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Loading ...Conn. bill would update gay marriage law
03.09.2009 8:03am EDT
(Hartford, Connecticut) Connecticut lawmakers are considering an update to state law to conform with a court ruling that allows same-sex marriage.
The legislators’ work is spurred by last year’s state Supreme Court decision that concluded same-sex couples have the right to wed in Connecticut. The state’s 2005 civil union law doesn’t give same-sex couples equal status of married heterosexual couples, the court said.The General Assembly’s judiciary committee is considering a bill to remove gender references in current state laws and transform same-sex civil unions into legally recognized marriages as of October 2010. The bill was the subject of a committee hearing Friday.
The measure also would strip language from a 1991 state anti-discrimination law that says Connecticut does not condone gay marriage and will not set quotas for hiring gay workers or encourage teaching in school about same-sex lifestyles. Some lawmakers consider the language outdated and unnecessary.
The proposal to delete that language has upset opponents, who think the court ruling could be used to affect policy in other matters such as school curricula.
The Family Institute of Connecticut, which calls the court ruling undemocratic, said on its Web site that changing the 1991 law “goes beyond mere legislative housekeeping.”
Peter Wolfgang, the organization’s executive director, told the committee the proposed changes could be interpreted by “some enterprising judge” or others as encouragement to teach about homosexual lifestyles in schools.
“We don’t want this misread as some sort of affirmation, some sort of mandate, that things that are opposed to in parental rights or traditional public beliefs will now be taught in the public schools,” Wolfgang said.
Waterbury resident Robert Muckle Sr. told lawmakers he worries about the effect on children if same-sex relationships are condoned or encouraged by educators.
“Things are bad enough in our schools with the teaching of comprehensive sex education without the added promotion of homosexuality and bisexuality,” he said.
State Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the judiciary committee, said the 1991 language prohibited actions that were never likely to occur anyway, such as setting quotas for hiring gay workers or pushing teachers to promote homosexuality.
It was added only to appease people who otherwise might have blocked the anti-discrimination bill, Lawlor said.
The language is a vestige of past discrimination that should be removed, said attorney Bennett Klein of Boston-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), which represented the gay couples who won the Supreme Court decision.
“It’s meaningless language other than to express prejudice,” he said.
State Rep. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, whose ceremony with her partner, Tracey Wilson, was Connecticut’s first same-sex marriage, said the updates to state law are much more than mere procedure.
“Marriage has meaning in our culture, and marriage has meaning in our state and to my family,” Bye, displaying her marriage license, told fellow lawmakers Friday.
The judiciary committee did not act Friday on the proposed changes, which would require full General Assembly approval.
Only Connecticut and Massachusetts have legalized gay marriage, although the unions were legal in California for five months until a state referendum to ban gay marriage passed last fall.
Vermont, New Jersey, California, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia have laws that either recognize civil unions or domestic partnerships that afford same-sex couples similar rights to marriage. Thirty states have gay marriage bans in their constitutions.
Connecticut had 2,140 civil unions recorded as of Friday, including 24 since the Oct. 10 Supreme Court decision.
Some church and conservative group leaders also want lawmakers to let Connecticut justices of the peace and anyone else with religious objections -such as wedding photographers or florists – refuse to participate in same-sex ceremonies.
“A situation has been created by the (court) decision where state policy seriously conflicts with the religious beliefs of a large number of people within the state,” said David Reynolds, a spokesman for the Connecticut Catholic Conference.
The law would exempt clergy from performing same-sex marriages based on their religious beliefs. However, some legislators say justices of the peace are state officials and must perform the ceremonies, since they are legally prohibited from discriminating based on sexual orientation.
