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Loading ...The state of gay marriage: NY, NJ, NH, Ore., Mich. and DC
The struggle for marriage equality looks like a juggling act this week: New York’s up in the air, New Jersey is poised to hop from one hand (the legislature) to another (the governor). And Washington, D.C., is about to be hoisted upward.
But, wait! There are more bills in the air: Michigan has one seeking to repeal its constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and New Hampshire has one seeking to repeal its newly approved-but-not-yet-enacted marriage equality law.And, of course, there is still Maine, a dropped ball.
Ever since last Tuesday, when voters in Maine voted to repeal the state’s newly approved-but-not-yet-enacted marriage equality law, opponents of same-sex marriage have touted the vote as a decisive renunciation of equal rights for gay couples.
They claim Maine was a “liberal New England state” where they were “grossly outspent.” Supporters of equal rights, who did eventually concede the defeat, the struggle is “about love and family and that will always be something worth fighting for.”
Both sides of the same-sex marriage issue have re-positioned their resources from Maine to these five other states.
New York
In New York State on Tuesday, the Senate was slated to take up a marriage equality bill. The bill already passed the state Assembly, but the volatile Senate –where Democrats cling to a 32 to 30 majority—has been reluctant to take it up.
That reluctance continued: The Senate did not take up the bill Tuesday. Instead, Senate leaders huddled with Gov. David Paterson and, according to the New York Times, came up with yet another “vague agreement” to vote on the bill “before the end of the year.”
That may be as soon as Monday of next week, but many observers say they doubt the Senate will put the bill on the floor unless the Democratic leadership knows the bill has 32 votes. Two Democrats have already said they would not vote for the measure, and the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage sent out a statement this week, saying it would “build a $500,000 war chest to fund a primary challenge to any Republican senator who votes for gay marriage –regardless of the outcome” of the Senate vote.
Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., counting votes is not an issue. A D.C. council committee voted 4 to 1 on Tuesday to approve a marriage equality bill there. The full Council will vote on Dec. 1; 10 of the 13 Councilmembers are sponsors of the legislation.
But inevitability is not translating into a smooth victory. The Council Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary heard more than 160 witnesses over two days of hearings testify for and against a bill that will provide for gay couples to be able to obtain marriage licenses. Simultaneously, the D.C. elections board heard testimony for and against a proposal to let D.C. voters decide by initiative whether to ban same-sex marriage.
Wait! Wasn’t it just last month that the elections board said there could be no ballot battle over same-sex marriage? Yes, but that was only in regard to D.C.’s just recently passed law recognizing marriage licenses same-sex couples obtain elsewhere, like in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, or Iowa. (New Hampshire’s law doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1.)
Now, opponents are before the elections board seeking an initiative to establish a statute limiting the definition of marriage to straight couples. The board is expected to rule on that request in the next two weeks, says Human Rights Campaign regional field director Sultan Shakir. Those opponents are being aided by the aid of the National Organization of Marriage and have the legal aid of another staunch conservative anti-gay group, the Alliance Defense Fund.
Perhaps trying to head off some of the controversy, the Council Committee on Tuesday agreed to amend the marriage equality bill by giving religious institutions more leeway to discriminate against same-sex couples. The original bill allowed religious institutions to refuse to accommodate same-sex weddings through such services as rental of space as long as they did not accommodate straight couples.
But the Committee agreed to allow religious institutions to refuse only gay couples in spaces owned by the institution. One committee member tried to expand that even further to non-religious institutions, but the Committee said no.
The Committee also amended the legislation to continue providing a domestic partnership option for both straight and gay couples.
New Jersey
Gay marriage supporters are considering a hurried run at the New Jersey legislature –a hurry necessitated by the defeat of incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D) in the Nov. 3 election. Corzine has said he would support of equal rights for gay couples, but his successor, Chris Christie (R), has promised to veto any such legislation.
The New Jersey legislature passed a civil unions law after the state supreme court ruled that the state constitution required gay couples be able to obtain the same benefits of marriage as straight couples can obtain. Momentum has been growing, however, for full marriage equality.
But New Jersey is also the original home-base for the National Organization for Marriage and that group is already playing its “save the children” radio ads warning that allowing gay couples to marry will lead to homosexuality being “forced” on school children.
The Star-Ledger in Newark reported that NOM funded robo-calls to “every household in selected legislative districts” and that the Catholic church has been distributing letters statewide to rally opposition to any marriage equality bill.
Like New York, passage of a marriage equality bill in New Jersey will require some Republican votes.
