Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
"I really don't anticipate that the Massachusetts ruling will have much of an
impact on other state courts because those courts will look at their own state
laws and their own state constitutions, and rule accordingly," said Seth
Kilbourn, political direct of gay rights group Equality California.
The Alliance to Marriage and other groups which oppose gay marriage said
Thursday's Massachusetts's court decision would embolden opposition in states
including California, Florida, Iowa and New York where the divisive issue is
under debate.
A Pew Research Center poll taken in early March and released last week showed
that opposition to same-sex marriage had dropped across the country in the past
two years. But it also showed that just over half of Americans still oppose
allowing gays and lesbians to marry.
At least 13 states have passed amendments banning gay marriage while two --
Vermont and Connecticut -- have legalized civil unions. California, New Jersey,
Maine, the District of Colombia and Hawaii each offer gay couples some legal
rights as partners.
The U.S. Supreme Court has not taken a case on gay marriage, leaving states to
decide the issue.
Gay marriage
battles loom across US, R, 31.3.2006,
http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-04-01T010326Z_01_N31203066_RTRUKOC_0_US-RIGHTS-GAYS.xml
Court: Gays can't come to Mass. to marry
Posted 3/30/2006 10:49 AM Updated 3/30/2006 11:13 AM
USA Today
BOSTON (AP) The state's highest court ruled Thursday that
same-sex couples from other states cannot legally marry in Massachusetts.
(Related blog: Same-sex marriages limited in Mass.)
The Supreme Judicial Court, which three years ago made
Massachusetts the first state to legalize gay marriage, ruled in a challenge to
a 1913 state law that forbids non-residents from marrying in Massachusetts if
their marriage would not be recognized in their home state.
"The laws of this commonwealth have not endowed non-residents with an unfettered
right to marry," the court wrote in its 38-page opinion. "Only non-resident
couples who come to Massachusetts to marry and intend to reside in this
commonwealth thereafter can be issued a marriage license without consideration
of any impediments to marriage that existed in their former home states."
Eight gay couples from surrounding states challenged the law after they were
denied marriage licenses in Massachusetts.
In oral arguments before the high court in October, a lawyer for the couples
argued that the 1913 law sat unused for decades and was "dusted off" by Gov.
Mitt Romney in an attempt to discriminate against same-sex couples.
Romney ordered city and town clerks to enforce the 1913 law after the first
same-sex marriages were performed in Massachusetts in May 2004.
Attorneys for the state said Massachusetts risks a backlash if it ignores the
laws of other states by allowing same-sex couples to marry here when such unions
are prohibited in their own states.
More than 6,000 gay couples have tied the knot in Massachusetts since the
court's landmark ruling in 2003 that under the Massachusetts Constitution,
same-sex couples have the same right to marry as heterosexual couples.
Court: Gays can't
come to Mass. to marry, UT, 30.3.2006,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-30-gay-marriage_x.htm
Same-sex marriage battles escalate
Posted 3/23/2006 11:38 PM
USA TODAY
By Joan Biskupic
WASHINGTON Gay rights advocates are pushing to legalize
same-sex marriage with an unprecedented wave of lawsuits in state courts, while
those seeking to ban such unions are gaining ground in state legislatures.
The contrasting strategies reflect how judges have begun to
show a willingness to expand the rights of same-sex couples at a time when many
state lawmakers and most Americans are cool to the idea.
Several key developments are likely soon. The top state courts in Washington
state and New Jersey have heard arguments brought by gay men and lesbians.
Either court could open the door to a second state joining Massachusetts in
allowing same-sex marriages. (Related story: Lawsuits target bans)
Other lawsuits backed by the ACLU, Lambda Legal and other
gay rights groups are wending their way through courts in California,
Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland and New York. The groups want courts to declare that
same-sex couples have a right to marry based on state constitutional protections
for equality and due process of law. The groups also hope to win legal
precedents that could influence the U.S. Supreme Court to endorse a
constitutional right to same-sex unions nationwide.
Meanwhile, the Alliance for Marriage and other groups against same-sex marriage
hope to win legislative ballot initiatives this year in Alabama, Idaho, South
Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. The measures would
amend state constitutions to ban same-sex marriages.
Nineteen states have such bans. Most have been adopted since November 2003, when
Massachusetts' highest state court said same-sex couples have a right to marry
under state law. Massachusetts then became the first state to give marriage
licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
The legislative moves against gay marriages aren't limited to the states. In
June, the U.S. Senate is scheduled to begin debating a measure intended to lead
to a U.S. constitutional amendment banning such marriages. The proposals in
legislatures and in Congress partly reflect public-opinion polls, which for five
years have indicated that about 60% of Americans oppose legalizing same-sex
marriage.
The ACLU and others supporting same-sex marriages hope to turn public opinion by
casting the ability to marry one's chosen partner as a basic right. They also
are trying to tie their campaign with the efforts against bans on interracial
marriage four decades ago.
A few judges, including Manhattan Judge Doris Ling-Cohan, have made such a link
in backing same-sex marriages. Her ruling was reversed in December, however, by
an appeals court that said the state has "a strong interest in fostering
heterosexual marriage."
