Catholic Bishops draft guideline for ministry to gays

Bishops draft guidelines for ministry to gays, but critics say policy may increase alienation

By Laurie Goodstein
The New York TimesOctober 29, 2006
The nation's Roman Catholic bishops have drafted new guidelines for ministry to gay people that affirm church teaching against same-sex relationships, marriages and adoptions by gay couples, yet encourage parishes to reach out to gay Catholics who feel alienated by their church.The bishops' document, the result of a four-year effort, gives specific instructions on some of the conundrums now faced in many parishes.The guidelines recommend baptizing the adopted children of same-sex couples, as long as the children will be raised as Catholics. It says that gay people may benefit from revealing their "tendencies" to friends, family and their priest, but should not make "general public announcements" about it in the parish.The guidelines also say that gay men and lesbians have "no moral obligation to attempt" therapy, an apparent reference to therapy programs that claim to change gay people's sexual orientation. It says that while "some have found therapy helpful," there is "no scientific consensus" either on therapy or the causes of homosexuality.The bishops will vote on the document, "Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care," when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meets Nov. 13-16 in Baltimore. It could be amended and needs a two-thirds majority to pass.Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., the chairman of the bishops doctrine committee, which wrote the guidelines, said that although it was difficult to predict whether it would pass, "It's a very sound document, a very clear document. My sense is that the bishops will readily embrace it."Gay Catholic leaders who had read the draft, however, predicted that it would only further alienate gays and their families from the church."There certainly is some lovely language that sounds welcoming in here," said Sam Sinnett, president of DignityUSA, an organization for gay Catholics, "but essentially they're repeating all the spiritually violent things they've been saying about gay and lesbian Catholics for a couple of decades -- that we are `objectively disordered' and our relationships are intrinsically evil."A previous document, issued by a committee of bishops in 1997, was directed primarily at parents with gay children. But it proved controversial and was never approved by the bishops conference.This new document puts more emphasis on the church's moral teaching about sexuality. It says that although having a "homosexual inclination" is not itself a sin, homosexual sex is a sin -- as are premarital sex and adultery. The answer in all these situations is chastity.The document says that although the church teaches that homosexuality is "objectively disordered," a teaching in the catechism that says homosexual acts violate the natural law, the church is not saying that homosexual people themselves are disordered or "rendered morally defective by this inclination."Such distinctions will provide little comfort to gay Catholics, said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a gay outreach group for Catholics based in Maryland. DeBernardo criticized the document for saying that gay people should make their sexuality known only to a small group, and that gay people whose behavior "violates" church teaching should be denied leadership roles in parishes."Gay and lesbian people are going to read those remarks and see them as offensive, as telling them to go underground," he said.That is not the intention, said the Rev. Thomas G. Weinandy, who worked on the document as executive director for the U.S. bishops' secretariat for doctrine and pastoral practices."The bishops would like people with homosexual inclinations to really participate in the church, but they don't want to `give scandal,'" Weinandy said. "If you knew a heterosexual couple were just cohabitating and not married, you wouldn't let them be Eucharistic ministers either."The bishops have issued statements in recent years condemning gay marriage, gay adoption and benefits for gay partners. They have historically been more attuned to gay issues, however, than some of their colleagues overseas. Last year, the Vatican issued an "instruction" saying that men with "deep-seated" homosexual attraction should not be ordained. In its wake, some American bishops commented in their diocesan newspapers or privately to their priests that they did not regard this as a ban on ordaining gay men and would continue to accept gay candidates on a case-by-case basis.The bishops said they felt the need for clear guidelines because there were many pastoral ministries for gay people in parishes and dioceses around the country and "confusion" about what was an "authentic" Catholic approach, Weinandy said. He noted that the Vatican had disciplined the founders of New Ways Ministry, the Rev. Robert Nugent and Sister Jeannine Gramick, for preaching acceptance of gay relationships.As such, the guidelines repeatedly say that bishops should not countenance church leaders and pastoral workers who fail to uphold its teachings on homosexuality, or who advocate harm toward gay people.
Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Spitzer's Support for Gays Will Not Be Tested Soon

Spitzer's Support for Gays Will Not Be Tested
From New York Magazine

"Marriage is coming to New York, and if you stay put, it'll be here sooner than you think," Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, told the Daily Intelligencer yesterday.
The New Jersey Supreme Court's decision to recognize same-sex couples will compel the State Legislature to either allow gay marriage or create civil unions. New Jersey is the latest New York neighbor to legalize some sort of gay union, and we might be slow to (ahem) keep up with the Jerseyites.
Soon-to-be governor Eliot Spitzer is unequivocally in favor of gay marriage, telling the Empire State Pride agenda on October 5, "This is not about government choosing winners or losers. It's about a government that recognizes the fundamental individual value of every single New Yorker." And 53 percent of New Yorkers agree, according to an April poll.
But most likely, Spitzer won't be pushed to take this matter before the legislature until 2009. Only one Republican in the State Senate's GOP majority — Nicholas Spano, of Yonkers — supports same-sex unions. Few believe the Democrats will gain a majority in the Senate this year, leaving Spitzer with two years to amass a record of success on his governmental-reform agenda of lowering taxes and balancing the state budget before attempting to take on a controversial social issue. In one of his debates with John Faso, Spitzer was clear that he would not make gay marriage an early priority in his administration.
No matter what happens, here or in New Jersey, by getting out front on the issue, Spitzer gives himself a cushy spot from which to watch the debate in New Jersey and the national discussion unfold. If gay marriage doesn't come to New York, it will always be the do-nothing legislature, not the mealy mouthed governor, that failed.

Bush attacks Marriage for gays

Bush Attacks Gay Marriage Rouses Supporters At Rally With Pledge To Oppose It

By MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKEAnd JAMES GERSTENZANG Los Angeles Times

October 29 2006SELLERSBURG, Ind. -- At his first campaign rally this election season, President Bush on Saturday galvanized supporters in a packed high school gym by pledging to oppose gay marriage, a theme Republican candidates have revived in the wake of a New Jersey court ruling in favor of gay couples."Activist judges try to define America by court order," Bush told the crowd of 4,000 at Silver Creek High School, flanked by local Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-Ind., who is running for re-election. "Just this week in New Jersey, another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe marriage is between a man and a woman."At that, the raucous crowd went wild, shouting "USA," stomping their feet and shaking dozens of red, white and blue pompoms.The New Jersey Supreme Court last week ruled that gay and lesbian couples in that state should have all the rights and benefits of marriage, leaving it up to legislators to decide whether to call such partnerships marriages or civil unions. Gay marriage was a motivating issue for social conservatives in the 2004 election, but has been overshadowed this year by the war in Iraq.Constitutional amendments banning gay marriage will be on the ballot in eight states this November, including South Carolina, which Bush visited late Saturday to greet troops and attend a campaign fundraiser outside Charleston.Bush has appeared at private fundraisers for individual candidates, but now is launching a string of public rallies during this last week leading up to the midterm elections, speaking out on tax cuts, national security and gay marriage while playing to his base of conservative Republican voters in such strongholds as Sellersburg, Statesboro, Ga., and Sugar Land, Texas.With Republican control of Congress increasingly in play, the president's visits and tone could determine the fate of a handful of close races.Beleaguered Republican candidates have distanced themselves from the president in recent debates, television ads and closed fundraisers as his approval rating remained below 40 percent this month. It has become increasingly difficult for the party to take advantage of the office of the president, party strategists say.Democrats in Maryland, Missouri and Pennsylvania have launched attack ads that remind voters of their opponents' support for Bush."Michael Steele: Right for Bush, wrong for Maryland," says one of the latest television ads from Democrat Ben Cardin, which features Steele praising Bush at the 2004 Republican National Convention.On Friday, California Democrat Jerry McNerney issued an invitation to Bush to return to the 11th District and campaign for Rep. Richard W. Pombo whom he visited last month, because he "reminds voters that both Bush and Pombo are satisfied with the lack of ethics and integrity in Congress."The campaign landscape has changed dramatically since the midterm elections of 2002, when Bush's approval rating was 64 percent. Then, Bush targeted battleground districts for massive, boisterous rallies.But he has been more low-key this campaign season. At a Thursday fundraising rally that brought in $700,000 for the Senate campaign of Oakland County, Mich. Sheriff Mike Bouchard, a catering hall half the size of a high school gymnasium was more than half empty.

