I avoid that sort of thing, out of a desire to protect my brain.
I’m sure you’re right.
Noooooooo! Please don’t do that to those of us who have to live out here!
Fuck that guy. Anyway, he’s from the west side, no?
I don’t understand this need to exempt religious organizations from “having” to marry gays. Has the Catholic church asked to have an exemption from marrying divorced people? Or non-Catholics for that matter? That’s really grasping at straws to oppose. I understand that only a handful of Republicans (and all but one Democrat) supported it.
Interesting op-ed piece opposing the bill in the Times a day or two ago. This woman works for Columbia U. (she didn’t say in what capacity) and was opposed because Columbia gave her SO spousal benefits, a special deal for same-sex couples and not open to opposite -sex couples. She didn’t want to marry her SO but didn’t want to lose those benefits, so she opposed the bill. Sad.
So you’re the one spreading the gay. And here I always thought those conservatives were just being paranoid…
This really isn’t about exemptions; it’s about moving the goalposts, about trying to raise any argument that might conceivably fly, sensible or not. One state senator whose district is near here said he was undecided and might very well vote for the bill. Then he said he wasn’t sure if the religious exemptions were strong enough. So they revised the bill to provide more protection. So then he said…he’d vote against it. Hard to believe it wasn’t his intention all along.
As for the Catholic church (as an institution; I don’t intend to include every Catholic or even every Catholic priest in this statement), it has been grasping at straws since day one of this. This is a heavily Catholic area, and I hear a lot that Catholics’ religious freedom is being curtailed because “they are denying us our belief” that marriage is between one man and one woman. Grasping at straws indeed.
Then there was this gem, a quote that appeared in the paper this morning from the vicar of the county where I live:
“It is regrettable that in order to extend rights to gay and lesbian couples the meaning of marriage had to be redefined.”
You know, they could’ve avoided it if they had, oh, even 10 years ago urged that legislators pass a bill allowing civil unions that were just as strong as marriages. That would have extnded the appropriate rights without redefining marriages. Funny, though: I don’t remember the Catholic Church leading this charge for some reason…or supporting it when it was suggested…or reacting in any way other than “over our collective dead bodies.”
Oh well. I’m still thrilled with the results here.
I think he’ll be a reasonably strong candidate, but I just can’t get past the simple fact that, if the state GOP couldn’t unseat Murray in the climate they had in 2010, how do they take the Governorship in 2012.
Jay Inslee should prove competitive. [/hijack]
NJ Governor Chris Christie has statedd that he will not sign a SSM bill into law.
Everybody hates you anyways, Christie.
They wanted to make sure that they couldn’t be sued if they refused to marry gay couple or host gay weddings, for example. I agree that sooner or later, organizations like this will either change their mind for economic reasons or become irrelevant anachronisms. It’s annoying that the compromise was necessary, but it got the law passed and it’ll be worked out in time.
How on earth can a religious org get sued for not marrying gays, unless they’re using government funded facilities or something?
If I’m Catholic, can I sue the local synagogue for not performing my wedding? How is that supposed to work?
The Knights of Columbus could be sued for refusing to let gay couples rent their hall for a ceremony and reception, for example. Or so it was thought.
I wholeheartedly agree. Mississippi and Alabama will fight this tooth and nail for the end of time. I don’t think it’ll ever become a federal law/statute/amendment, but rather an issue left up to the states.
I first saw this on the TV at the gym and the CNN close captioning made the following freudian slip: “When word that the bill had narrowly passed spread, separations broke out all over New York.” I thought, “Wow, it really did destroy marriage. And quickly!”
Not quite - she didn’t oppose the bill, and in fact supported it. She just thought that there should be a “menu of options” available to all couples (gay and straight) as ways to legally recognize their relationships, rather than making everyone choose the one-size-fits-all rules of marriage. IMHO she may or may not be right, but it seemed like kind of a peevish thing to raise when she did. (Her piece ran before the final vote, and could have been - and clearly was, in this case! - interpreted as a gay person being anti-gay marriage.) Link.
Well according to at least one of them, the pro-SSM crowd…
[QUOTE=Some National Review Guy]
…is not the heir of the civil-rights movement; it is the heir of Bull Connor and others who tried to impose their false idea of moral reality on others by coercive state power.
[/QUOTE]
(Link).
Yeah. Crazy.