The right to fully recognized civil marriage stands as the single most significant symbol of the way gays and lesbians are treated as second class citizens. Every way that this is articulated helps move all LGBT issues forward by focusing the attention on that central question: does the majority of voters have a right to restrict any other group of people to second class and unequal status?
I’ve linked to Micek’s column before and I generally love to read him, but the linked entry has me fairly pissed off. Why is it that “marriage” can be used to talk about a relationship between two guys, but if two guys who are really gay, love each other and want to make a commitment to each other, they can’t.
It may seem tempting to sit back, and as one long time Democrat put it to me, watch the GOP implode, but I’m not so sure that 1) that is what is going to happen, or 2) even with implosion, it won’t spell hardship for LGBT issues.
But even though same-sex civil marriage is relatively new, men and women have been forming and maintaining relationships for a long, long time. We should be getting married to make visible these relationships- as one more way of being out of the closet and visible, not just as individuals but as couples and families.
Why is the the sanctity of dogma more important that equal rights?
I think this could be a turning point in the marriage equality battle. If she vetoes it, then it is clear, that it isn’t really “marriage” opponents are trying to protect. Their efforts are a blatant attack on the rights of gay and lesbian individuals to form meaningful and protected relationships.
The linked blog post by Tom Lang below is a wonderful read, and talks about something I’ve written about from a general perspective before. Same-sex marriage equality is critically important to some parts of the LGBT community, but it, in and of itself does not produce equality. Even after 6 years of marriage equality there, the whole of the LGBT community remains lacking some very basic protections because a part of that whole has no[Read More…]
agner points out (to the far right readers of the questionnaire) that he voted for the states DOMA. It is like he is saying, “I might be a democrat, but I’ve been on your side against gay marriage.” Wagner is not the only democrat who is not fully supportive of same-sex marriage, but he is the only one who wanted to highlight his connection to the far right so vividly.
If we fail to help and protect our growing families and our children, we also set our overall movement back.
“Politics of Love” a website with downloadable resources for anyone interested in doing advocacy work for Marriage Equality. Check it out! The site contains, audio, video, handouts, and powerpoint tools.