Tales from Mass may influence NJ gay marraige decision

Tales from Mass. may influence N.J. in gay marriage decision

By Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press Writer October 28, 2006

As New Jersey lawmakers consider how to grant full marriage rights to gay couples, they'll surely be looking north for lessons.
Specifically, they'll look to Massachusetts, the only state that allows gay marriage, and to Vermont, the state with the longest experience offering civil unions.
"I think we will look to both (states), particularly to Vermont with civil unions," said state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen. "And we'd be foolish not to."
In a ruling last week, the New Jersey Supreme Court declared unanimously that same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights as heterosexual ones. By a 4-3 margin, justices gave lawmakers 180 days to "either amend the marriage statutes to include same-sex couples or create a parallel statutory structure" that gives gays all the privileges and obligations married couples have.
The ruling is similar to the 1999 high-court ruling in Vermont that led the state to create civil unions, which confer all of the rights and benefits available to married couples under state law.
Top New Jersey lawmakers have indicated the Garden State's same-sex marriage mechanism will likely take the form of civil unions.
Since they were approved by Vermont lawmakers in 2000, more than 8,000 couples have received civil unions from the state of Vermont, about 85 percent of them involving couples who do not live in the state.
The high court in Massachusetts ruled in 2003 that gay marriage should be legalized. The next year, the state began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. So far, more than 8,000 have been issued, mostly to Massachusetts couples.
Opinions vary on how same-sex unions have changed life in Massachusetts and Vermont.
"I don't think it's (civil unions) changed Vermont one diddly-squat," said Clyde Jenne, the town clerk in Hartland, Vt. "We didn't fall off the face of the earth."
Others who oppose same-sex unions say the practice has caused problems.
In Vermont, civil unions have led people with liberal views to more aggressively promote their beliefs, said Steve Cable, president of the anti-civil union group Vermont Renewal.
"People who hold traditional views here are literally being oppressed," Cable said. "A kid says, `I don't know if I agree with this,' and they get ganged up on by other kids as well as teachers, who say, `This is law.'"
In both states, opponents of same-sex unions claim schools are "indoctrinating children" with a message that families headed by gay couples are normal.
David Parker, a scientist who lives in Lexington, Mass., is part of a lawsuit that seeks to force schools to notify parents and give them a chance to have their young children opt out of lessons that deal with homosexuality.
Parker was arrested last year for refusing to leave his 6-year-old son's school after officials refused to meet his demand that he be notified when homosexuality was going to be discussed in his son's class.
"It is an indoctrination process. I'm talking about young children," he said. "We're not talking about high school students here."
In Massachusetts, fallout from gay marriage prompted Catholic Charities of Boston to get out of the adoption business. Church officials said they could not reconcile adopting children into homes with same-sex parents with Roman Catholic beliefs.
Both states have seen political ramifications from same-sex marriage legislation.
In Vermont, 18 lawmakers who supported the unions were replaced by conservatives who did not, and Republicans took control of the Legislature. Four years later, though, Democrats were back in charge.
Massachusetts lawmakers voted 16 times on various measures on whether to ask voters whether they support amending the state constitution to ban gay marriage in the future. So far, none of the lawmakers who have voted against the amendment have lost re-election bids.
But Kristian Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, said that could change Nov. 7, when lawmakers are up for election again.
Soon after that election, another legislative vote is expected on whether to have the amendment on the 2008 ballot.
Mineau scoffs at the notion that the gay marriage question is no longer a priority for most people in the state. A state-record 170,000 residents signed the petition seeking the public vote.
As New Jersey lawmakers decide how the state will implement the court's ruling, activists on both sides of the debate say the term "marriage" does matter.
In their nearly 40 years together, Bobbi and Sandi Cote-Whitacre, who live in Vermont, have had both a big civil union ceremony in their own state and a tiny civil wedding administered by a justice of the peace in Massachusetts.
Bobbi Cote-Whitacre said the smaller ceremony in Massachusetts was more meaningful to her.
"The big difference is emotional, at least for us," she said. "It probably has something to do with age and the way we were brought up. The difference in my emotions was so intense with our marriage. It's what we'd been wanting for darn near 40 years."
Glen Elder, an associate professor of geography at the University of Vermont and himself a member of a civil union, said most of the state's gay couples "have sort of reconciled with the institution at this point."
The benefits for civil unions and marriage are nearly the same.
Vermont couples with civil unions and gay Massachusetts couples with marriages have all the rights their states offer marriages performed between men and women. If one partner dies, the other can stay in their home. If one is ill, the other can visit in the hospital. And they get other benefits, too: Bobbi Cote-Whitaker said her auto insurance bill went down by one-third after her civil union.
But neither state's recognition applies nationally. So couples in both states must file federal tax returns as singles. And if one partner dies, the other won't get federal Social Security payments.
Arline Isaacson, co-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus said there's another reason the term "marriage" is better for gay couples than civil unions.
"Marriage at least has the potential to cross (state) borders at some point down the road," she said. "It can't happen with civil unions."
--------
Associated Press writer Wilson Ring in Woodstock, Vt., contributed to this article.

NJ courts back rights for same sex unions

October 25, 2006
New Jersey Court Backs Rights for Same-Sex Unions
By DAVID W. CHEN
TRENTON, Oct. 25 — New Jersey’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights and financial benefits as heterosexual couples, but split over whether their unions must be called marriage or could be known by another name, handing that question to the Legislature.
In a decision filled with bold and sweeping pronouncements about equality, the New Jersey Supreme Court gave the Democratic-controlled Legislature 180 days to either expand existing laws or come up with new ones to provide gay couples benefits including tuition assistance, survivors’ benefits under workers’ compensation laws and spousal privilege in criminal trials.
Four justices said that lawmakers, not the court, should decide whether to call those arrangements a marriage, a civil union or something else, while three dissenters said the state Constitution demanded that gay couples, like their heterosexual counterparts, be allowed to wed.
The New Jersey court did not go as far as Massachusetts, which in 2003 became the first state to permit gay marriage. Instead, it could be considered the new Vermont, which created civil unions for gay couples in 2000, in the politically, legally and culturally charged world of same-sex marriage.
“Our decision today significantly advances the civil rights of gays and lesbians,” Justice Barry T. Albin wrote for the majority. “We have decided that our state Constitution guarantees that every statutory right and benefit conferred to heterosexual couples through civil marriage must be made available to committed same-sex couples.”
But the ruling passed along the thorniest question, of whether true equality demands the same name, to the Legislature, saying “such change must come from the crucible of the democratic process..”
Within minutes of the court’s 3 p.m. announcement, three Democratic Assemblymen, working with Garden State Equality, a gay rights organization, said that they would introduce a bill demanding marriage.
But reaction from their fellow legislators was guarded, with some saying privately that civil unions, not marriage, would be the likely result. In a joint statement, Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr. and Senate President Richard J. Codey, both Democrats, called the 180-day deadline “unreasonable” and said, “The only remaining issues now confronting the Legislature are ones of terminology and clarification.”
For people involved in the legal battle over gay marriage, the decision is an important shift from three recent court rulings in New York, Washington state and California that essentially rejected gay couples’ claims on marriage and the benefits it confers. And by issuing a nuanced and complicated 90-page ruling that left observers struggling to declare who won and who lost, the court may have neutralized gay marriage as an issue in the Nov. 7 elections, when eight states will consider ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage.
“The decision certainly minimizes what the radical right thought they might have had as a mobilizing tool in the last days of the election,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy organization.
Nathaniel Persily, who teaches law and political science at the University of Pennsylvania and who recently co-wrote a paper titled “Gay Marriage, Public Opinion and the Courts,” praised the justices for “an incredibly smart and politically astute opinion.”
“The Court has placed itself exactly where a majority of the American people are,” Professor Persily said. “A majority of Americans are in favor of equal rights for gays tantamount to marriage, but a majority is also against calling that relationship marriage.”
At the same time, he added: “This must be seen as a win for gay rights. They did not get the name they want, but they are getting more rights than could have been imaginable just a few years ago. Who would have thought 50, 20, even 10 years ago that a unanimous state supreme court would have said that gay relationships are entitled to equal rights as heterosexual relationships?”
But conservative groups opposed to same-sex marriage blasted the ruling as an example of the justices essentially trading judicial robes for legislative pens.
“The court is holding a legal gun to the head of the state Legislature, and saying, ‘Listen, there are two bullets, you get to pick the bullet: either gay marriage or civil unions,’ ” said Matt Daniels, president of Alliance for Marriage, an organization based in the Washington area that supports a federal Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. “And that is not democracy. That is court-imposed policy-making that takes this out of the hands of the people.”
Until now, courts in many other states — including the Court of Appeals in New York in July — had rejected similar lawsuits by same-sex couples, with the common rationale being that only the legislative branch can define or redefine marriage. No legislature has yet done that, though several states, including New Jersey, have enacted domestic partnership laws to grant gay couples some benefits in recent years.
Nineteen states have adopted constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. Most others have statutory bans, but New Jersey and four other states do not. In addition to Massachusetts, where more than 8,000 gay couples have gotten married in the past three years, Vermont and Connecticut authorize civil unions, which generally offer the same legal protections, if not the same societal status, as marriage.
Wednesday’s ruling caps a legal journey begun in 2002, when seven couples who had been denied marriage licenses in their towns filed the lawsuit now officially known as Lewis v. Harris. Two lower courts rejected their constitutional claim, with the Appellate Division ruling in June 2005, that marriage between members of the same sex was neither a fundamental right nor one covered by the constitution’s equal-protection clause.
Many gay-marriage advocates thought New Jersey’s high court, which heard the case Feb 15. was their best shot at victory.
It is regarded as one of the most liberal and independent in the country, having been among the first to strike down a ban on sodomy and rule in favor of adoption rights for gay couples.
The 4-3 split on Wednesday did not break along traditional political lines: the majority included all three justices appointed by the Democratic former governor, while the three dissenters, who backed the more far-reaching solution of opening marriage to gays, were named by a Republican.
“We do not have to take that all-or-nothing approach,” Justice Albin wrote of the marriage question in the majority opinion.
“We cannot find a legitimate public need for an unequal legal scheme of benefits and privileges that disadvantages same-sex couples,” he said. “We cannot find that a right to same-sex marriage is so deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people of this state that it ranks as a fundamental right.”
The court also expounded about the importance of equal treatment to protect children, diverging from the rulings of other state courts, which had said protecting procreation was one rationale for limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.
“There is something distinctly unfair about the State recognizing the right of same-sex couples to raise natural and adopted children and placing foster children with those couples,” Justice Albin said, “and yet denying those children the financial and social benefits and privileges available to children in heterosexual households.”
In the dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz argued that the semantic distinction of marriage versus civil unions was itself a meaningful one, arguing that the institution “bestows enormous private and social advantages.”
Agreeing that same-sex couples deserve the same rights and benefits as heterosexual ones, she wrote that she “can find no principled basis, however, on which to distinguish those rights and benefits from the right to the title of marriage.”
Patrick Healy contributed reporting from New York, and David Kocieniewski and Laura Mansnerus from Trenton.

