"The Same-Sex Future"

[GodlessBiker]

From the New York Review of Books, by David Cole ...

Just four years ago, political pundits were blaming gay rights activists and the Massachusetts Supreme Court for costing Democrats the 2004 presidential election. In 2003, the Massachusetts court had declared, in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, that denying marriage to same-sex couples violated that state's constitution, marking the first time a state supreme court recognized the right of same-sex couples to marry.<1> The decision touched off a widespread backlash; in 2004, eleven states passed referendums amending their constitutions to outlaw same-sex marriage. In 2006, another seven states followed suit. Nor was this a short-term phenomenon. During the last decade, forty-one states have passed statutes banning recognition of same-sex marriages, and twenty-six have amended their constitutions to that effect.

Yet in the last eight months, the tide appears to have dramatically turned. In October 2008, the Connecticut Supreme Court declared that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples was unconstitutional discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, even though Connecticut law already granted same-sex couples all the legal benefits and rights of marriage under the label of "civil unions."<2> In April 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Iowa's state ban on same-sex marriage denied equal protection of the law to gays and lesbians.<3> The same month, the Vermont legislature enacted a law to make same-sex marriages legal, overriding the governor's veto. Maine enacted a same-sex marriage law on May 6, 2009. On June 3, New Hampshire followed suit. In New Jersey, the Supreme Court has required the state to extend to same-sex couples all the benefits and rights enjoyed by married couples, and the legislature is considering extending marriage itself to such couples.<4> And the New York State Assembly has passed a bill to make marriage available to same-sex couples. The bill has the support of Governor David Paterson, though its chances of passage in the Senate remain uncertain.

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For the rest of the article, go here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22791

[MNBrewer]

1. How do you hold a wave upon the sand?

or "Can't hold back the tide!"

[sui generis]

2. well the real wild card is our willingness to be litigious

and on such weighty points as equal treatment under the law, right to self determination, etc. One of these cards is going to fall and when it does the whole rest of the deck is going with it.

States DO NOT have a prurient interest in human procreation, unless it's written into the state charter, legislated, and enforced.

Marriage is not "defined" by anyone except us. It wasn't handed to us out of whole cloth.

Tradition is for people who value tradition. Let them keep their traditions, let the rest of us make our own.

Et Cetera.