TOPEKA, Kan. (AP)—Kansans overwhelmingly voted to add a ban on gay marriage and civil unions to their state constitution, but both sides predicted court battles over the amendment. The ban reaffirms the state’s long-standing policy of recognizing only marriages between one man and one woman. It also declares that only such unions are entitled to the “rights and incidents” of marriage, prohibiting the state from authorizing civil unions for gay couples.
Voters in 13 states, including Missouri and Oklahoma, approved constitutional gay marriage bans last year, joining four others. Similar proposals will be on the ballot next year in Alabama, South Dakota and Tennessee. Some Kansas voters, like 24-year-old Eric Hetzel, saw the amendment as a way to protect the traditional definition of marriage, written in Kansas law since 1867, from legal challenges. “I am a Christian,” Hetzel said. “I believe in the Bible and what it says that marriage is between a man and a woman.” But Byron Defreese, a 65-year-old retiree, called the amendment “total foolishness. I don’t know how this is going to defend my marriage of 43 years,” he said. “I think it’s a diversion from the real issues.”
As a leftist, this illustrates to me why we need activist judges (not that they’ll be able to do anything with this, though). Given the history of the past few decades, I can’t see the left ever being more than an opposition party. And certain conservative values will remain enshrined in the law of the land. For instance, we’ll never have legalized private use and possession of marijuana, because the conservative majority will never stand for it. Same thing with gay marriage. I’m sure an amendment to the US Constition is around the corner.
But let the right-wingers and the fundaloonies shep naches while they may. This farkockteh amendment cannot stand forever. Eventually, those gonifs will realize that they are enshrining bigotry into the law and will repeal that piece of mishegoss.
That’s one judge’s view. As your own citation explains:
Come back when the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled on the issue. In my view, this ruling was an avenue for Judge Friedman to express his dissatisfaction with the amendment, and his view will not be sustained.
Bricker, if after all the times you have been shown that gay spouses are barred from enjoying the same rights Britney Spears could get in one drunken spree in Vegas, you can still ask that with a straight face, I despair, I really do.
No right to inheritance
Noo right to health insurance for gay spouses.
No right to hospital visitation.
No right to Social Security benefits if one partner dies
No rights to bereavement (this one affects me personally, my partner’s grandmother is expected to die soon. If we were a hetero married couple. I’d get bereavement leave for the funeral, but I can’t get it because I’m gay.)
And on and on it goes.
And Virginia law bars making contracts that simulate the benefits of marriage. UThe law is unenforceable and will likely be overturned, but in the meantime it’s the law. Moreover, even if doing so were legal, why should we have to go to the added trouble and expense of making contracts and hiring lawyers to get the same goddamned rights that you get automatically the minute you say, “I do!”?
No, he meant that gay people, who are likely to be the ones seeking same-sex marriage, are among the most vulnerable people. A sentiment with which I agree. You do not find people beating someone half to death and leaving them to die of exposure because they’re a Baptist. Or a feminist. Or a lawyer.
And, of course, the gist of what goes on here is that you people who took an oath as officers of the court when you joined the bar, which I will bet included upholding the Constitution, favor majority rule even when it effectively removes guaranteed rights. As is evidenced by dozens of posts lately where someone from the Left bitches about encroachments on rights, and some of the pettifoggers around here jump to the Bush Administration or Congress’s defense, explaining that on the strictest reading of the Constitution and laws, it isn’t really a deprivation of rights. And in any case, it’s socialism. (BTW, may I encourage you to drive very safely in North Carolina? Since you feel that someone should receive medical care only when they can afford to pay for the services, as you made clear in another Pit thread, and since you have not paid a penny in taxes to support any of our ambulances or EMT crews, I would truly hate to see you crawl 15 or 20 miles to the hospital with a broken arm or leg – but I would expect you to be true to your principles and not use our emergency services for which you’ve never paid.)
Several gay marriage bans and civil union bans were proposed in the New Mexico state legislature this year. But the session is over and none of them passed.
I suspect that most of those who voted for this nonsense did not read it. It clearly not only forbids gay marriages, but also foirbids giving umarried people the rights of married people (whether they are gay or straight). So a woman living in an unmarried state with a man can’t be given the same protection as a married woman.
The knuckle-grazers who drafted this nonsense wanted to use a double-barrelled shotgun to make sure they hit the gays that they are so frightened of, but using such a blunt scatter-gun approach inevitably hurt others that weren’t in their sights.
Isn’t Kansas one of the two states that don’t recognize the new sex of a post-op transexual? And as such allows marriage between two people with the same genitalia provided they were both with opposite genitalia?
Eve, I was going to start a thread like this, but by the time I gave up hope last night it was too late, and I go to work* very* early in the morning!
I’m really bummed that my home state would pull a stunt like this. I don’t know if Fred is happy, but I doubt it, because even though it gives him something he wants, he’ll still find a way to say it doesn’t go far enough.