Corzine tells legislators he backs civil unions over marriage

October 27, 2006
Corzine Tells Legislators He Backs Civil Unions Over Same-Sex Marriage
By LAURA MANSNERUS and PATRICK HEALY
TRENTON, Oct. 26 — Gov. Jon S. Corzine told legislative leaders on Thursday that he would prefer that New Jersey enact a civil unions law for gay couples rather than allow them to marry.
That prompted attacks from the state’s leading gay-rights advocate, who said Mr. Corzine expressed support for same-sex marriage to a gay audience two weeks ago and had repeatedly done so during his 2000 primary campaign for the United States Senate.

Steven Goldstein, who was co-manager of Mr. Corzine’s Senate campaign and now heads the gay-rights group Garden State Equality, said on Thursday that Mr. Corzine had clearly expressed a preference for gay marriage, over gay unions, in “numerous conversations.” Mr. Goldstein said the governor “expressed his full support for marriage equality” in a conference call with 100 advocates for gays earlier this month.
But Mr. Corzine said on Thursday afternoon in an interview that he had “advocated on a consistent basis for civil unions.” He said that he would sign a bill allowing gay marriage, but “it’s not my preference.”
Assistants to the governor said he had outlined his preferences to Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr. and Senate President Richard J. Codey on Thursday morning, a day after New Jersey’s highest court ruled that gay and lesbian couples are entitled to all the legal rights and financial benefits of their heterosexual counterparts.
The court gave the Legislature 180 days to decide whether to accomplish that by allowing gay men and lesbians to marry or by expanding New Jersey’s domestic partnership laws. Lawmakers, though, said they had made no plans to take up the issue.
“It’s much too early,” Mr. Codey said, pointing out that lawmakers already had a heavy schedule this fall dealing with the issue of property taxes.
Still, they seemed to have settled on the middle road that the majority of the court prescribed. They said they would not allow a vote to overturn the ruling with a constitutional amendment, but also discounted prospects for a law extending the term “marriage” to same-sex couples.
“I don’t see, at this point in time, a majority of both houses being in favor of marriage as opposed to civil unions,” Mr. Codey said. “It’s more likely to be civil unions.”
He added, “I couldn’t at this point guarantee civil unions.”
Mr. Goldstein said on Thursday that gay-marriage advocates were pressing legislators to support a bill that would extend the word “marriage” to same-sex unions, in part through a public-relations campaign. He said that his group had spent about $10,000 on advertising time on News 12 New Jersey, a cable station, to run commercials supporting gay marriage and arguing that civil unions are inadequate.
Opponents of gay marriage said they had no immediate plans to run commercials countering that theme.
“We don’t need to persuade the public,” said John Tomicki, chairman of the New Jersey Coalition to Preserve and Protect Marriage. “They share our views about marriage being for a man and a woman.”
Mr. Tomicki said his group would focus on trying to amend the State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, but he acknowledged that legislative leaders were not enthusiastic about that approach.
Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democrat from Princeton, said on Thursday that he had agreed to sponsor a “Marriage Equity Act” but that such a bill had not been drafted and could not be introduced before the next Assembly session, scheduled for Nov. 9. Even Mr. Gusciora was dubious about its prospects, saying, “When you talk about civil rights, sometimes you have to do things incrementally, and that might have to do that another day.”
Senator John Adler, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he did not expect to see a bill fully legalizing gay marriage, nor much resistance to extending marital rights and benefits to same-sex couples. “We’ve already made that conceptual leap,” he said.
New Jersey adopted domestic partnership legislation in 2004 without much organized dissent, and a bill adding some legal protections passed in January.
But while New Jersey’s Supreme Court specifically charged the Legislature with deciding how to categorize gay unions, Mr. Corzine’s position is likely to carry significant weight. In addition to occupying one of the nation’s most powerful governorships, Mr. Corzine accumulated a great deal of political capital earlier this year when he stood firm against the Legislature during the budget battle, forcing the state government to close down for a week.
A review of a dozens of newspaper articles about Mr. Corzine’s Senate campaign in 2000 turned up 10 that stated flatly he supported gay marriage. He is not quoted directly, however; he is simply described as supporting gay marriage during debates and on the campaign trail. Other articles from 2000 cite Mr. Corzine’s support for civil unions.
Mr. Goldstein said Mr. Corzine had clearly stated during the Democratic primary in 2000 that he preferred gay marriage, but that he began openly embracing civil unions during the general-election campaign to appeal to the wider electorate.
Anthony Coley, Mr. Corzine’s spokesman, said the newspaper stories from 2000 indicating support for gay marriage were not consistent with Mr. Corzine’s responses to questionnaires to gay groups in 2000 and 2005, the year he ran for governor, or with other newspaper stories.
“It seems that some folks are confusing his opposition to a federal amendment to the Constitution banning gay marriage with support for gay marriage,” Mr. Coley said. “The two are not the same. During his run for the Senate in 2000, Jon Corzine was for civil unions, and that remains his preference today.”
Mr. Corzine, in an interview on Thursday at Warren E. Sooy Jr. Elementary School in Hammonton after a tour of after-school programs, said of support for civil unions but not gay marriage: “It’s my own view that that’s where our society is at this moment in time. I personally have a traditional view, but I believe that should be framed in equal rights for everyone, and that’s exactly what the court argued.”
Mr. Goldstein said his camp did not contact the governor or his aides on Thursday. “He always comes to the correct view,” Mr. Goldstein said. “We want to give him time.”
Laura Mansnerus reported from Trenton and Patrick Healy from New York. Contributing reporting were David W. Chen in New York, Andrew Jacobs in Newark and Nate Schweber in Hammonton, N.J.

Wahingtons Supreme Court Decline to Reconsider Gay marriage ruling

Washington Supreme Court Declines To Reconsider Gay Marriage Ruling

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
October 26, 2006 - 1:00 pm ET
(Olympia, Washington) The Washington state Supreme Court has turned down an application to reconsider its 5-4 ruling upholding a law barring same-sex couples from marrying.
The court's denial, in a one-page ruling signed by Chief Justice Gerry Alexander, means the high court's July ruling will stand.
Washington state law allows the losing side in appeals to the high court to petition for reconsideration.
In its request to revisit the ruling the Northwest Women's Law Center, the ACLU and Lambda Legal said the court erred in two points of law.
In the first, the brief points to the section of the ruling that said Legislature had a "rational basis" for seeking to regulate marriage. The two groups argued that the justices did not show any reason how it could hurt opposite-sex couples if same-sex couples get married, or why same-sex couples' children wouldn't equally benefit if their parents could get married.
In the second, according to the brief, the court overlooked the sex discrimination protections under the state constitution in that it did not recognize that the state's ban on gay marriage law treats individuals differently based on their gender — a man can marry a woman, but a woman can't do the same.
In its 5 - 4 July ruling the Supreme Court said that the ban on same-sex marriage, the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, was not unconstitutional. (story) The court did, however, say that the legislature could repeal the law and pass legislation allowing same-sex marriage.
Although state law allows plaintiffs to petition the court to reconsider decisions, such applications are rarely granted.
Gay and lesbian couples denied marriage licenses filed suit in 2004. Two lower courts ruled that the state law barring gay marriage was unconstitutional and the the high court heard arguments in the case in March 2005. (story).
©365Gay.com 2006

Clinton Says she's evolved on gay marriage

Clinton Says She's 'Evolved' On Gay Marriage
Special to 365Gay.com
by Paul Schindler, Gay City News
October 26, 2006 - 9:00 pm ET

