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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 Some lawmakers consider the language outdated and unnecessary.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.
No problemo budsky! =))
During his campaign, Obama invited the most rabid anti-marriage homophobic swine in California to join his new so-called “Faith and Values” tour on the West Coast.
According to the major GLBT publication, the Advocate: (regarding Obama’s presidential campaign 2008 in California) — Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign reportedly launched a “Faith, Family, and Values Tour” in California that included Catholic legal scholar Douglas Kmiec as one of the campaign’s surrogates.
So just who exactly is Prof. Douglas Kmiec from Pepperdine University and good friend of Clinton foe, Ken Starr?
Kmiec wrote an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle in summer 2008 in which he urged SUPPORT for passing California’s marriage ban, Proposition 8.” GOT THAT, OBAMA ASK A MAJOR PROP 8 SUPPORTER TO WORK ON HIS CAMPAIGN JUST A FEW MONTH AGO!!!
http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid61930.asp
(From the Sept. 2008 issue of the Advocate — Check it out!)
Douglas Kmiec wrote, in his attack on marriage equality: “In a depopulating world, the claim that there is a universal right to marry regardless of gender becomes a frightening ally of a claimed universal right to access to genetically engineered children. People should reject this claim by returning traditional marriage to its rightful place.”
This guy, Obama’s new friend, is a dangerous loon. He believes same-sex marriage will lead to the end of civilization because same-sex couples may someday make cloning more popular than the old fashion way of reproduction.
And “in a depopulating world”? What? Straights will always be fornicating like rabbits and keeping the population growing (unfortunately, with horrific consequences, for some third world countries with limited resources).
So again, I ask: what the F**k ???!!! Obama, oh my god! Not another anti-gay friend of yours. Are you a closeted basher for some reason? Are the rumors true. Is Obama just another self-loathing, “on the down-low”, Donnie McClurkin? Why does he wear these bigots like a badge of honor around his neck? Or are they beards? Is that why he needed them in California in 2008? Were they his surrogates who worked behind the scene for him to push out the anti-gay vote (especially in the Black community) in order to both get him elected and to pass Prop 8.
Well, we should all be worried. We should be worried about the guy who ran for president — the guy who is now President of the United States of America — who brought into the fold some of our worst enemies. Apparently, the gay community’s objection to the last “Obama Gospel Tour”, which featured the “ex-homo” Donnie “Pray the Gay Away” McClurkin, made very little impact on Obama and his campaign organizers.
Why would Obama bring in the equivalent of an “anti-gay-nazi-hunter“ this arch-homophobe, Douglas Kmiec? This nutcase, Douglas Kmeic (who is a disciple of Clinton “Monica-gate” prosecutor Ken Starr) continues to spew hateful nonsense about gay people in the future becoming Nazi-like human-cloners (shades of “The Boys from Brazil“ and Josef Mengele) who shall be bent on destroying the entire human race by genetically engineering “designer gay children”. Kmiec warns that Straights will stop copulating and little gay Ken doll human replicants will party on until the last one leaves the planet and turns off the lights. Hence, the end of human life on Earth. Ta da!
What a way to go: Not with a bang…not with a whimper…but with a song in your heart dancing down the road to extinction. ….How gay is that?
Well, put me down for an advance order. I want a couple of “Brad Pitts” (I can de-straight him later) and maybe a few GQ models thrown in for good measure.
Furthermore, Prof. Kmiec claims:
“The push for artificial wombs and the genetic manipulation of intelligence already peppers scientific literature – a push that would no doubt grow, accommodating even the minimal same-sex desire for simulating natural child birth – claimed to be of interest for 20-30 percent of same-sex couples.”
….Yep, I always knew it. I can’t wait to get an artificial womb so that I can start destroying the the Earth with it. Oooooooo!!!! SCARY!!!!! Can I get tiny laser-guns shooting death rays implanted in my nipples too?
So, thank you, Barack. Thank you for your friendship with Douglas Kmiec, bossum buddies with Ken Starr, the same Ken Star who just “coincidentally” was chosen of late to represent the Prop 8 haters before the California Supreme Court on March 5th, 2009. Hmmmm…that was a coincidence, wasn’t it?
Geez…what a thoughtless bastard! He really know how to pick his friends, doesn‘t he? ….At our expense, of course.
I sure am looking forward to Obama putting some of these very same crazies on the board of his new Commission on Civil Rights — for the sake of diversity, that is.
I envision a “god squad” of Fundamentalist Pastors rounding us “sodomites” up (the marrying kind anyway); then holding us down, kicking and screaming, as Professor Kmiec rips out our artificial wombs while Donnie McClurkin sings gospel hymns to “pray our gay away” as Barack Obama holds our hands to comfort us, and tell us: “You asked too much.”
Ahhhh…good times ahead. …I can’t wait!
So…shouldn’t we be judged by the company we keep anymore? But maybe that doesn’t apply to Barack Obama and his Anti-gay Cloning Gospel Tour tap dancing in step with his neo-Nazi chums Rick Warren and Prof. Douglas “Mengele“ Kmiec.
WOW!!! ….Have we been had or what???!!!!
© “Bud” E. Lewis Evans
PS- Thanks Shawn for the info on SSP(Same Sex Procreation).
PS.
As far as teaching “Homo SEX” in school. When Sex (Hetero Sex) is taught then YES homosexual should be more than just a ONE SENTENCE in a sex ed book!
I hope they DO let Judges, Florists, and photographers NOT serve us… Why? Cuz I would NOT want to give those fuckers my money anyways. SO PLEASE PLEASE let the BIGOTS out themselves. You will be doing us a favor!