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Ellen Goodman Same-sex marriage hasn’t ruined Massachusetts
Ellen Goodman is a nationally syndicated columnist.

   Back in 2004, a month before the first wedding bells rang for same-sex couples, then-Gov. Mitt Romney offered his opinion that “Massachusetts should not become the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage.”
   It wasn’t that he wanted to protect Massachusetts’ reputation. He wanted to protect the country from what he regarded as Massachusetts’ folly. For that purpose Romney unearthed a 1913 law that said couples couldn’t be married here unless the unions would be legal in their home states.
   Frankly, I rather fancied the idea of Massachusetts as the new Vegas. What happens here stays here. At about the same time, Britney Spears explained her 55-hour marriage to a childhood friend by saying, “I do believe in the sanctity of marriage, I totally do. But I was in Vegas and it took over me.”
   I can’t imagine an Elvis impersonator driving a pink Cadillac of to-be-weds up Beacon Hill, nor do I equate the push for marriage equality with the quickie wedding. But I can envision a Paul Revere character ushering couples into Old North Church or a Minuteman welcoming them on the Lexington Green. Like, totally. I was in Lexington and it took me over.
   The 1913 law has a rather murky past. It was ostensibly designed so that couples couldn’t escape the marriage laws in their home state. But the law was passed in the aftermath of a front-page scandal involving black heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson’s marriage to a 19-year-old white woman. It had the racist whiff of anti-miscegenation.
   Fast forward to last week. The Massachusetts Legislature finally and firmly ended the push for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In three years, 10,000 couples have married, the sky hasn’t fallen, pro-marriage legislators were not turned out of office, and we now live with gay neighbors, friends and co-workers who are married. Who wants to take back the stemware?
   But almost as soon as the vote was counted, a question arose about repealing the 1913 law. There’s already a bill in the Legislature to do that. Gov. Deval Patrick — noting the “smelly origins” of the law and calling it “outdated” — has said he’d sign a repeal.
   So opponents again are ramping up fear and loathing of Las Vegas. Or, as Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute warns, Massachusetts could “become the Mecca for same-sex marriage.”
   Las Vegas? Mecca? So far, little Rhode Island is the only state that allows gay residents to wed in Massachusetts. We are the Las Vegas of Rhode Island. But some are saying that if we overturn the 1913 law, the marrying hordes will come and go back home with a license and a lawsuit.
   Whether you like or loathe the idea, repealing the 1913 law isn’t likely to have much effect. There are at least 44 states with no chance of recognition because of statutes or constitutional amendments against same-sex marriage. As Joanna Grossman, a family law professor at Hofstra who has written extensively on this subject, says, “There’s nothing much one state can do to change the national landscape.”
   Gay couples can already get married in Canada and come home unmarried. So, too, couples could get married in Massachusetts but go home and be unmarried in, say, Michigan.
   “What makes marriage legally important is recognition by the jurisdiction in which you live,” says Grossman. “There’s the chance that couples would use this to litigate in a handful of other states like New York. There is the chance that, in a few states, a court might rule that even though we don’t permit same-sex marriage, we recognize it if valid elsewhere.” But by and large, what would happen is this: “Massachusetts would suffer a brief economic boom and that would be the end of it.”
   From the get-go, opponents have been raising alarms — and funds — on the notion that same-sex marriage will be “shoved down the throats” of Americans. What’s remarkable is that samesex marriage hasn’t been shoved down the throats but placed before our eyes. In barely over a decade, Gallup reports, the number of Americans who believe in same-sex marriage has risen from 27 percent to 46 percent. The radical idea of civil unions is now the moderate idea.
   Mine may be the only state with full-fledged marriage for some years. It may be less of a launching pad than a laboratory. We need laws for 2007, not 1913. But all in all, don’t confuse us with Vegas or Mecca. What is it the Chamber of Commerce likes to label us? The cradle of liberty. Like, totally.  

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Massachusetts is the cradle of liberal mania, every liberal movement starts in either Mass. or Mexifornia something I wouldn't be proud of.

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Like others of the British colonies along America's Atlantic seaboard in the 17th and 18th centuries, Massachusetts was founded by people seeking in a wilderness for a new way of life involving such then-untried notions as freedom of religion and self-government. These and other ideals were severely tested during more than 150 years of colonial life, but they came to provide much of the ideological underpinning of the American Revolution, from which Massachusetts emerged as one of the founding and leading members of the new United States.