(New York City) In an appearance early Wednesday evening in front of roughly three-dozen LGBT leaders, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton indicated that she would not oppose efforts by Eliot Spitzer, the odds-on favorite to become the new governor, to enact a same-sex marriage law in New York.She also suggested that language she used when she first ran for the Senate in 2000 explaining her opposition to marriage equality based on the institution's moral, religious, and traditional foundations had not reflected the "many long conversations" she's had since with "friends" and others, and that her advocacy on LGBT issues "has certainly evolved."On Wednesday, Clinton presented her position on marriage equality as more one of pragmatism."I believe in full equality of benefits, nothing left out," she said. "From my perspective there is a greater likelihood of us getting to that point in civil unions or domestic partnerships and that is my very considered assessment."Clinton addressed a gathering organized by the Greater Voices Coalition made up of LGBT Democratic organizations citywide. Leaders of those clubs, along with out elected officials, including Democratic district leaders and state committee members, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, state Senator Tom Duane, and Assemblymembers Deborah Glick and Daniel O'Donnell, were in attendance. The meeting, which was held at the Upper East Side home of a Clinton supporter, ran for more than an hour.Representatives of the gay press were invited to the meeting, which was on the record.The session included both warm, enthusiastic praise for New York's junior Democratic senator and sharp questioning about her posture on marriage equality.Quinn opened the meeting recalling a number of issues-LGBT-related and not-which she had worked with Clinton on in the 10 months since she's been the Council leader. She focused in particular on their efforts to strategize about the Senate Democrats' response to this summer's efforts by Republicans to revive a federal constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage beaten back in 2004."Every single time since I've been elected speaker, I ever time I've picked up the phone to ask Senator Clinton to help the LGBT community, she has said yes," Quinn said. "She's assigned staff, she's taken her own time and political capital to put in on the deal."Ethan Geto, a long-time gay activist who described himself as an advisor to the senator on LGBT issues, introduced Clinton, addressing what he called "the elephant in the room.""We're engaged in a dialogue with someone who has the stature, who has the credibility, the viability to be the party's standard bearer in 2008," he said. "I think when you look at Senator Clinton's record, she may not agree with us on every last policy issue, but when you look at the totality of the record, there is no one in this country who may be the president of the United States with whom we have a warmer, a stronger, a closer productive working relationship."But once the meeting moved from introductions to questions, Clinton faced a considerably more varied reception-and, hands down, the most challenging issue she faced was marriage equality.Doug Robinson, the co-president of the Out People of Color Political Action Club who with his partner of more than 20 years has raised two sons, spoke about the pressures his family faces in sending both to college without the benefits of marriage's economic advantages. In what began as a strong challenge to Clinton, Robinson said, "We need your support on marriage, we need you to look at that."Yet, just as Robinson was about to yield the floor for Clinton's response, he offered her a bit of wiggle room."Even if you say civil marriage isn't as important as equal benefits, in my mind I don't care what you call it," he concluded. "But I need the same things that everyone does so I can sustain my family."It was at this point that the senator stated her support for "full equality of benefits, nothing left out," before saying that civil unions offered the more certain route to that goal."If you go the next step and say, 'But I want what is called marriage,' you're going to have a problem."Following up, Allen Roskoff, the president of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, worked to hold Clinton's feet to the fire. Recalling a conversation he had with her during her first Senate campaign, Roskoff said, "It was right after you said that you were against same-sex marriage on moral, religious, and traditional grounds and I found that incredibly hurtful." He also criticized the senator for volunteering her support for the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, even if not asked, and for not speaking during the Senate marriage amendment debate in June regardless of the work she did behind the scenes.Clinton offered Roskoff some consolation regarding her earlier characterizations of marriage's history as an exclusively heterosexual institution, an argument that she made in an interview with this reporter as well during the 2000 campaign."Obviously my friends and people who spoke to me-we've had many long conversations and I think-and which I believe-that the way that I have spoken and I have advocated has certainly evolved and I am happy to be educated and to learn as much as I can," she said.Clinton went on to defend both DOMA and her decision not to speak during the marriage amendment debate this past June, and in fact linked the two. She said that without being able to point to the U.S. law which bars federal recognition of gay marriage and allows states to similarly refuse to acknowledge such unions from other states, many more members of Congress would have voted to amend the Constitution, especially when that effort had its first vote two years ago.She explained that her choice not to speak on the Senate floor about the amendment this year was strategic."Very few Democrats spoke, because maybe you thought one way, which is that you want people out there speaking for us. We thought as-force the Republicans out there, make them look like they're trying to enshrine discrimination in the Constitution. We don't even want to dignify it."Later in the discussion, Larry Moss, who as a Democratic state committeeman led the charge for the state party's endorsement of marriage equality, raised the issue with specific reference to politics in Albany. Noting that Spitzer, if elected governor, plans to introduce a "program bill" legalizing gay marriage as a sign of his commitment to the issue, Moss asked, "How do we keep your words from being cover for conservative Democrats who want to compromise with Eliot and say, 'Just do civil unions?'"Clinton's response was probably the evening's most newsworthy moment."My position is consistent," she said. "I support states making the decision. I think that Chuck Schumer would say the same thing. And if anyone ever tried to use our words in any way, we'll review that. Because I think that it should be in the political process and people make a decision and if our governor and our Legislature support marriage in New York, I'm not going to be against that... So I feel very comfortable with being able to refute anybody who tries to pit us or pit me against Eliot."Asked several moments later by Gary Parker, the Greater Voices leader who chaired the meeting, to clarify that point, Clinton reiterated, "I am not going to speak out against, I'm not going to oppose anything that the governor and the Legislature do."No other issue raised during the gathering garnered the heat that marriage did. Clinton spoke passionately against what she said was the injustice, waste, and stupidity of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that has led to 10,000 discharges in the past 13 years, including some involving personnel with specialized skills such as language translation. The senator won praise from several at the meeting for her work in blocking Senate approval of a Ryan White AIDS Care Act reauthorization that would mean the loss of millions in federal dollars to New York each year.Asked by Melissa Sklarz, a transgendered activist who is a former president of the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats, if she would support the inclusion of gender identity and expression protections in the long-stalled federal employment nondiscrimination act, or ENDA, Clinton noted that the federal hate crimes measure also lacks such language, but said only, "We are very aware of that and we are raising that."Asked about a measure authored by West Side Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler that would allow immigrant partners of Americans to gain citizenship just as foreign-born married spouses can, Clinton said movement on that awaits a comprehensive solution to the immigration issue that moves beyond the current Republican emphasis on penalties and border fences. With a Democratic Congress, Clinton said, much more is possible "and I think that will be included in it."Only at the very end of the meeting did Clinton get around to foreign policy, the Iraq War, and what she called the Bush administration's "abuse of power.""I think they put Nixon to shame," she said, in what was an indisputable crowd-pleaser.
©365Gay.com 2006

Gay marriage and Westchester Senate Race

10/26/2006
Gay Marriage and a Westchester NY Senate Race
By: ANDY HUMM


Nick Spano, a Westchester Republican, became the first member of the New York State Senate majority to declare his support for same-sex marriage. "Civil unions are fine, but that doesn't answer the equality issue," he said in response to a question from the New York Blade's Kerry Eleveld. "I'm for marriage equality."

Spano's Democratic opponent, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who lost by 18 votes in the 2004 election, has yet to declare explicitly for marriage equality. She told Gay City News in a statement, "Nick Spano will clearly say anything to get elected. Although he supports gay marriage, he will not ask Joe Bruno to bring a marriage bill to the floor." Ted Lazarus, a Stewart-Cousins spokesman, offered a nuanced follow-up on his candidate's failure to endorse marriage quality, writing in an e-mail, "She will support any legislation guaranteeing equal rights for gay or lesbian couples that comes up for a vote, whether it is civil unions or civil marriage."Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a Troy Republican, is strongly opposed to marriage equality. The new Democratic leader, Malcolm Smith of Queens, recently declared his support for it. Bruno controls the agenda by refusing to bring measures his Republican majority does not support to a floor vote. That strategy held up the hate crimes law until 2000 and the gay nondiscrimination measure until 2002.

NJ rulings may help NY fight

N.J. ruling may help fight for N.Y. gays

By Keith EddingsThe Journal News(Original Publication: October 26, 2006)

The court ruling in New Jersey yesterday that gay couples must be given the same rights of marriage as straight couples will make the state the fourth on New York's border to recognize same-sex unions and adds to the pressure this state's legislators will feel to act on the issue when they convene in January, advocates for both sides said.
Bills that would sanction same-sex marriages or civil unions in New York have gone nowhere in Albany for six years, even as they went on the books in Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and in neighboring Canadian provinces. Pennsylvania and Ohio have moved in the other direction, enacting laws banning same-sex marriages.
In New York, advocates for same-sex marriage suffered a setback in July when the Court of Appeals rejected the claim that banning the marriages violates the equal-protection guarantees in the state Constitution. But by also asserting that gay marriage is an issue for the Legislature, not the judiciary, the court set up a battle in Albany that is expected to begin shortly after the November elections.
Advocates for same-sex marriage may have two strong new allies when the dust settles on Nov. 7: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer has said he will introduce a bill allowing gay marriage if he wins on Nov. 7, a promise that a campaign spokeswoman reiterated yesterday. And in an interview published Monday in The New York Blade, a gay publication, Nicholas Spano of Yonkers became the first Senate Republican to endorse what he called "marriage equality."
Yesterday, an aide went further, suggesting that Spano - the Senate's third-ranking Republican, who is in a tight re-election race - will lead the effort in Albany.
"He is for marriage equality and is clearly opposed to discrimination against any New Yorkers," Spano spokesman Tony Giambruno said. "This (New Jersey) decision ... leaves no question that this is an issue that will be fully discussed by state legislators when the new session begins in January."
Significant hurdles remain for same-sex marriage in New York, including Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Rensselaer. Yesterday, his spokesman, Mark Hansen, reiterated Bruno's position that "marriage is between a man and a woman."
Through an aide, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver also reiterated his earlier position, which has been more vague.
"The speaker has said it's a matter for his conference," said the aide, Skip Carrier, referring to the Assembly's Democratic majority. "Whatever the decision in New Jersey, however that might play in New York state, that would still be an issue he'd take up with his conference."
Nevertheless, sponsors of gay marriage bills were buoyed by the New Jersey court decision.
"Now we're totally surrounded - Canada, Massachusetts, New Jersey and civil unions in Vermont and Connecticut," said Tom Duane, the Manhattan Democrat who is sponsoring the gay-marriage bill in the Senate. "Just the news of this happening in New Jersey advances the ball on the marriage field in New York state."
Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, who is sponsoring the bill in the Assembly, said he believed that New Jersey's recognition of gay unions would make the battle easier in New York, but he said the New Jersey court did not go far enough.
"The only problem with the New Jersey decision is that it goes back to the old 'separate-but-equal' doctrine," Gottfried said. "On the one hand, it says same-sex couples are entitled to protection. On the other hand, it says it's OK to separate them from everyone else, and I think that's profoundly wrong."
In its 4-3 ruling, the New Jersey court did not ordain gay marriage, but gave state legislators 180 days to decide whether to offer same-sex couples marriage or some other partnership such as civil unions with the same rights and protections. The dissenting justices said the ruling was too timid and argued for gay marriage.
Conservatives also were energized by the ruling, predicting a backlash at the polls in two weeks, when voters in eight states will consider constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.
"Aggressive use of the courts to undermine marriage has backfired on the same-sex marriage movement," said Erik Stanley, chief counsel for Liberty Counsel, a Florida law firm founded by evangelist Jerry Falwell to represent conservative causes. "The people of America are not about to idly stand by and watch marriage go up in smoke."
Inside- Ruling of N.J. court provides path to fairness, 6B