Oregon, Michigan, New Hampshire
Meanwhile, efforts are underway in a couple of states to untie the constitutional binds that currently prevent states from treating same-sex couples the same as straight couples when it comes to marriage licensing.
In Oregon, the statewide gay group Basic Rights Oregon announced last week that it is launching a petition drive to put on the ballot in 2012 an initiative to repeal the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage there. Voters approved the ban by initiative in 2004, but in 2007, the state legislature approved a law to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and another law to allow same-sex couples to register as domestic partners.
In Michigan, the House speaker pro tem, State Rep. Pam Byrnes, made good on a promise she announced in June: She introduced a measure seeking repeal of the constitutional ban approved by voters there in 2004. If the bill receives two-thirds approval in the House and Senate, it will then go to voters in 2010.
But in New Hampshire, there is an attempt to repeal a marriage equality law approved earlier this year. The law is set to go into effect Jan. 1.
The idea for the bill emerged long before the vote in Maine, but the conservative Union Leader newspaper got the ball rolling last week with a blistering editorial, claiming that the repeal vote in Maine jostles the neighboring domino.
The paper said at least two bills are already being drafted to undo the marriage equality law –one by legislative repeal, one by voter repeal.
Openly gay State Rep. Jim Splaine, who sponsored the marriage equality bill earlier this year, said he expects opponents to file the repeal bill in January. Because the marriage equality bill passed on very close votes last spring, said Splaine, “we shouldn’t take anything for granted.”
© 2009 Keen News Service
Let’s get this clear. The struggle for equality for any group takes a long period of time. Consider how African Americans struggled for over 140 years after the abolition of slavery before having a chance of electing one of their community to the Presidency– and they still face discrimination in much of America (including Canada).
The key to victory is to never give up, but redouble our efforts to win in this struggle. “KEEP OUR EYES ON THE PRIZE AND HOLD ON!”
Can’t really speak to the prospects anywhere else, but people in Michigan should not get their hopes up. A repeal of our state’s amendment isn’t going to happen anytime soon – not without changing the makeup of our senate. Plus we have the election of a new governor coming up, and it’s not the least bit inconceivable that the state will elect an anti-gay republican, like Cox (the state’s current attorney general).
Marriage equality probably isn’t going to happen in Michigan for decades. I’m honestly not expecting it to happen in my lifetime.
I am a 77 year old gay man. From the start I have believed that we are fighting the wrong fight. What’s so great about marriage? The centuries of marriage history have basically been a history of exploitation and oppression of women, barely an institution offering equality. Gays and others should fight for equal rights on the basis of domestic partnership. I don’t think we’d strike so many bigots buttons with this approach. Let heterosexuals and priests have their marriage; let us have human dignity and true union, without the mumbo-jumbo of oppressive religious institutions.
New Hampshire requires 60% of both the legislature AND popular vote to amend the state constitution.
Simple majorities do NOT cut it.
Marriage isn’t going anywhere in NH!!
Rizzo, marriage confers a number of benefits including those related to hospital visitation, immigration, employer/government benefits, inheritance and property transfer, as well as simple social recognition.
Civil unions and domestic partnerships have been demonstrated to not be de facto equal institutions and even enacting/protecting them is a problem because same-sex marriage opponents have either managed to ban institutions similar to marriage or are seeking to do so for fear of full recognition (e.g., see the recent Referendum 71 in Washington State which didn’t involve marriage at all). And notice that none of the marriage opponents came out and fought for this alternative form of recognition because they believe not just in preventing marriage recognition but no rights period.
If there’s going to be a fight either way, then we may as well fight for full equality instead of a second-rate replacement. Of course, there’s nothing preventing one from going for both, but the ultimate goal is full equality.
Joe Rizzo, with due respect I cannot agree to your plea to abandon the goal of marriage for what I see as obvious reasons:
1. some other construct is an insult, by implying our unions are not equal.
2. As someone else pointed out, too many laws would need to be changed, it won’t happen evenly and we won’t obtain equality under the law even knowing we haven’t obtained equality in society.
3. MARRIAGE IS NOT RELIGIOUS. I wish people would stop saying leave marriage to the evil cults. Marriage is a civil contract governed by the state. The cults have not always been involved and the christian cult is only involved in modern times, being a modern cult (merely a few thousand years old). Conceding marriage to them falls into their hands. The arguments against marriage equality cannot be made if marriage is secular, as it is.
Giving them marriage is surrendering.
4. You say giving up marriage would appease the bigots. Isn’t that why we should not give up? What if Rosa Parks decided like everyone else in her position that the back of the bus was not so bad?