Massachusetts has been, nearly from its founding, a leading force in American education. During the 19th century Boston became synonymous with the highest attainments in America's cultural and artistic life, and the state as a whole provided industrial and financial leadership for the nation. Though these latter positions have long since been yielded to larger and faster-growing states and regions, the history and people of Massachusetts have left an indelible mark on the development of the American consciousness.

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Gay pride focuses on religion, marriage
  
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press
Sunday, June 24, 2007

NEW YORK -- Religious groups led the city's gay pride parade on Sunday, lending gravity to an often outrageous event that also featured a jumble of drag queens in feather boas, marching bands, motorcycle-riding lesbians, rugby players and samba dancers.
  
"We stand for a progressive religious voice," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. "Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda, I believe, are blaspheming God's name."

The annual parade, one of dozens around the world, commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riots in which patrons at a Greenwich Village gay bar fought back against a police raid.

At San Francisco's festival, the wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards marked the occasion by splitting with her husband over support for legalized gay marriage.

"I don't know why someone else's marriage has anything to do with me," Elizabeth Edwards said at a news conference before the parade. "I'm completely comfortable with gay marriage."

Kleinbaum, who heads the world's largest predominantly gay synagogue, and the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, were the New York parade's grand marshals, waving from hers-and-his convertibles.

The march took place days after the New York State Assembly passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, which Gov. Eliot Spitzer supports. Although the bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled state Senate anytime soon, parade-goers said they were cheered by the Assembly's action.

"This is one very important step toward full equality for all New Yorkers," Kleinbaum said.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, one of the nation's most prominent openly gay elected officials, said she could not predict when the Senate might approve same-sex marriage.

"All conventional wisdom in New York state on gay marriage is out the window," she said. "I think we are really doing better than anyone would ever have thought we could be doing on this."

As in past years, exhibitionists were also on display as the parade inched down Fifth Avenue and into Greenwich Village. Some revelers gyrated in bikini briefs and pranced in spike heels.

But the placement of the Christian, Jewish and Buddhist religious organizations near the head of the march -- ahead of AIDS service groups and political advocacy groups -- gave them unaccustomed prominence.

A Buddhist group carried signs that said "Construct Dignity in Your Heart" and "Don't Block Your Buddha."

"We're all Buddhas," said Hortense De Castro, a teacher from Manhattan. "It's just a matter of letting it come out."

The gay Catholic group Dignity had a float and a giant rainbow flag. Jeff Stone, secretary of the New York chapter, said he was hopeful the church would someday change its stance opposing homosexuality.

"We see that the opinion of ordinary Catholics is changing," he said. "Eventually what happens at the grass roots percolates up in the church."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg marched with Quinn and other elected officials, including Lt. Gov. David Paterson.

Toni Cinanni of Perth, Australia, said she was surprised at the prominence of the church groups.

"I thought the religious groups had hijacked the parade," she said. "I couldn't put it together, religion and sexuality."
New York's parade featured contingents of gay police officers and firefighters, as well as ethnic gay groups including South Asians, Haitians and American Indians. An Argentinian and Uruguayan group featured an Eva Peron impersonator in a flowing gown.

Tens of thousands of people attended the march. Spectators lining Fifth Avenue included gay people sporting rainbow flags and curious tourists.

Andrew Stanley of Shrewsbury, England, said the march was "very colorful."

"I've never seen one before," he said, "but I think it's a good idea."

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"We stand for a progressive religious voice," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. "Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda, I believe, are blaspheming God's name."

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Assemblyman Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, also interviewed during the debate, said he was listening to it and had not decided how he would vote. Tonko said he had missed the internal debate in the Democratic conference.  

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"We're all Buddhas," said Hortense De Castro, a teacher from Manhattan. "It's just a matter of letting it come out."

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Assemblyman Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, also interviewed during the debate, said he was listening to it and had not decided how he would vote. Tonko said he had missed the internal debate in the Democratic conference.  

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Bull...hhhmmmit!!!

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Change after marriage could be immoral  
First published: Thursday, July 5, 2007

Sylvia Honig (letter, June 30) states that homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, etc., want fair and equal treatment under the law.
Males and females who cannot function as biological males and females are, to put it bluntly, dysfunctional. If they knew they were in this condition before marriage, they had no right to get married to an unknowing partner. Such a marriage could be annulled.