NJ rules for equality

Court backs rights for gays, but lets lawmakers decide on marriage
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/25/06
STAFF REPORT
TRENTON — Gay couples should have access to the same rights as straight married couples, the state Supreme Court ruled today. But it's possible that lawmakers will designate civil unions, not marriage, as the route to provide such rights."Only rights that are deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people are deemed to be fundamental. Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this state, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our State Constitution,'' said the ruling, written by Associate Justice Barry Albin."With this state's legislative and judicial commitment to eradicating sexual orientation discrimination as our backdrop, we now hold that denying rights and benefits to committed same-sex couples that are statutorily given to their heterosexual counterparts violates the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1."To comply with this constitutional mandate, the Legislature must either amend themarriage statutes to include same-sex couples or create a parallel statutory structure, which will provide for, on equal terms, the rights and benefits enjoyed and burdens andobligations borne by married couples."We will not presume that a separate statutory scheme, which uses a title other than marriage, contravenes equal protection principles, so long as the rights and benefits of civil marriage are made equally available to same-sex couples. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same-sex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.''Social conservatives have vowed to press lawmakers to amend the New Jersey Constitution to bar such marriages, as 19 states have done and eight more may do next month. Gov. Jon S. Corzine has said he would not support such an amendment.A high-profile gay-rights organization, Garden State Equality, issued a statement critical of the decision."Those who would view today's Supreme Court ruling as a victory for same-sex couples are dead wrong,'' said Steven Goldstein, the group's chairman. "So help us God, New Jersey's LGBTI community and our millions of straight allies will settle for nothing less than 100 percent marriage equality.''The ruling addressed the gay-rights advocates' push for marriage."We are mindful that in the cultural clash over same-sex marriage, the word marriage itself … independent of the rights and benefits of marriage … has an evocative and important meaning to both parties. Under our equal protection jurisprudence, however, plaintiffs' claimed right to the name of marriage is surely not the same now that equal rights and benefits must be conferred on committed same-sex couples,'' it said.The ruling said the state failed to prove why it should be allowed to continue treating gay couples and their children differently."There are more than 16,000 same-sex couples living in committed relationships in towns and cities across this state. ... Gays and lesbians work in every profession, business, and trade. They are educators, architects, police officers, fire officials, doctors, lawyers, electricians, and construction workers. They serve on township boards, in civic organizations, and in church groups that minister to the needy. They are mothers and fathers. They are our neighbors, our co-workers, and our friends. In light of the policies reflected in the statutory and decisional laws of this state, we cannot find a legitimate public need for an unequal legal scheme of benefits and privileges that disadvantages committed same-sex couples,'' said the ruling.Seven gay and lesbian couples sued in 2002, arguing they should be allowed to marry under the state constitution. State law bars discrimination based on sexual orientation. One of the 14 plaintiffs, Marilyn Maneely of Haddonfield, died last year.A state Superior Court judge ruled against gay marriage in 2003, and a divided appeals court affirmed that decision last year. Divided rulings can be automatically appealed to the state Supreme Court, which heard arguments in the case in February.The ruling is issued on the last day on the job for Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, who Thursday reaches the state judiciary's mandatory retirement age of 70. Associate Justice James Zazzali will be the new chief justice.New Jersey has allowed domestic partnerships, granting registered couples certain rights, since 2004. In that time 4,354 gay couples have registered, including 544 this year, as well as 101 elderly, male-female couples over age 62 also covered by the law.That law was enacted during the tenure of Gov. James E. McGreeey, who opposed gay marriage … until after announcing he is gay and resigning from office. McGreevey now supports allowing gay couples to marry.Legal and domestic rights for gay couples have been debated in Monmouth and Ocean counties for several years.Among the seven couples who were plaintiffs in the case are Karen Nicholson-McFadden and her partner, Marcye Nicholson-McFadden, of Aberdeen. The couple, who have been together for more than 10 years, have been active and outspoken advocates for the right of gays to have legally recognized marriages.“This is cut and dried for us,” Marcye Nicholson-McFadden said in 2004. “All people deserve to marry the person whom they love and whom they want to spend their lives with.”The Nicholson-McFaddens also appeared at an Ocean County freeholders meeting in support of Laurel Hester, an Ocean County Prosecutor's Office investigator, who was seeking to have her partner receive her pension after her death. After several contentious meetings, the freeholders voted to grant her request. Hester, who was battling cancer, died in February.Also, Asbury Park in March 2004 became ground zero for the gay marriage fight when Deputy Mayor James Bruno officiated at the marriage of Ric Best and Louis Navarrete.Best and Navarrete had obtained a marriage license in the city, but within hours after the ceremony, the state Attorney General's office invalidated the marriage, citing the 2003 Superior Court ruling.In May 2004, Asbury Park was the site of a prayer vigil held by the Concerned Christian Coalition. The group's leader, the Rev. Porter S. Brown, pastor of Faith Baptist Tabernacle, said opposition to gay marriage was one reason for the vigil, attended by about 1,200 people. The group's other issues included street violence and schools in Asbury Park. Gay leaders in Asbury Park said that while they agreed with the coalition on schools and violence, they could not support their activities because of the coalition’s opposition to gay marriage.Massachusetts is the only state that allows gay couples to marry, though couples from states that don't recognize such unions aren't eligible.Nearly all states have adopted laws or constitutional amendments barring gay marriage. The only states without one or both are Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Rhode Island, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.Forty-one states bar gay marriage, including 19 states that do so in their state constitution. Eight states … Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin … have gay-marriage bans on the Nov. 7 ballot.Congress barred federal recognition of same-sex marriages 10 years ago.California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont and the District of Columbia offer gay couples spousal rights, to one degree or another, through options such as civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Bishop Allows Gay Blessings State's Episcopal Leader Reverses Ban, Angers Conservative Clergy, Members
By FRANCES GRANDY TAYLORAnd LARRY SMITH
Courant Staff Writers
October 22 2006The head of the Episcopal diocese in Connecticut reversed a long-standing policy this weekend by announcing that priests may give pastoral blessing to same-sex unions in church ceremonies.The decision by Bishop Andrew Smith does not allow Episcopal clergy to officiate at civil union ceremonies. It does allow the priests, through a blessing ceremony in the church, to acknowledge gay and lesbian couples who have had a civil union granted by the state.Smith's announcement could generate further controversy.While it is likely to be accepted by a significant majority of Episcopal churches in the state, it is just as likely to further strain an already contentious relationship between Smith and conservative parishes.Smith made the announcement during a speech at Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford at the diocese's two-day annual convention that ended Saturday. "At the heart of the matter is whether we as a Church will welcome and embrace, serve with and care for and bless persons who are homosexual and partnered as cherished and fully accepted members of the body of Christ," Smith said. "I believe it is right to change our current policy, which prohibits our clergy from blessing same-sex relationships." Smith said he chose to act because Connecticut now recognizes civil unions and because there had been no movement on the matter at the national level of the Episcopal Church. The 2003 Windsor report to the archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, called for a moratorium on the consecration of gay clergy and same-sex blessings by the U.S. Episcopal Church."What I have permitted is a pastoral ministry of blessing, which does not mimic a wedding ceremony," Smith said in an interview after the convention. He acknowledged that he chose to take action even though the national church hasn't moved on the issue. When civil unions became law in the state, "it further put the question of how we would respond as a church on the table," Smith said. "I felt the time had come for the church to say `Yes' since there has been no movement on the question that was emerging. And, knowing many faithful gay and lesbian folks are leading lives seeking to serve Christ, I felt that now is the time I move to say `Yes.'"Outside Christ Church Cathedral on Saturday, several people said they disagreed with Smith but they declined to give their names.Two who did agree, Greg Semkow and David Garlock, parishioners from Wilton, praised Smith and hailed his decision as "a bold step." "I think it's a significant step for the church," Garlock said. "We [the Episcopal Church] stand for inclusion. We're very proud of him." The decision was greeted with joy by the Rev. Pat Gallagher, who leads St. Paul's Church in Willimantic. "I couldn't be happier. ... I'm just so excited about it. It's a right we should have," said Gallagher, who serves openly as a lesbian and who lives with a partner. A gay rights leader was also happy."The Episcopal Church has taken a step to affirm the dignity and humanity of gay people in Christ's name," said Frank O'Gorman, of People of Faith for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights. "The love between couples gay or straight symbolizes the love of Christ for the church, and the church believes where love is, God is."A church leader was displeased.Smith was called "a perpetrator of false teaching," by the Rev. Christopher Leighton, rector of St. Paul's Church in Darien. He said Smith's decision was "defiant of Scripture and worldwide Christianity." Leighton is one of the five priests who have been in a theological battle with Smith since his 2003 vote in support of the consecration the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire.Leighton predicted that churches that disagree with Smith's decision "will be intimidated into silence.""This is where he has been headed all along," Leighton said. "Despite that the archbishop of Canterbury and worldwide Anglican [leaders] are asking for a halt to these acts, he continues to press on."In his convention speech, Smith blasted Leighton and the other rectors of the conservative parishes who sued the diocese in federal court over his pastoral oversight of their churches and property belonging to St. John's Church in Bristol, which the diocese took over after removing its rector. Smith said the diocese has spent $350,000 in legal fees. "For these past two years, the five parishes and their clergy have continued to enjoy the benefits of the Episcopal Church while at the same time refusing to contribute to our life and mission, and they continue to pursue their own agenda," he said. "It's a little flying an airplane while some of crew are working to dismantle it."Contact Frances Grandy Taylor at ftaylor@courant.com.
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

