Gay Marriage to Alfred: Your Thoughts

(ahem)

in summary

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj303/Thatairsoftkid/HatersGonnaHate.jpg

http://www.standformarriagemaine.com/?p=525
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http://www.otsd.org/Directories/directories.htm
Assistant Principle of Leonard Middle School?
jenni✧✧✧.c✧✧@rs✧✧✧.o✧✧

It really does seem like it's up to Olson and Boies now. The state-by-state strategy does seem to have played out. we now have an anti-gay governor of New Jersey who has stated that he will veto any same-sex marriage legislation and work toward an amendment to keep it down. The NY legislature couldn't be more cowardly, and will likely use the win in Maine as an excuse for inaction. What's left, DC? Maybe Washington state will take the next step if referndum 71 is approved. Other than that it doesn't look too hopeful in the short-term.

"look at it like this: how would a vote have gone down 20-30 years ago? 80-20 against or something? let them celebrate for now, they just don't know their history and how it's all going to turn out in the end. it sucks at this moment but it's gonna happen."

I agree with this, but I don't feel like I have 20-30 years. Are you satisfied with waiting that long? MA approved same-sex marriage 5 years ago and the sky hasn't fallen. The time is now. I'm just not sure what we can do about it except not shut up or let go, ever.

I am, yes, a terrible person but what about starting a website called thebigotlist.com

see: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2214000503&ref=search&sid=535151176.2010637873..1

question: do people tend to become socially more conservative as they get older? are all of these teenagers who say they have no problem with same-sex marriage going to feel the same way in 10 or 20 years? I hope so, but I'm not so sure...

The answer is no. People do not tend to get more socially conservative as they get older. They tend to hold on to a core worldview from cradle to grave. Older people present as more socially conservative because they reflect the dominant paradigm of 30-50 years ago.

― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.), Wednesday, November 4, 2009 7:27 PM (11 minutes ago)

my sister's first yr psychology textbook kinda said the opposite, i don't want to dig it out but what you said is not necc true maybe(?)

i don't think people change as much as the world changes around them, and since they don't move from their positions they're more conservative contextually. they may have been incredibly liberal thirty years previously.

i think what happens is that people's personalities don't change all that much after 30, it's just that cranky people tend to die earlier

NOT NEC TRUE!!!!

guys there was a snappy new yorkerish cartoon that made it memorable

Dan S., I'd suggest this: say what you want about Sullivan, I think he put it best last night:

In Washington State, another referendum on gay couples' equality was also a squeaker. But in this one, gay couples won. The state's domestic partnership law grants gay couples all the rights of married couples at a state level. The usual forces tried to reverse it, as they tried in Maine. But in Washington, the gay side won by 51.1 to 48.9 percent. Again, it's such a slender margin, it's stupid to draw any vast conclusions.

But I do want to point out that, from the perspective of just a decade ago, to have an even split on this question in a voter referendum is a huge shift in the culture. In Maine, where the Catholic church did all it could to prevent gays from having civil rights in a very Catholic and rural state, gays do have equality but may now merely be denied the name. The process itself has helped educate and enlighten and deepen the debate about gay people in ways that never happened before the marriage issue came up.

I am heart-broken tonight by Maine, and I'd be lying if I said otherwise.

Somehow losing by this tiny margin is brutalizing. And because this is a vote on my dignity as a human being, it is hard not to take it personally or emotionally. But I also know that the history of civil rights movements has many steps backward as forward, and some of those reversals actually catalyze the convictions that lead to victories. A decade ago, the marriage issue was toxic. Now it divides evenly. Soon, it will win everywhere.

The trick is *not to stop* -- and not to pin hopes on one sole approach.

No one's going to have to wait 30 years. These measures are barely passing today.

Shit the mere fact that you can say you don't want to wait 30 years is a sort of astonishing measure of how close this is to happen. 30 years ago the mere question of marriage would have been incoherent to even the fringiest fringe of activism. 30 ago Liberace was afraid to COME OUT!

Hell I remember reading through Virtually Normal back whenever it was released in the mid-nineties and thinking, "Can't happen, can it?"

Sullivan OTM. The dispirited handwringing at every setback is sorta not helpful. Time, demographics, and the equaninimity of the law are on our side.

yeah but we could all be dead tomorrow. fuck this noize, i'm getting some lions, gonna persecute me some christians.

Yum!

This is like one of the few areas where it's helpful to view the political cycle like a sports season. This round of matches is done, now it's time to dust off and begin gearing up for the next round.

More proactive pro-equality legislation would be a good idea for the next set of contests, IMO.

why all the eggs are in the marriage basket, I ... well, I do know. Boring.

I anticipate Prop 8 is gonna get reversed in CA

i think that is an awesome contribution morbz, huggles!