  
Ms. Honig then asks, "If these people change after marriage, are their marriages to people of the same sex now to be considered illegal or immoral?" In a word -- yes.

MAUREEN HEALY
Kinderhook

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Mass. bar sued for gay marriage question  
  
By ERIN CONROY, Associated Press
Last updated: 4:53 p.m., Friday, July 6, 2007

BOSTON -- A man said he failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer a question about gay marriage, and claims in a federal lawsuit the test violated his rights and targeted his religious beliefs.
  
The suit also challenges the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, which was legalized in Massachusetts in 2003.

Stephen Dunne, who is representing himself in the case and seeks $9.75 million, said the bar exam was not the place for a "morally repugnant and patently offensive" question addressing the rights of two married lesbians, their children and their property. He said he refused to answer the question because he believed it legitimized same-sex marriage and same-sex parenting, which is contrary to his moral beliefs.

Dunne, 30, was denied a license to practice law in May after scoring 268.866 on the exam, just shy of the 270 passing grade.

His lawsuit against the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court also claims the state government is "purposely advancing secular humanism's homosexual agenda."

The "disguised mechanism to screen applicants according to their political ideology has the discriminatory impact of persecuting and oppressing (Dunne's) sincere religious practices and beliefs" protected by the First Amendment, and was "invasive and burdensome," according to the lawsuit filed last month.

Dunne's telephone number was unlisted. He told the Boston Herald he has a law degree from a Boston law school and is attending a Boston business school.

Officials with the state bar would not say how much the questions are worth or how the tests are scored, and the court also declined to comment.

David Yas, editor of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, said the suit was "idiotic" and that Dunne was "completely missing the point about what it means to be a lawyer."

"Knowing the law has nothing to do with agreeing with the law," he said. Yas said if Dunne really believed the question was improper, he should "answer the question correctly, get your law degree and use it to argue for what you believe in."

Lee Swislow, executive director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said Dunne is trying to use a legal question to advance a political agenda.

"The bar exam was a test of whether he knew how to apply domestic relations law, and he refused to answer," she said. "Now he's suing, and I think that makes him a loser."

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"Knowing the law has nothing to do with agreeing with the law," he said. Yas said if Dunne really believed the question was improper, he should "answer the question correctly, get your law degree and use it to argue for what you believe in."

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Psychologists’ group to review therapies for gays
Activists consider reparative counseling harmful
BY DAVID CRARY The Associated Press

   NEW YORK — The American Psychological Association is embarking on the first review of its 10-year-old policy on counseling gays and lesbians, a step that gayrights activists hope will end with a denunciation of any attempt by therapists to change sexual orientation.
   Such efforts — often called reparative therapy or conversion therapy — are considered futile and harmful by many gay-rights activists. Conservative groups defend the right to offer such treatment, and say people with their viewpoint have been excluded from the review panel.
   A six-member task force set up by the APA has its first meeting Tuesday.
   Already, scores of conservative religious leaders and counselors, representing such groups as the Southern Baptist Convention and Focus on the Family, have written a joint letter to the APA, expressing concern that the task force’s proposals would not properly accommodate gays and lesbians whose religious beliefs condemn gay sex.
   “We believe that psychologists should assist clients to develop lives that they value, even if that means they decline to identify as homosexual,” read the letter, which requested a meeting between APA leaders and some of the signatories.
   APA spokeswoman Rhea Farberman said a decision on when and how to reply to the letter had not yet been made.
   The current APA policy, adopted in 1997, opposes any counseling that treats homosexuality as a mental illness, but does not explicitly denounce reparative therapy. The APA has decided to review the policy at a time when gay-rights groups are increasingly critical of such treatment and groups that support it.
   Conservatives contend that the review’s outcome is preordained because the task force is dominated by gay-rights supporters.
   “We’re concerned,” said Carrie Gordon Earll of Focus on the Family. “The APA does not have a good track record of listening to other views.”
   Joseph Nicolosi, a leading proponent of reparative therapy, predicted the task force would propose a ban of the practice — and he vowed to resist such a move. Nicolosi, who was rejected as a task force nominee, is president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.
   Clinton Anderson, director of the APA’s Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Concerns Office, insisted the panel would base its findings on scientific research, not ideology. He defended the decision to reject certain conservative applicants to the task force.
   “We cannot take into account what are fundamentally negative religious perceptions of homosexuality — they don’t fit into our world view,” Anderson said.
   One of the counselors denied a seat on the task force was Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor at Grove City College near Pittsburgh.
   Though Throckmorton doesn’t advocate a specific form of reparative therapy, he argues that psychologists should respect gay clients’ religious beliefs in cases where the faith teaches that homosexual behavior is wrong.
   “We work with clients to pursue their chosen values,” he said. “If they are core, unwavering commitments to their religious belief, therapists should not try to persuade them differently under the guise of science.”
   However, one of the task force members, New York City psychiatrist Jack Drescher, said the conservatives don’t acknowledge the harm that might be caused when a gay patient — even voluntarily — undergoes therapy to suppress or change sexual orientation.
   “They want a rubber stamp of approval for a form of therapy that’s questionable in its efficacy, and they don’t want to deal with the issue of harmful side effects,” said Drescher, who is editor of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy.
   As the APA planned the policy review, it received input from gayrights groups, including Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
   PFLAG’s executive director, Jody Huckaby, said reparative therapy had been particularly harmful for young gays whose parents insisted on trying to change their sexual orientation. His group contends these efforts can cause depression and suicidal behavior.
   Current APA policy stipulates that no therapy should occur without “informed consent” of a gay or lesbian client.
   Jason Cianciotto of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said he hoped the APA would declare that no young person could ever be deemed to have given informed consent, and thus no reparative therapy would be approved for minors.  