Speculation on Gay Marriage Ruling Swirls in NJ

Speculation on Gay Marriage Ruling Swirls in New Jersey
By LAURA MANSNERUS
NY Times

Published: October 23, 2006
TRENTON, Oct. 20 — The New Jersey Supreme Court is carrying much constitutional freight as it considers whether the state will be the second in the nation to find that gay couples have the right to marry. But for those watching the court, speculation has centered lately on smaller issues, like the chief justice’s birthday and the re-election prospects of Senator Robert Menendez.
Lawrence S. Lustberg, who argues frequently before the court and represents the gay plaintiffs in the case at hand, said the decision in the case, Lewis v. Harris, “is the most eagerly anticipated opinion” he has ever seen.
Steven Goldstein, the chairman of the gay-rights advocacy group Garden State Equality, concurred, saying, “Most of us in the gay community have no fingernails left.”
As each day passes without a decision, eight months after oral arguments before the court, the rumors and theories thicken: That the decision will come before Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz’s mandatory retirement on her 70th birthday (Thursday). Or that the decision will come only after the State Senate’s scheduled vote to confirm the new chief justice, James R. Zazzali (Monday).
The conspiracy-minded question whether the decision is being delayed until after Election Day to avoid political repercussions. Some say a ruling in support of gay marriage would goad conservative voters to punish Democrats, including Mr. Menendez.
Others think that even if such a ruling were to galvanize Republicans elsewhere, it would barely register in New Jersey. Mr. Menendez and his Republican challenger, State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., have both supported some benefits for domestic partners, but have said they believe marriage should be between a man and a woman.
Yet even those who study the court’s daily moves concede that they have no way of knowing what the justices will do or when they will do it. In fact, the court has no deadline; unlike the United States Supreme Court, it can carry cases over from one term to the next. One decision issued in August, for example, came 20 months after oral arguments. And court officials say a retired justice may vote and even write opinions in cases that he or she heard.
The New Jersey Supreme Court, widely known as one of the most liberal state high courts in the nation, is also seen as among the most independent — a point that supporters of gay marriage have emphasized as appellate courts in three other states ruled this year that their constitutions do not include such rights for same-sex couples.
The Court of Appeals of New York, the state’s highest court, rejected a similar case in July. Gay-marriage proponents have since lost cases before the Supreme Court of Washington State and an intermediate appeals court in California. Other state courts had rebuffed similar constitutional challenges before, and 19 states have enacted constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.
While Vermont and Connecticut provide for civil unions, which extend some legal rights to same-sex couples, only Massachusetts — in a 2003 State Supreme Court decision with national reverberations — has recognized a right for them to marry.
New Jersey authorizes domestic partnerships, allowing registered partners to make critical medical decisions for each other, for example, and requiring insurance companies to offer health care benefits to the partner of a beneficiary. The case before the court seeks marital rights like entitlement to property acquired during the relationship, financial support when the relationship ends and recognition as a family member for government benefits.
It was brought by seven couples who claim that the state’s refusal to give them marriage licenses violates their rights to equal treatment under the State Constitution.
There is no explicit ban on same-sex marriage in New Jersey, but lower courts have said that the state’s marriage laws apply only to heterosexual couples and that nothing in the Constitution compels extending them to gays and lesbians.
David S. Buckel of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, who with Mr. Lustberg argued the plaintiffs’ case, said gay-rights advocates were optimistic about the appeal because New Jersey’s high court long ago departed from the federal courts’ more restrictive definition of equal protection. “The court is not afraid of controversial issues,” he said.
Public opinion here also appears to have shifted since the Massachusetts ruling excited a nationwide backlash. In a Rutgers-Eagleton poll of 803 New Jersey residents in June, 50 percent said they supported legal recognition for gay marriage, while 44 percent opposed it. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points. In 2003, when the poll asked state residents the same question, 43 percent of state residents supported gay marriage and 50 percent were opposed.
“It seems to be an issue that has passed,” said Ingrid W. Reed, a political scientist at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. When the New Jersey Legislature authorized domestic partnerships in 2004, Ms. Reed said, “there wasn’t a huge energized polarization about the issue, considering how early we did it.”
“It seemed to require a public campaign to keep it before the public,” she added, “and that doesn’t seem to be in place in New Jersey.”
Still, John Tomicki, the executive director of the League of American Families, a group promoting conservative social policies, said conservatives would fire back if the court took it upon itself to redefine marriage. Mr. Tomicki said some opponents of gay marriage speculate “that the court is deliberately sitting on the decision until Justice Zazzali is confirmed and, if they could, holding the decision until after the election.”
Many gay-marriage advocates wish the court would wait until after Nov. 7, fearful that the decision they want could endanger the re-election prospects of Mr. Menendez, who is in an unexpectedly tight race, or more broadly hurt Democrats’ chances of taking control of Congress.
“There’s an awful lot of propaganda right now from radical Republicans,” said Barbra Casbar, president of the state chapter of the Stonewall Democrats, a national gay political organization. “They’re desperate to fire up their base.”
Even in New Jersey, Ms. Casbar said, a decision favoring gay marriage might spark enough conservative outrage to affect election results. “In a very close election that’s possible,” she said. “Senator Menendez is having it a lot tougher than he thought.”
Both sides said Chief Justice Poritz — who, at least until Thursday, controls the assignments and timing of opinions — appeared to favor legalizing gay marriage. But the court’s seven members have shown few consistent ideological patterns. New Jersey has a long tradition, regardless of who is governor, of alternating appointments between Democratic and Republican justices.
Mr. Tomicki, of the League of American Families, questioned whether Chief Justice Poritz could participate in court business after her retirement on Thursday, but a court spokeswoman, Winnie Comfort, said former justices had done so before.
Mr. Lustberg, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said he thought the court would seek to avoid any challenge to Justice Poritz’s vote by issuing the decision before she steps down.
For now, they and the small circle of obsessive court-watchers here are stuck staring at the Supreme Court’s Web site, www.judiciary.state.nj.us/supreme/index.htm, where a list of decisions to be issued the next day is posted each weekday at 10 a.m.

Studd's spouse not eligible for congressional pension

Studds's spouse not eligible for congressional pension
Advocate Oct 18,2006
When same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, among those who tied the knot were former congressman Gerry Studds and Dean Hara. But getting married didn't protect them under federal law: Hara has learned he is not eligible for any portion of Studds's estimated annual $114,337 congressional pension following his partner's death last week.The 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act blocks the federal government from recognizing the 2004 marriage between Studds and Hara or other same-sex couples. Studds voted against the act, which was passed July 12, 1996, by a vote of 342–67, according to the House clerk's office.Studds, a Democrat, became the first openly gay member of the U.S. House when his homosexuality was exposed during a 1983 teenage page sex scandal. He retired from political life in 1997 and died Saturday at age 69.Gary Buseck, legal director for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said the death of Studds may illuminate an inequity Congress enacted in ''an era of fear and trepidation of gay marriage'' when it appeared Hawaii might allow same-sex marriage.''This is maybe a moment of education for Congress,'' he said. ''Now they have a death in the congressional family of one of their distinguished members whose spouse is being treated differently than any of their spouses.''Hara, 48, declined comment. Peter Graves, a spokesman for U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which administers the congressional pension program, said same-sex partners are not recognized as spouses for any marriage-related benefits.He said the Studds episode is the first case of its kind as far as the office could determine. ''Our office could not think of a similar situation having occurred,'' he said.Graves said Studds had other options. He could have had an insurable interest annuity, similar to buying an insurance policy, which is allowed under both the civil service and the federal employee retirement system and does not come under the restrictions of the Defense of Marriage Act. Graves said he didn't know if Studds used that option.Pete Sepp, spokesman for National Taxpayers Union, a nonprofit citizen watchdog group, estimated Studds's annual pension at $114,337, adjusted for inflation. That would have made Hara eligible for a lifetime annual pension of about $62,000, which would grow with inflation, if the marriage were recognized by the federal government, Sepp said.In 2003 the Massachusetts supreme judicial court ruled that the state couldn't deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples under the state constitution. The ruling paved the way for the first same-sex marriages in Massachusetts the following year. Massachusetts is the only state to allow same-sex couples to marry, although there is a push to amend the state constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and woman.Studds was first elected in 1972 in a conservative district and quickly became known for his work to protect the marine environment and fishing industry. In 1983 a 27-year-old man stepped forward to disclose that he and Studds had had a sexual relationship a decade earlier when he was a teenage congressional page. The House censured Studds, who revealed that he was gay. Voters reelected him until he retired in 1997. (Steve LeBlanc, AP)