I will not accept that hets are better than me. In fact I am far superior as a citizen of the world than the vast majority of them with the way I contribute, build the economy, improve the communities I live in without being a drain on the social net. I am insulted that simply because of how they copulate they feel better than me even knowing their behaviour is quite abhorrent at times.
Of course gays in general are not better than straights, that would make us guilty of hypocrisy for sure. I’m just observing that those claiming they have the moral high ground are doing so on a foundation of 50% divorce, beatings, wife as property, child abuse etc and it is quite insulting to be compared unfavorably to a group I believe is contributing negatively to the human race.
It is religion that has stopped human evolution in the tracks, in fact, and I will not allow them to take something from me that is not theirs.
I appreciate your desire to soften this fight, but I expect you will find very little agreement amongst readers of this site.
Marriage is the only goal I can work towards and be proud of. I would never do a civil union which by partaking in it you accept 2nd class citizenship. I think much more highly of my family and fellow GLBT people to concede that.
Marriage is safe in NH – don’t you worry people!!!!
Marriage equality will be in DC next, then WA and NJ.
New York will have SSM in 5 years time when the Senate get there “bigoted hidy-hole act together”!!!!
The 3 states of Maine, Oregon and California will win “marriage equality” back in 2016 I predict!!!!
Both Nevada and Rhode Island will get gay marriage in 2018.
Texas, Alabama and Utah will eventually get gay marriage in 2100!!!
I agree with Wayne M(nicely said)look forward ,and keep fighting the fight.Bye guys.
The LGBT community, by spending huge amounts of money fighting for our rights at the polls, unwittingly legitimizes the idea that our rights should be determined by the majority vote! It is time to change the strategy!
As with the Canadian Charter, the US Constitution protects the minority from the prejudicial will of the majority. Using the popular vote as a means to deny the equal rights of a minority is not Democracy! It is voter approved bigotry. This “offends the very purpose” of the Constitution.
@Joseph Rizzo–sir, I would suggest that you’re old enough to recall a time when blacks didn’t dare travel through certain areas, let alone expect service at soda fountains or in hotels. I would suggest that you have seen people not hired because they were too ethnic, whatever that ethnicity might be. Would you really have younger generations limit themselves to crumbs, when we American citizens are entitled to equality (in rights and responsibilities) under the Constitution? That includes you.
@S Saxon–you’re right–our rights should never have been subject to popular vote. You mention the Charter; Canada’s recognition of gay rights is at least partly due to the youth of the Charter, and many sitting politicians in the early 2000’s were at least in high school when the Charter was patriated, in late 1982. To make a comparison in US history, 20-ish years after the Civil Rights Act was Reagan’s first term, when Reagan was studiously avoiding any action on HIV/AIDS, a time when gay was equated with AIDS, and AIDS equaled death. Paul Martin’s Throne Speech put opponents of C-38 squarely in the position of being seen as attacking a fundamental element of the Charter–that rights can not be put to a vote. It worked well enough that Stephen Harper’s minority governments haven’t made any attempt to repeal C-38–and if Harper made such a move, even if he should attain a majority government, it would very probably result in a no-confidence vote, or–much worse–invocation of the Notwithstanding Clause by the majority of provinces.
Down here in the States, it’s unfortunate that the Democrats–the erstwhile defenders of equality under the law–seem to have no problems with selling out gays. What other options do we have? Well…I’m not placing a bet one way or the other, but I have a funny feeling that there will soon be a case before the US Supreme Court, and GOP-appointed, self-described “strict-constructionist” Justices, will decide in our favor. It will probably be in the most limited and convoluted way they can manage, but it will be a decision based on black-letter law. Singling out gays for different treatment under the law creates a suspect class as defined by established civil rights law. If the Court says it’s OK to do that, they overturn decades of civil rights law, and open the door to repealing the Civil Rights Act through litigation. If the Court finds squarely in favor of gays–including us under civil rights law where we are not explicitly included, but are included by inference and by growing case law and legislation–then this center-right Court will have done what Democrats have been too cowardly to do. The longer this stupid dance goes on, the more proof there is that antigay Federal legislation can’t pass Constitutional muster because it follows the same pattern as Jim Crow. If GOP-leaning Justices are the ones who finally bring this battle to an end in our favor, it has the potential to shift US politics in a huge way. It’s what the GOP doesn’t want, yet it could give them an immense opportunity by claiming to outdo Dems on civil rights. And the Dems would have nothing to say…just like the HRC.