Hmmm…very interesting article you wrote there Bud-E. Actually, cloning our own kind is not necessary. In approximately 4-5 years a procedure will become available called SSP(Same Sex Procreation). It will enable the gay community, through the use of stem cell technology and genetic engineering, to produce a male “egg” which can then be paired with the sperm from your partner. The newly created embryo can then be implanted into a female uterus. Yah, I know, I’m spouting off a pretty wild scenario here but it WILL become a reality very, very soon. There already exists a few online sites out there which are dealing with this issue RIGHT now! One such site is eggandsperm.org. A site started and maintained by a rabid homophobe, by the name of John Howard, who wants to federally ban such research and implementation from taking place. Apparently the ex slave owning state of Missouri has already done this. Go figure. Then there’s another interesting site called samesexprocreation.com. Both of them are pretty interesting reads. Also type in “kaguya” in your search engine to read about the world’s first mouse created from TWO female egg cells! Definitely stranger than fiction. This IS the coming future folks. maybe even someday we can see the complete elimination of heteros from the planet! LmAO! Sadly, I won’t live long enough to see it, but our children quite possibly could. Peace all.
“A situation has been created by the (court) decision where state policy seriously conflicts with the religious beliefs of a large number of people within the state,” said David Reynolds, a spokesman for the Connecticut Catholic Conference.
HYPOCRITES. Seperation of church and state. That is all.
“Things are bad enough in our schools with the teaching of comprehensive sex education without the added promotion of homosexuality and bisexuality,” he said.
WTF? It is ignorant comments like this that cause the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases. God, some people are dumb.
Morgan, I understand Shawn frustration with some heterosexuals — after all, if it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have such violence, discrimination, and inequity imposed on the GLBT community. It would be silly not to put the blame where the blame lies. That would be like saying that racism in the United States had nothing to do with Whites. But the key word in that case would be “racism”, just like the operational terminology for how unjustly the GLBT minority community is treated by heterosexual majority would be “heterosexism”.
In that vein, not every heterosexual is a heterosexist just like not every person of the White race is a racist. Unfortunately, the majority of heterosexuals are either heterosexist (even in the Democratic Party) or apathetic to discrimination against the GLBT community. But being in a minority does not exclude you from being a fomenter of prejudice. There are Black racists who hate Whites, Asians, and Hispanics for no reason other than based on races and, likewise, there are a few homosexists who lump all heterosexuals together and hate them all based on their sexuality too. That makes those individuals as bad as their persecutors.
Remember the old adage that goes: Beware to those who slay dragons lest they become dragons themselves.
Unfortunately, in the majority of the US “most” heterosexuals cannot accept the equality of their GLBT neighbors and fellow citizens. But that can also be broken down into subcategories.
Pernicious Homophobia is most prevalent amongst:
[1.] The poorly educated, as well as those most detached from reality (ie, religious obsessives — which many, sadly, also fall under the category of willfully ignorant);
[2.] Age (fifty and older — those who don’t like changing the status quo of their privilege, power and undue influence over society);
[3.] Race, as evidenced by the 70% support for Prop 8 by Blacks and Hispanics at 56% for Prop 8 — in contrast the slim majority of Whites who voted against Prop 8 — the rising threat of each racial minority (singularly or collectively) who becomes the majority (such as in California where Whites are now the minority compared to a collectively larger population of Hispanics, Blacks and Asians). The rise to majority status amongst racial minorities and/or religious minorities can lead to a special social privilege mindset creating a unjust situation similar to what they were once subjected to when they where the minority. Apparently, empathy is lost for other minorities after some former minorities assume power and/or majority status in some voting districts.
This third category is even more painful for the GLBT community at large because of the overwhelming support the GLBT community has shown to Blacks and other minorities in their pursuit of equal rights when they so desperately need our support. Nothing hurts more than betrayal.
So, if we are going to change hearts — which it seems ridiculous to have to do in the first place when we should ALL be protected equally at birth by the US Constitution — then we must reach out to religious obsessive heterosexists (of all races and ages) as well as to the over fifty crowd of status quo special rights coveting heterosexists supremacists and their blue hair-dyed hordes.
The first group can only be cured of their bigotry by their own willingness to stop being so dangerously ignorant (in that case, we‘re all doomed), whereas the second group will be (as they always have been) weeded out by nature as they grow older and then become dependent upon many of the very same people in the geriatric care industry, against which they gleefully discriminate, to then tend to them and to change their adult diapers.
Maybe someday the next generation of GLBTs will have a better time of it. I hope so.