Married people are outnumbered

October 15, 2006
To Be Married Means to Be Outnumbered
By SAM ROBERTS
Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.
The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census Bureau, found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.
The numbers by no means suggests marriage is dead or necessarily that a tipping point has been reached. The total number of married couples is higher than ever, and most Americans eventually marry. But marriage has been facing more competition. A growing number of adults are spending more of their lives single or living unmarried with partners, and the potential social and economic implications are profound.
“It just changes the social weight of marriage in the economy, in the work force, in sales of homes and rentals, and who manufacturers advertise to,” said Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research group. “It certainly challenges the way we set up our work policies.”
While the number of single young adults and elderly widows are both growing, Professor Coontz said, “we have an anachronistic view as to what extent you can use marriage to organize the distribution and redistribution of benefits.”
Couples decide to live together for many reasons, but real estate can be as compelling as romance.
“Owning three toothbrushes and finding that they are always at the wrong house when you are getting ready to go to bed wears on you,” said Amanda Hawn, a 28-year-old writer who set up housekeeping near San Francisco with her boyfriend, Nate Larsen, a real estate analyst, after shuttling between his apartment and one she shared with a friend. “Moving in together has simplified life,” Ms. Hawn said.
The census survey estimated that 5.2 million couples, a little more than 5 percent of households, were unmarried opposite-sex partners. An additional 413,000 households were male couples, and 363,000 were female couples. In all, nearly one in 10 couples were unmarried. (One in 20 households consisted of people living alone).
And the numbers of unmarried couples are growing. Since 2000, those identifying themselves as unmarried opposite-sex couples rose by about 14 percent, male couples by 24 percent and female couples by 12 percent.
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said gay couples were undercounted because many gay people were reluctant to disclose their sexual orientation. But he said that inhibition seemed to be fading.
“I would say the increase is due to people feeling more comfortable disclosing that they are gay or lesbian and living with a partner,” he said.
The survey did not ask about sexual orientation, but its questionnaire was designed to distinguish partners from roommates. A partner was defined as “an adult who is unrelated to the householder, but shares living quarters and has a close personal relationship with the householder.”
Some of the biggest gains in unmarried couples were recorded in unexpected places. In the rural Midwest, the number of households made up of male partners rose 77 percent since 2000.
The survey revealed wide disparities in household composition by place. The proportion of married couples ranged from more than 69 percent in Utah County, Utah, which includes Provo, to 26 percent in Manhattan, which has a smaller share of married couples than almost anyplace in the country. But Manhattan registered a 1.2 percent increase in married couples since 2000, in contrast to the rest of New York City and many other places.
Among counties, the highest proportion of unmarried opposite-sex partners was in Mendocino, Calif., where they made up nearly 11 percent of all households.
The highest share of male couples was in San Francisco, where, according to the census, they accounted for nearly 2 percent of all households. In Manhattan, they made up 1 percent of households. Hampshire County, Mass., home to Northampton, had the highest proportion of female couples, at 1.7 percent. Some of the highest numbers of unmarried couples were recorded in the South, which as defined by the census, has the largest population of any region.
David Blankenhorn, president of the marriage advocacy group the Institute for American Values, said married couples had become a minority largely because of the growing number of households made up of people who planned to marry or who used to be married.
Steve Watters, the director of young adults for Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group, said that the trend of fewer married couples was more a reflection of delaying marriage than rejection of it.
“It does show that a lot of people are experimenting with alternatives before they get there,” Mr. Watters said. “The biggest concern is that those who still aspire to marriage are going to find fewer models. They’re also finding they’ve gotten so good at being single it’s hard to be at one with another person.”
But Pamela J. Smock, a researcher at the University of Michigan Population Studies Center, said her research — unaffiliated with the Census Bureau — found that the desire for strong family bonds, and especially marriage, was constant.
“Even cohabiting young adults tell us that they are doing so because it would be unwise to marry without first living together in a society marked by high levels of divorce,” Ms. Smock said.
A number of couples interviewed agreed that cohabiting was akin to taking a test drive and, given the scarcity of affordable apartments and homes, also a matter of convenience. Some said that pregnancy was the only thing that would prompt them to make a legal commitment soon. Others said they never intended to marry. A few of those couples said they were inspired by solidarity with gay and lesbian couples who cannot legally marry in most states.
Jennifer Lynch, a 28-year-old stage manager in New York, said she had lived on the Lower East Side with her boyfriend, who is 37 and divorced, for most of the five years they have been a couple.
“Cohabitating is our choice, and we have no intention to be married,” Ms. Lynch said. “There is little difference between what we do and what married people do. We love each other, exist together, all of our decisions are based upon each other. Everyone we care about knows this.”
If anything, she added, “not having the false security of wedding rings makes us work even a little harder.”
With more competition from other ways of living, the proportion of married couples has been shrinking for decades. In 1930, they accounted for about 84 percent of households. By 1990 the proportion of married couples had declined to about 56 percent.
Married couples have not been a majority of households headed by adults younger than 25 since the 1970’s, but among those aged 25 to 34 the proportion slipped below 50 percent for the first time within the past five years. (Among Americans aged 35 to 64, married couples still make up a majority of all households.)
“It’s partially fueled by women in the work force; they don’t necessarily have to marry to be economically secure,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College of the City University of New York, who conducted the census analysis for The New York Times. “You used to get married to have sex. Now one of the major reasons to get married is to have children, and the attractiveness of having children has declined for many people because of the cost.”
William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, attributed the accelerated trend to the lifestyles of baby boomers.
“It’s the legacy of the boomers that have finally caused this tipping point,” Dr. Frey said. “Certainly later generations have followed in boomer footsteps, with high levels of living together before marriage, and more flexible lifestyles. But the boomers were the trailblazers, once again, rebelling against a norm their parents epitomized.
“This would seem to close the book on the Ozzie and Harriet era that characterized much of the last century,” he said.

Voters mood changes on same sex marriage

Same-sex marriage returns to ballot, as voters' moods change

Updated 10/12/2006 11:33 PM ET
By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY

Two years after voters in 13 states approved constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, gay rights activists hope to reverse that course next month.
Colorado's first-in-the-nation ballot proposal to create same-sex domestic partnerships had strong support in a recent poll. At the same time, polls in three of the eight states that will vote on banning same-sex marriage show the measures either trailing or leading narrowly.
"It could be a watershed year," said Carrie Evans, state legislative director at the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian advocacy group.
Jim Pfaff, state policy director for the conservative group Focus on the Family, disagrees. He says all same-sex-marriage bans will pass because voters "believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman."
Any victory for gay groups would be unprecedented. Voters have approved each of 19 proposals for state constitutional bans on same-sex marriage; support has averaged 70%. The questions began appearing on ballots in 1998 after a Hawaii court struck down the state's same-sex-marriage ban.
Now, well-run opposition campaigns and growing acceptance of homosexuality are eroding support for such bans, pollsters say.
In Arizona, the most recent poll on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage showed 51% of registered voters were opposed. Just 38% supported it. A poll in July in South Dakota showed a similar measure trailing 49% to 41%.
"We have a very good chance of killing this," said Ken Clark of Arizona Together, which opposes the measure.
Cathi Herrod of Project Marriage Arizona, the group that got the amendment on the ballot, predicted it would pass because U.S. voters have always approved such measures. The Arizona measure is called Proposition 107.
In Colorado, a mid-September Rocky Mountain News poll showed 58% supported a ballot measure to create domestic partnerships that would give same-sex couples many rights of married couples, such as health-insurance benefits and hospital visitation. The poll showed 38% opposed it.
A Colorado ballot issue to ban same-sex marriage was favored by 52% to 42%.
Approval of the domestic-partnership measure would embolden activists to push for similar legal recognition in other states, said Evans of the Human Rights Campaign. Gay rights advocates believe "people are not altogether bigoted and discriminatory and do want to provide rights to same-sex couples. Colorado is testing that," she said.
Americans are torn about recognizing same-sex couples, said Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center. A Pew survey in July showed 56% of respondents opposed gay marriage, but 54% favored civil unions.
Six states and the District of Columbia give gay couples legal rights, such as the ability to make medical decisions for a partner or to sue for wrongful death. Only Massachusetts lets them marry.
Focus on the Family and other conservative groups say constitutional bans keep courts from overturning laws barring same-sex marriage, which 26 states have.
The Arizona proposal would bar the state and cities from granting unmarried couples legal rights. That has brought rebukes from the mayors of Phoenix and Tucson. They say public entities couldn't offer domestic-partner benefits, making them less-appealing places to work.
Such "high-profile" opposition is "the main reason 107 may not pass," said Bruce Merrill, director of the Arizona State University poll that showed the same-sex proposal trailing.
Foes of Proposition 107 focus on rights they say unmarried couples would lose. "This has nothing to do with gay or straight," said Clark, opposition campaign director.
Most same-sex-marriage bans that have passed or are facing voters next month bar rights for gay couples. Courts decide how those bans affect areas such as health benefits for domestic partners, said Evans of the Human Rights Campaign. But putting such bans on the ballot can undermine them, said Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon pollsters: "The more complicated the language, the more likely people are to vote no."



Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-12-gay-marriage_x.htm

Birds and Bees gay

Birds and bees may be gay - museum exhibition
12 Oct 2006 10:41:49 GMT12 Oct 2006 10:41:49 GMT
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO, Oct 12 (Reuters) - The birds and the bees may be gay, according to the world's first museum exhibition about homosexuality among animals.
With documentation of gay or lesbian behaviour among giraffes, penguins, parrots, beetles, whales and dozens of other creatures, the Oslo Natural History Museum concludes human homosexuality cannot be viewed as "unnatural".
"We may have opinions on a lot of things, but one thing is clear -- homosexuality is found throughout the animal kingdom, it is not against nature," an exhibit statement said.
Geir Soeli, the project leader of the exhibition entitled "Against Nature", told Reuters: "Homosexuality has been observed for more than 1,500 animal species, and is well documented for 500 of them."
The museum said the exhibition, opening on Thursday despite condemnation from some Christians, was the first in the world on the subject. Soeli said a Dutch zoo had once organised tours to view homosexual couples among the animals.
"The sexual urge is strong in all animals. ... It's a part of life, it's fun to have sex," Soeli said of the reasons for homosexuality or bisexuality among animals.
One exhibit shows two stuffed female swans on a nest -- birds sometimes raise young in homosexual couples, either after a female has forsaken a male mate or donated an egg to a pair of males.
One photograph shows two giant erect penises flailing above the water as two male right whales rub together. Another shows a male giraffe mounting another for sex, another describes homosexuality among beetles.
BURN IN HELL
One radical Christian said organisers of the exhibition -- partly funded by the Norwegian government -- should "burn in hell", Soeli said. Laws describing homosexuality as a "crime against nature" are still on the statutes in some countries.
Greek philosopher Aristotle noted apparent homosexual behaviour among hyenas 2,300 years ago but evidence of animal homosexuality has often been ignored by researchers, perhaps because of distaste, lack of interest or fear or ridicule.
Bonobos, a type of chimpanzee, are among extremes in having sex with either males or females, apparently as part of social bonding. "Bonobos are bisexuals, all of them," Soeli said.
Still, it is unclear why homosexuality survives since it seems a genetic dead-end.
Among theories, males can sometimes win greater acceptance in a pack by having homosexual contact. That in turn can help their chances of later mating with females, he said.
And a study of homosexual men in Italy suggested that their mothers and sisters had more offspring. "The same genes that give homosexuality in men could give higher fertility among women," he said.
AlertNet news is provided by