"Sullivan OTM. The dispirited handwringing at every setback is sorta not helpful. Time, demographics, and the equaninimity of the law are on our side."

not sure I agree with this. it seems to me it would be in our best interest to make it clear to the public just how hurtful and cruel these kinds of votes are, how they isolate one group of people and declare them less than equal.

i think the folks who best recognize this/don't care about it will be of voting age more and more over the next decade. history will show maggie gallagher and her ilk to be the "anti-irish/anti-black" political cartoonists of the 21st century.

it seems to me it would be in our best interest to make it clear to the public just how hurtful and cruel these kinds of votes are, how they isolate one group of people and declare them less than equal.

that's part and parcel with moving forward and continuing to launch ballot initiatives and legal challenges afaict

I'm just saying there's gonna be a lot of defeats. It isn't productive to moan about them. Learn from them, yes.

also lolz look at the people in that photo - do you really think they can be shamed/reasoned with. They need to be defeated by sheer numbers and by the due application of the law. You aren't going to change their votes by loudly declaiming how hurtful and discriminatory they're being.

true, but I think there is a much bigger group of people who vote for these things who really haven't thought much about it, who maybe don't even realize what they're doing to other people. these are the people we need to have discussions with.

it seems to me it would be in our best interest to make it clear to the public just how hurtful and cruel these kinds of votes are, how they isolate one group of people and declare them less than equal.

wait do you really think they don't know this? imho it would be more useful to point out that the more the gays get married the less they'll be out there recruiting for their lifestyle!

i think a lot of the voters are like some older relatives who just think, "well that sort of thing sounds awfully strange, i dunno about that..." and they're the types who may eventually come around and calling them bigots doesn't do much good imo. the right-wingers who are stridently anti-gay, let alone anti-gay marriage, you might as well just forget about them and not even bother to attack nor argue with their position.

well that plus a pre-election tv blitz promizing that "they will teach teh ghey to our children in the schools!!!"

which tbf i'd be fine with that so, y'know, let the slippery slope commence

i'm just saying look how well the whole "hath not a jew eyes" thing worked

Well, everyone reads The Merchant of Venice now.

Meanwhile, roffle.

herd gays don't always bleed if they get pricked tho

omar's assessment of the opposition very OTM, I think

on the upside, Maine did pass Question 5, allowing Maine gays to more effectively manage their grief and rage with marijuana!

if you prick them, gays will BLEED ON YOUR CHILDREN

hey yall,

say i wanted to organize something to donate money to the pro marriage movement, what would be the best org to donate to? i imagine some are more productive & effective than others

good question. I've been giving money regularly to the HRC and Equality California, but I'm not sure either one of those organizations has been particularly effective. I think Jesse Connolly ran an excellent campaign in Maine despite the bad outcome, so I look forward with interest to any campaign he signs on to in the future.

From Savage Love a few months ago:

My fiancé and I—we're a straight couple—are getting married in July. We've lived together for four years, and as such we don't need any more then we already have. We're asking friends and family to make donations to nonprofits that are dear to us in lieu of traditional gifts. We're both grade-school teachers, so the bulk of our requests are related to the needs of our students. (Shameless plug: Refugee Women's Alliance and New Futures are two amazing programs that specifically serve students where we live.) We're including Planned Parenthood on our list, and we would like to include a nonprofit that advocates for marriage equality. Which one would you suggest?

Soon To Be Married

Thanks for thinking of us, STBM, which is more than President Obama is willing to do: I would recommend that you put Lambda Legal (they're lawyers, they sue) and Freedom to Marry (they're advocates, they woo) on your list. Unlike most national gay organizations, Lambda Legal and Freedom to Marry do good work and get results. Thanks and congratulations!

If segregation legislation had to be passed by/could be overturned by referenda in the states many people would still be drinking out of different water fountains. ARGH.

Is this really a direct parallel? or is this again more of a federal vs. state situation?

HRC is a fucking waste of your $. Clueless "insiders" all the way.

yeah i gave to them once in a fit of protest at something or other, and then read enough about them to keep me from giving again.

Sullivan's been pretty good over the years of listing examples of HRC's sycophancy.

John Cole droppin' a truth bomb:

I honestly don’t know where the gay rights movement goes from here. There have been some recent successes- there seems to be some movement on DADT, an openly gay mayor was elected in North Carolina, Washington state passed a gay rights bill, Obama signed the Shephard legislation, the HIV ban was lifted, and some other victories in other states in recent years. At the same time, I understand (as much as I can) the anger and the frustration. They did the right things- they had bills passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, followed the legitimate political process, and unlike any other civil rights issue, laws are only temporary for gays and a year later it gets overturned in referendums. It has to be maddening, and I have no answers. About the only thing I can do is to stop being a jerk and openly taunting gay bloggers when I think they are doing something stupid or flailing pointlessly at the administration, because at this point I can’t think anything other than that they have every right to be pissed. I don’t know if it will work, but maybe the only recourse left for the gay rights movement is legitimate anger. Nothing else seems to be working.

The next step is to challenge the Maine referendum as being unconstitutional, IMO. (don't know if it will work but that's the avenue I'd try)

I also wonder if there is some type of organized boycott/protest re: refusing to pay state and federal taxes until this issue is resolved that could be organized.

Overall, 51 percent of voters said same-sex couples should be allowed to become legally married in the state, and 43% were opposed. But by nearly twice as large a margin, 56 to 41 percent, voters did not want the issue to appear on the ballot again in 2010.

^^^er that's in California, poll released today

i think marriage is pointless aside from legal issues but that's possibly more because i am without love than an atheist although both are true ;_;

It feels like once this gets settled and dragged through the courts and gay marriage or gender neutral civil unions are standardized everyone's going to be so tired of hearing about marriage that a lot of people won't see it as any sort of big deal in general. If all the anti gay marriage people had sucked it up and encouraged it but asked for church-by-church exceptions it would have a lot more of the mystique or whatever intact ten years from now.