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Judge: Same-sex couples can wed in Iowa  
  
By DAVID PITT, Associated Press
Friday, August 31, 2007

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A county judge struck down Iowa's decade-old gay marriage ban as unconstitutional Thursday and ordered local officials to process marriage licenses for six gay couples.
  
Gay couples from anywhere in Iowa could apply for a marriage license from Polk County under Judge Robert Hanson's ruling.

Less than two hours after word of the ruling was publicized, two Des Moines men applied for a license, the first time the county had accepted a same-sex application. The approval process takes three days.

Gary Allen Seronko, 51, was listed as the groom on the form and David Curtis Rethmeier, 29, the bride.

"I started to cry because we so badly want to be able to be protected if something happens to one of us," Rethmeier said.

Deputy Recorder Trish Umthun said she took five calls from gay couples after the judge filed his ruling Thursday afternoon and expected a rush of applications Friday.

County attorney John Sarcone said the county will appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court and immediately sought a stay from Hanson that would prevent gay couples from seeking a marriage license until the appeal is resolved. The Supreme Court could refer the case to the Iowa Court of Appeals, consider the case itself or decide not to hear it.

A hearing is likely to be held on the stay motion next week, said Camilla Taylor, an attorney with Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights organization.

House Minority Leader Christopher Rants, R-Sioux City, said the ruling illustrates the need for a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

"I can't believe this is happening in Iowa," he said. "I guarantee you there will be a vote on this issue come January," when the Legislature convenes.

Massachusetts is the only state where gay marriage is legal, though nine other states have approved spousal rights in some form for same-sex couples. Nearly all states have defined marriage as being solely between a man and a woman, and 27 states have such wording in their constitutions, according the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Dennis Johnson, the lawyer for the six gay couples who sued in 2005 after they were denied marriage licenses, had argued that Iowa has a long history of aggressively protecting civil rights in cases of race and gender. He said the Defense of Marriage Act, which the Legislature passed in 1998, contradicts previous rulings regarding civil rights.

Roger J. Kuhle, an assistant Polk County attorney, argued that the issue is not for a judge to decide.

Hanson ruled that the state law allowing marriage only between a man and a woman violates the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection.

"Couples, such as plaintiffs, who are otherwise qualified to marry one another may not be denied licenses to marry or certificates of marriage or in any other way prevented from entering into a civil marriage ... by reason of the fact that both person comprising such a couple are of the same sex," he said.

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"We stand for a progressive religious voice," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. "Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda, I believe, are blaspheming God's name."

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Though I oppose civil unions between two individuals of the same gender, the newly granted/acknowledged "rights" must be accompanied by responsibility and liability.  If the government is to recognize these civil unions, the benefits and the costs to those involved must be consistent with those of married heterosexual couples.  That includes the penalty of the "marriage tax", the requirements regarding child support and alimony, etc. in cases of divorce, and the commitment to a monogamous relationship.