Same sex marriage good for the ecomony

Study: Same-sex marriage good for the economy

Giving same-sex couples the right to marry nationwide would be not only a boost to equality but a boost to the economy. A new study released Tuesday by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, indicates that there are numerous economic benefits to marriage equality.The study, titled "The Effect of Marriage Equality and Domestic Partnership on Business and the Economy," tracked other research studies and found that gay workers who receive domestic-partnership benefits are more comfortable in their work environment and far happier—and more productive—than employees who do not receive them. The study also showed that it can be costly for businesses to manage benefits for its employees in same-sex relationships without a uniform standard of legal recognition."Policymakers and businesspeople have not fully recognized the enormous potential gains to the economy from treating same-sex couples equally," M. V. Lee Badgett, the study's coauthor and research director of the Williams Institute, said in a statement. "Our study shows that equal treatment of couples in the business world attracts heterosexual employees and creates more productive workplaces for gay, lesbian, and bisexual employees."The study also underscored the specific financial gain that would be spurred by same-sex marriage. "Spending on new weddings alone would generate $2 billion for businesses in the wedding industry," Gary J. Gates, senior research associate at the Williams Institute and study coauthor, said in the statement. "Places that allow same-sex couples to marry have reported noticeable boosts in business for hotels, caterers, florists, and other wedding-related businesses." (The Advocate)

Supreme Court refuses gay marriage case fighting the DOMA

High court won't hear appeal on O.C. gay marriage

Mission Viejo men, who held a ceremony in 1997, applied for a marriage license in the county in 2004.

By JOHN MCDONALD

The Orange County Register
The two-year long quest by two Mission Viejo men to be married in the eyes of the law ended Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their case.
Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer have been in court since the Orange County Clerk rejected their marriage license applications in 2004.
The pair was shunned by gay rights groups who wanted to focus legal efforts on winning same-sex marriage rights in state courts. The groups feared that a federal court decision would lead to a nationwide defeat.
"I don't think a whole lot of this right now, I'm pretty sure all of this will be overturned someday," Hammer said after learning of the Supreme Court action.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, often characterized as one of the most liberal courts in the country, shot the pair's case down in May.
"Smelt and Hammer are not even married under any state law, or, for that matter, under the law of any foreign country. No doubt they wish they could be, but, again, they are not," the 9th Circuit judges wrote in rejecting the men's request. The judges said it would have been a better case had they been married in one state and a second state refused to recognize the marriage.
Smelt and Hammer, both 47, were "married" in a ceremony witnessed by friends and family on Jan. 1, 1997. They also registered with the state as domestic partners in 2000.
In February 2004, after the mayor of San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, Smelt and Hammer appeared at the Orange County Clerk's office and applied for one. The request was rejected. The California Supreme Court halted San Francisco's issuing of licenses but Smelt and Hammer again applied to the Orange County Clerk.
The lawsuit they filed drew so much attention nationwide, from both gay rights and family values groups, that U.S. District Judge Gary L. Taylor held a hearing to determine which groups could participate.
He ruled in June 2005 that the pair had not proven that the federal Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage as between a man and a woman, was unconstitutional. Taylor also deferred to the state courts the issues concerning the California marriage statutes.
Glen Lavy, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian organization that opposed Smelt and Hammer in court, said the Supreme Court's rebuff was expected.
"There remains a lot of litigation out there, issues of parental rights and child custody, the psychological impact on children of living with same-sex parents," he said.
Hammer said that Smelt was born in Holland, where same-sex marriage is recognized.
"We've been talking about moving, Arthur has dual residency in Holland and I could live there as his spouse," said Hammer.
CONTACT US: 949-465-5424 or jmcdonald@ocregister.com

Mass diocese out of the marriage business??

Episcopal Diocese may quit marriages
Same-sex debate drives Mass. plan

By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff October 8, 2006

In a novel approach to the tensions that have accompanied the same-sex marriage debate in many religious denominations, the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts this month will consider getting out of the marriage business.
A group of local Episcopal priests, saying that the gay marriage debate has intensified their longtime concern about acting as agents of the state by officiating at marriages, is proposing that the Episcopal Church adopt a new approach. Any couples qualified to get married under state law could be married by a justice of the peace, and then, if they want a religious imprimatur for their marriage, they could come to the Episcopal Church seeking a blessing from a priest.
The approach, radical for the United States, is commonly practiced in Europe. The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, which covers the eastern part of the state, has scheduled a vote in three weeks , at its 221st annual convention. A similar proposal was tabled at the Episcopal Church's general convention this summer; in Massachusetts, it is thought to have a better chance of passage because the clergy is more liberal.
Episcopal priests in Massachusetts have been particularly engaged in the issue of gay marriage, because the diocese here has been strongly supportive of gay rights, but the national church's regulations define marriage as a heterosexual institution. The local bishop, M. Thomas Shaw , a supporter of same-sex marriage, has decreed that local Episcopal priests cannot sign the marriage licenses of same-sex couples, but can bless those couples after they are legally married by clergy of another denomination or by a civil official.
``I feel this is a way to equalize an inequity in what Episcopal clergy can do for gay folks and straight folks," said the Rev. Margaret (Mally) E. Lloyd , rector of Christ Church in Plymouth. Lloyd is one of five Episcopal priests sponsoring the resolution.
``Right now, we can only offer blessings for gay folks who are married, and it's not fair," she said. ``The church moves slowly to make changes in canon law, so what can we do in the meantime? This is something good for the diocese to wrestle with."
The resolution would declare diocesan convention's desire that, starting in January 2008, Episcopal marriages be presided over by an agent of the state, and not Episcopal clergy, whose role would be limited to blessing a married couple. That is the system currently in place for gay and lesbian couples at Episcopal churches. In some cases, the civil and religious ceremonies both take place in the church; the couple can bring a justice of the peace, or a minister of another denomination, who signs the state marriage license and pronounces the couple married, and then the Episcopal priest blesses the couple. In other cases, the civil and religious ceremonies take place separately.
The resolutions will be discussed at regional meetings starting Friday, and then voted on Oct. 28, on the second day of a two-day convention that will draw an estimated 800 voting delegates, clergy and lay, to Trinity Church in Boston. If approved, it would be up to Shaw to decide what steps to take next. Shaw has taken no position on the resolution and declined to comment.
The resolution is one of several stemming from the gay marriage debate that will face Episcopal convention attendees. Emmanuel Church in Boston has asked the convention to ask the national church to formally allow Episcopal marriage rites to be used for same-sex couples in states where same-sex marriage is legal. And three priests have put forward a resolution under which the diocese would ask the Legislature to vote against a proposed ballot measure that would overturn same-sex marriage; the Legislature is scheduled to meet Nov. 9 to take up that ballot measure.
The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts is among the most supportive in the country of gay rights, but there remain a handful of clergy and congregations opposed to same-sex marriage. Several local conservative parishes are grappling with whether to attempt to formally dissociate themselves in some way from diocesan leadership, and some are so alienated that they are not planning to attend the diocesan convention, so it is not clear how strongly opposition will be voiced.
``I'm not excited about this at all," said the Rev. John (Jack) Potter , rector of St. John's Church in Franklin. Potter, who said he opposes same-sex marriage ``on Biblical grounds," said he believes Episcopalians would be unhappy with a two-step wedding process.
``My understanding of Christian marriage is that it is something that has, certainly with imperfections, been part of our life from the beginning, and now to suggest that we have to have a civil magistrate perform part of the wedding is totally inappropriate and contradictory to our tradition," said Potter, who said he has not decided whether to attend the convention. ``They cite that this is how it's done in Europe, but when I look at the secularization in Europe, and the obvious attempt to sideline the Christian faith there, I'm not too excited about that as an authority."
Since Massachusetts legalized same sex marriage in 2004, religious denominations have been struggling with whether to allow clergy to officiate at such nontraditional ceremonies. Some liberal denominations, such as the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the Reform and Reconstructionist movements of Judaism, allow full clergy participation; more conservative denominations, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox church, and Orthodox Judaism, prohibit such participation. But many mainline Protestant denominations have been debating how to balance the desire of some clergy and parishioners to proceed with same-sex marriages with traditional teachings, and often clear church rulings, barring the sanctioning of such unions.
``This resolution is for us in the Episcopal Church, but I think it will have ramifications for our brethren in other denominations, by raising questions about our acting as agents of the state," said a sponsor of the resolution, the Rev. Robert (Skip) G. Windsor . Windsor said the resolution really has nothing to do with the same-sex marriage issue, but is about concerns over the separation of church and state.
Windsor and Lloyd both said that, under the current system, many couples seek to have church weddings because they like the setting . They said they hoped that if the church stopped officiating at marriages, couples that sought a religious ceremony in addition to the civil procedure would be doing so as a reflection of faith.
Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.