Perhaps cloning is the last hope for our kind in the future. That way, if homosexuality is truly genetic, we may be able to preserve our essence and then, perhaps, even someday out number the current violence-driven and ignorance-worshiping heterosexual majority. We would even let them live undisturbed (unlike how they have treated us for centuries).
So, coupled with the peace-loving natures; the vast talents, and the nearly unlimited capacity for compassion by the GLBT community, it could only be a better world if this could come to pass. Call it science fiction or just hopeful thinking — but just remember, all science was once fiction and hopeful thinking is a better alternative than despair. We shall prevail. Not only that, but we will flourish because we are amongst the best the human race has ever produced.
(c)”Bud” E. Lewis Evans
PS- You can click on the blue header at the top of this entry to go to my blog. Thanks…
I have no problem with any “religious leader” refusing to perform a gay wedding ceremony. Who the hell would want someone who doesn’t support them to be involved in their wedding day plans anyway?
WHAT? Morgan, go display your bigotry elsewhere. We surely don’t need your pathetic excuse for a comment on this site. You were born with these civil liberties…and we have to fight for ours…you’re either with us, or against us and if you’re the latter…C-Ya…
Well said Mrs. Morgan! I would expect no less coming from such a hetero ass smoocher! LOL! Are you still trying to “pray” away the gay, hon?
Breeders beware! That’s right,Let’s contribute to a decline in the GLBT population by breeding no more of them!!
That really makes a whole sense…let’s breed no GLBTs.
GO Connecticut!! New England once again will lead this half assed nation of ours to TRUE freedom! We showed the redcoats, we showed the racist pigs in the South and now we’ll show the homophobe pieces of sh*t out in the western states(including KKKalifornia)exactly what REAL freedom is! Breeders beware! Freedom is on the march!!
TJNV….the fact that the cultists call our sexual orientation a “lifestyle”, suggests that we choose it. How wrong they are. If anything, their’s is a lifestyle, they choose to believe in some nonsensical entity they can’t see, hear, touch or feel let alone prove the existence thereof. Nobody comes into this world “religious” let alone professing a cultist belief system. Lets face it, ALL religions are cults. Its all learned behavior and a choice and as such should be confined to the home, not in the public arena or political process. How dare they lobby for and influence the outcome of legislation affecting our right or anybody else’s for that matter. My take on all this is, lets start a movement nationwide to remove their tax-exempt status for starters. Hit them where it hurts, in their coffers. They are businesses first, nothing more using religion as a front to get tax breaks that you and I prop up with our tax dollars. Nail the bastards once and for all.
I hope full marriage equality happens in Conn. I had to laugh at the opposition however:
“encouragement to teach about homosexual lifestles in schools” 1) this is fine, I am sure educators will make it age apprportiate. 2) If you want your kids to be taught that the world is flat and gay peolple do not exist PAY for them to go to your cult, er I mean church school.
Also I had to laugh about not forceing florist and wedding photographers to do same sex weddings. Most of them that I have met have been well snap, snap, circle, anyway.
Just like me forced to do hetero Marriage receptions while the barely majority are allowed to vote to deny me being able to have the same happiness.
Tom in Long Beach
It seems that clergy, photographers and florists are not currently forced to provide services to heterosexual weddings, yet it is assumed that if they do not agree with a homosexual marriage they will be forced to provide the service to that couple. How obsurd. It is merely a business transaction, and if my partner and I were getting married, we would not support a business that didn’t support us. These people have the choice to deny any homosexual couple their service at the expense of their business.
Concerning the arguments re sex education: Why shouldn’t young gay people learn about having safe sex too? It’s not about being straight gay or bi, it’s about ensuring young people’s health and safety.
I am proud of the New England states, and can’t wait for them to lead the nation.
But I think that resources need to be expended like the Democratic Party did in the last election. They went and tried to convert the heart of the republican party. And they won Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and Colorado.
IF we as the queer community nationally don’t start working on issues in the non-liberal states we are going to be like the republicans in 2008.
it’s not the judges who are homophobic its the federal and state law makers has well if we are subpose to be american citizen then treat them like one get on with the program 16 other countries give same sex marriages so come on