TWO FRONTS
States where lawsuits seek same-sex marriages:
California
Connecticut
Iowa
Maryland
New Jersey
New York
Washington
States with 2006 ballot initiatives to ban them:
Alabama
Idaho
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Virginia
Wisconsin
Same-sex marriage
battles escalate, UT, 23.3.2006,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-23-gay-marriage_x.htm
Wave of lawsuits targets bans on same-sex marriage
Posted 3/23/2006 10:46 PM
USA TODAY
By Joan Biskupic
WASHINGTON Heather McDonnell and Carol Snyder of White
Plains, N.Y., have been a couple for 16 years.
When Snyder was in the hospital for breast cancer surgery
early in their relationship, McDonnell wanted to be at her side, just as a
spouse would. And so McDonnell was but only after she was first challenged by
a nurse who did not think of her as family.
The episode, and others like it, prompted McDonnell, 52, an administrator at
Sarah Lawrence College, and Snyder, a 61-year-old special education teacher, to
join several other gay and lesbian couples in lawsuits challenging policies
against same-sex marriages.
"There is nothing more universal in this country as saying
you're married," McDonnell says. "When you are at your most vulnerable ... you
need something like that."
The lawsuits, sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union and gay rights
groups such as Lambda Legal, utilize carefully selected plaintiffs and locales.
They argue that particular state constitutions contain a right to same-sex
marriage.
The lawsuits were inspired largely by a 2003 ruling by Massachusetts' highest
court that led to that state being the first to legalize such unions. David
Buckel of Lambda Legal says the lawsuits are focused on states where public
attitudes toward same-sex unions seem particularly friendly and where amending
the state constitution to counter any ruling for same-sex marriage would be
difficult.
Such lawsuits are awaiting rulings by the top state courts in Washington state
and New Jersey. Similar lawsuits are making their way through state courts in
California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland and New York. The lawsuits generally
claim that the states' constitutions allow gay couples to marry on the same
terms as heterosexuals.
'67 Supreme Court ruling cited
The state-by-state approach is somewhat similar to the strategy gay rights
groups used in recent years in a successful fight against laws that made sex
between people of the same sex a crime.
However, before the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated such laws in 2003, many
legislatures were lifting their bans on sodomy.
Gay marriage does not have that kind of legislative momentum. Nineteen states
amended their constitutions to ban such marriages in recent years, and similar
ballot initiatives will be before voters this year in seven other states.
Gay-marriage advocates are trying to link their effort with a 1967 U.S. Supreme
Court ruling that rejected state bans on interracial marriages. A few state
court judges have accepted that comparison.
"It was only less than 40 years ago that the U.S. Supreme Court held that
anti-miscegenation statutes ... violate the Constitution because they infringed
on the freedom to marry a person of one's choice," Manhattan Judge Doris
Ling-Cohan wrote last year. "Similarly, this court must so hold in the context
of same-sex marriages."
Some courts that have rejected same-sex marriage have said the comparison to
racial discrimination is inapt. In December, when a state appeals court in New
York overruled Ling-Cohan's decision, it said the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on
interracial marriage arose from the "fundamental right to be free from racial
discrimination" and that there was no similar fundamental right to same-sex
marriage.
That sentiment is in line with arguments made by groups that oppose such
marriages. "The laws that once limited one's marriage partner on the basis of
race were designed to build walls and keep blacks and whites apart," says Peter
Sprigg of the Family Research Council. "But preserving the traditional
definition of marriage brings men and women together."
'Race between lawsuits'
Overall, the gay rights groups' strategy seeks to win state court rulings that
could help change public attitudes and help prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to
guarantee a right to gay marriage.
It's unclear how the court, under new Chief Justice John Roberts and with new
Justice Samuel Alito, will view gay rights cases.
Critics of same-sex marriage, cite elected legislatures' moves against same-sex
marriage while casting the current lawsuits as an attempt to make an end run
around the will of the people.
"It's a race between these lawsuits and the (state constitutional) amendments"
against same-sex marriage, says Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for
Marriage. Daniels' group is backing the state initiatives against same-sex
marriage as well as a measure in the U.S. Senate that calls for a constitutional
ban on such unions.
William Hohengarten, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who was part of the team that
argued successfully against anti-sodomy laws at the Supreme Court in 2003, says
winning cases in state courts is key for groups backing same-sex marriage. "It's
important to have a number of states where same-sex marriage becomes a way of
life ... to help change public attitudes."
MILESTONES IN GAY RIGHTS
1986: U.S. Supreme Court backs Georgia anti-sodomy law.
1993: Hawaii's top court says state constitution's guarantee of equal protection
could give same-sex couples marital rights.
1996: President Clinton signs federal Defense of Marriage Act. It defines
marriage as a - legal union between one man and one woman - and says states do
not have to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.
1996: Supreme Court rejects Colorado ban on laws protecting gays from
discrimination.
1998: Hawaii amends state constitution to reserve marriage for opposite-sex
couples.
2000: Vermont allows civil unions between same-sex couples, giving them most of
the benefits of marriage.
2003: Supreme Court rejects Texas law that banned sex between adults of same
sex.
2003: Massachusetts' top court says same-sex couples have a right to marry.
By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY
Wave of
lawsuits targets bans on same-sex marriage, UT, 23.3.2006,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-23-lawsuits-gay_x.htm
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