We’re Just Like You

by Patricia Montley and Sally Wall
The Baltimore Sun

It’s time for Maryland to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions

This summer we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. Wood – sturdy and beautiful. Natural. We gave each other lovely jewelry boxes crafted by an artisan whose work we had long admired. A meaningful but private celebration – just like our wedding had to be.

You see, we were married in Canada. Not because we were rebellious young people who eloped because our parents disapproved (though they did). But because our own country would not legally recognize our relationship, which had by then already lasted 25 years.

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Open the Military Closet

by Richard Cohen | The Washington Post

Back during the initial fuss about “don’t ask, don’t tell,” I went over to the Pentagon to see the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We mostly discussed the situation in the Balkans and the pressure on President Bill Clinton to militarily intervene. Then I asked about gays in the military and the chairman, who was opposed, asked me what I thought the reaction would be if two male soldiers took to the dance floor at some military base. No different, I answered, than if a black man danced with a white woman at the same base about 50 years earlier. Colin Powell seemed taken aback and I thought, naively, that “don’t ask don’t tell” was doomed.

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A Bad Call on Gay Rights

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

The Obama administration, which came to office promising to protect gay rights but so far has not done much, actually struck a blow for the other side last week. It submitted a disturbing brief in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which is the law that protects the right of states to not recognize same-sex marriages and denies same-sex married couples federal benefits. The administration needs a new direction on gay rights.

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The Choice to Defend DOMA, and Its Consequences

by Richard Socarides

Like many other gay people who support the president, and as someone who had hoped he would be a presidential-sized champion of gay civil rights from the start, I was disturbed by his administration’s brief defending the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), filed late last week, in opposition to our full equality.

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Pennsylvania Marriage: Gays Deserve Equality

by Daylin Leach

I recently drafted and am shortly introducing legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania. I do so now for several reasons.

First, because many other states are moving to consider this issue, including Maine, Vermont and Washington, D.C., which have recently passed legislation. New York, New Hampshire and New Jersey soon will.

Further, a bill banning same-sex marriage was recently introduced in the Pennsylvania Senate, and it is important to provide the Legislature with a timely pro-civil rights, pro-family alternative.

But mostly, each day in which gay Pennsylvanians are denied their fundamental human rights is a profound injustice.

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The Big Gay Chip on My Shoulder

by Rob Thomas | The Huffington Post

I am a straight man, with a big gay chip on my shoulder.

A marriage is about life. It’s about a commitment. And this argument is about allowing people to have the right to make that commitment, even if it doesn’t make sense to you. Anything else falls under the category of “separate but equal” and we know how that works out.

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California Court’s Contradictory Prop. 8 Decision

The decision Tuesday that upheld a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was social and moral nonsense.

by Tim Rutten | The Los Angeles Times

One of the most misunderstood stories in the Western moral tradition involves the “judgment of Solomon,” which usually is taken as a metaphor for splitting the difference.

But that’s wrong. The story, for those who have forgotten, involves two harlots who came to King Solomon to resolve a dispute. Both recently had given birth, but one women’s baby lived and the other’s died. The woman who went to sleep with a living child and awoke to find a dead baby in her arms claimed that the other had switched their infants. Solomon listened to both and then announced that he would “cut the living child in two, and give half to one woman and half to the other.”

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A Setback for Equality

Editorial: The New York Times

The California Supreme Court got it terribly wrong Tuesday. It upheld Proposition 8, a state constitutional change on last fall’s ballot intended to prohibit marriage by couples of the same sex. In addition to denying basic fairness to gay people, the court’s 6-to-1 ruling sets an unfortunate legal precedent that could allow the existing rights of any targeted minority to be diminished using the Election Day initiative process.

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Prop. 8 Fight Is Not Over

The mixed message sent by the California court invites same-sex marriage proponents to put another proposition on the ballot.

Editorial: The Los Angeles Times

The California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8 was as expected as it was crushing to same-sex couples and those who support their right to marry. The ruling conformed with the court’s historical reluctance to overturn constitutional amendments; the argument that Proposition 8 represented a more sweeping constitutional revision, requiring more than a majority vote to pass, always rested on shaky legal legs.

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Editorial: Equal Marriage Rights Will Spread, Even to California

The San Jose Mercury News

In the evolution of social change, the world isn’t flat; it’s upside down.

Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine and Iowa — yes, Iowa — are in the vanguard deciding that gay and lesbian couples have the same right as heterosexual couples to marry. California was a leader in this movement a year ago, when its Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution guaranteed an equal right to marriage — a ruling that influenced courts in some other states. But on Tuesday, the same California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, which 52 percent of voters approved last November to repeal the right of gays and lesbians to marry.

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