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Religious convictions and the rights under the law are two seperate entities.

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Gay NYC policeman files suit
BY SAMUEL MAULL The Associated Press

   NEW YORK — A gay police officer has fi led a discrimination suit against the city and the New York Police Department, saying he was threatened with violence, called vulgar names and treated unfairly by supervisors because of his sexuality.
   The lawsuit was filed by Michael Harrington, 30, who claimed his superior officers failed to take proper action when he told them about the malicious and discriminatory mistreatment he suffered.
   “The hell he’s gone through is heart-wrenching,” said Harrington’s lawyer, George D. Rosenbaum.
   Connie Pankratz, spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department, said the city had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment
   Harrington, a police officer since July 2002, says in court papers he disclosed to another officer at the 75th Precinct in the East New York section of Brooklyn in February 2003 that he was gay and that was the beginning of his problems with co-workers.
   Harrington, of Brooklyn, said in the suit that within months he overheard an officer in the men’s room referring to him as a “f*g**t.” Harrington spoke to the officer, who said he would hurt Harrington if he confronted the officer again.
   Court papers say Harrington also repeatedly sought a transfer from the 75th Precinct but his written applications “kept getting lost.” He was told that after he finally transferred out of the 75th Precinct, someone posted obscene drawings of him in a sex act, the suit claimed.
   While working at the 79th Precinct in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, Harrington brought his domestic partner to the station’s Christmas party. When he introduced his partner, another officer spit out his drink and began laughing.
   Harrington says he complained to a supervisor about being mistreated and the supervisor said he was going to transfer him to the Sixth Precinct in Greenwich Village “so plaintiff could be with his people,” the suit said.
   At the Sixth Precinct, court papers say, a coworker told Harrington in December 2006 that “all faggots should be shot.”
   Harrington was repeatedly denied a chance to work day shifts even after he explained to his supervisors that he needed to do so because he hoped to adopt a child, according to court papers.
   He claimed he was rarely allowed to work in a patrol car with other officers and was almost always assigned the “rookie” job of taking prisoners downtown to central booking or assigned to walk foot patrols.
   According to the suit, by January 2007, stress, harassment and a hostile work environment had caused Harrington to develop stomach cramps and nausea.
   The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court, asked for unspecified monetary damages.  

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Court: Gay marriage should be recognized
The Associated Press

    ROCHESTER — An appeals court has ruled that a gay couple’s marriage in Canada should be recognized in New York.
    The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court on Friday reversed a judge’s ruling in 2006 that Monroe Community College did not have to extend health benefi ts to an employee’s lesbian partner.
    Patricia Martinez, a word processing supervisor, sued the school in 2005, arguing that it granted benefits to heterosexual married couples but denied them to Martinez and her partner, Lisa Ann Golden.
    The couple formalized their relationship in a civil union ceremony in Vermont in 2001 and were married in Canada in 2004.
    The college refused to add Golden to the health care benefits because its contract with the Civil Service Employees Association did not address benefits for same-sex partners. Since then, the contract has been enhanced to extend benefits to an employee’s domestic partner.
    State Supreme Court Justice Harold Galloway dismissed Martinez’ lawsuit in August 2006, saying that the state does not recognize samesex marriages.
    The state Legislature “currently defines marriage as limited to the union of one man and one woman,” he wrote.
    The appellate judges disagreed, determining that there is no legal impediment in New York to the recognition of a same-sex marriage.
    The state Legislature “may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad,” the ruling said. “Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York.”
    The New York Civil Liberties Union called Friday’s ruling a victory for families, justice and human rights.

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Governor orders agencies to recognize same-sex marriages
The Associated Press

    NEW YORK — Gov. David Paterson has told New York state agencies that they should begin recognizing same-sex marriages performed in states and countries where they’re legal.
    Paterson spokeswoman Erin Duggan says the governor’s legal counsel sent a memo to all of the state’s agencies telling them they could be violating state human rights law if they don’t start recognizing the unions.
    Duggan says the move is in response to a state appeals court ruling in February in the case of a woman whose partner was denied health benefits by her employer even though she had been legally married in Canada.
    The move is one of the strongest steps the state can take short of action by the Legislature.