A Note from Evan Wolfson
After a succession of blows, Queen Elizabeth II referred to 1992 as her "annus horribilis."
I'm just guessing at the Latin for horrible week — hebdomas horribilis? — but there is no question we've just had one. Any struggle for social justice goes through good patches and bad patches, and we have certainly now weathered more than our share of adverse (and appalling) court decisions of differing degrees of finality and brands of badness.
Although these decisions were not all related or all equally determinative, there are some common threads, and they hurt, cumulatively and individually.
Amidst all this frustrating and disappointing news in one week, there were a few bright spots that might have escaped your attention for the moment, which we compiled below.
Our turn will come again.
Evan
Click HERE to read the rest of Evan�s Note.
Follow developments in the movement for marriage equality on our website, and in future issues of Freedom to Marry's bi-monthly E-Update.
The Bad News
NY - In an ill-reasoned 4-2 ruling, the NY Court of Appeals refused to overturn the unconstitutional exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage.
GA - With a less surprising, though still woefully deficient decision, the state supreme court failed to apply the "single-subject" rule to the anti-gay amendment.
MA - The Supreme Judicial Courts declined to block yet another proposed anti-gay amendment from potentially going to a vote, thereby leaving married couples and their kids still exposed to potential attack and uncertainty in their lives.
CT - In a strikingly ahistorical and willfully obtuse lower court opinion in GLAD's marriage case, the judge held that committed couples excluded from marriage are not harmed because the separate civil union status recently created in CT somehow negates their aspiration to, and claim for equality in, the freedom to marry itself.
NY - In Lambda Legal's case of a couple married in Canada and fighting to have their marriage honored back home like any other, a lower court hastily read the Court of Appeals marriage ruling as essentially creating a "gay exception" to any meaningful analysis or application of New York State's tradition and basic rule, acknowledged by Attorney General Spitzer, that the state will honor lawful marriages from elsewhere, even if the couple could not have married in NY.
NE - The federal 8th Circuit appellate court reinstated the sweeping anti-gay state constitutional amendment, reaching beyond the claims made by plaintiffs against their exclusion from the political process and the breadth of the denial of family protections to also opine that the denial of marriage could be "rational" and thus constitutional.
TN - Ruling on technical standing grounds in an ACLU challenge, the Tennessee high court declined to enforce the rules regarding the timing of the looming anti-gay ballot measure, allowing the vote to go forward in November.
The Good News
The post-decision response in New York was strong and empowering, as non-gay and gay people alike seemed to heed the New York Times editorial's call to get energized and fight. Rather than feeling defeated by the court's failure, it's clear that the Pride Agenda and many other organizations and individuals are moving this battle to Albany with the expectation that legislators and a new governor will take up their responsibility to end the pointless exclusion from marriage.
In Massachusetts, the legislature refused to advance the anti-gay amendment, postponing the next vote until November and giving our colleagues there, including MassEquality and GLAD, a chance to further demonstrate that ending marriage discrimination helped families while hurting no one and it's time to stop playing right-wing Russian roulette with families' lives.
The Pennsylvania legislature refused to proceed with an anti-gay constitutional amendment proposed by right-wing forces as part of their ongoing state-by-state assaults on gay families and American values of fairness and equality under the law.
In a ruling upholding the best interests of kids and the fitness of gay parents, the Arkansas Supreme Court unanimously rejected the very "rationales" pointed to by the NY Court of Appeals plurality a few days later.
California's intermediate appellate court heard arguments in the promising case brought by same-sex couples and their kids challenging their exclusion from marriage, and it was again apparent that the state had no good justification for perpetuating discrimination.
The American Academy of Pediatrics — our nation's kids' doctors — again strongly reaffirmed the fitness of gay parents, and made clear that ending the denial of the freedom to marry is in the best interests of children.
We crossed the threshold and now have a majority of the nation's Fortune 500 companies offering partnership benefits and acknowledging our families. Government may be lagging, but people are getting it...
The Latest News
For the latest news, opinions, and polls, including these articles, check out our website.
Clergyman/Congressman blasts discriminatory marriage amendment
Contra Costa Times
July 16, 2006
"This is shamefully political and sinfully divisive," Cleaver, whose background as senior pastor of St. James United Methodist Church in Kansas City gives him a unique perspective among members of Congress, said during an interview in his Capitol Hill office. "It's bad theology because there is
nothing biblical about creating divisions between people."
About Woo v California
Equality California
July 10, 2006
Last Spring, San Francisco Judge Richard A. Kramer stated that California's denial of marriage licenses to same sex couples violates the fundamental right to
marry guaranteed under the California Constitution. Attorney General Bill Lockyer appealed that decision, setting the stage for the July 10th oral arguments
for Woo v. California and four other cases.
Read the New York Court of Appeal's decision
July 6, 2006
New York's high court, 4-2, says decision to end marriage discrimination rests with the legislature, despite lack of evidence to justify gay couples'
exclusion from marriage.
