Gay Marriage

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I am Pro-Happy

I support people being happy.

I am against the shaming of people who are not just like me, and I will always fight against people who try to force everyone to be just like them and live by their own personal or religious rules.

So it bugs me when I see people criticizing Caitlyn Jenner. She’s happy, she wanted to do this — what business is it of yours?

Some people want to be happy in ways I cannot imagine — piercing every part of their body, engaging in sexual acts I find disgusting, enjoying entertainment I can’t stand — but so what? So long as they aren’t forcing everyone else to be just like them, why should I care? Why should I be against people being happy?

This is one of the strongest reasons I talk about marriage equality a lot. I like having people be happy when it does not hurt anyone else. I want to encourage more of it. Happy is good.

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Let’s have “Traditional” marriage in our laws

Republican Politicians like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee constantly argue that we need to have our laws follow “God’s laws” concerning marriage.

Therefore, here are some proposed laws to make sure that we support traditional marriage:

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)traditional-marriage

B. Marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36) 

Wait, wait — you mean those politicians don’t want traditional marriage at all? They just want to prevent gays from marrying? You mean they say that they want to obey God’s law but they are picking and choosing which of God’s laws they want to enforce?

Surely that can’t be right. I mean, if that was the case, then they’d all be a bunch of lying hypocrites, wouldn’t they?

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The Most Important Question to Ask When Dealing with Human Sexuality

Human sexuality is more complicated than many people wish to acknowledge. The kind of person we are attracted to can change over the years. Men can be interested in women and then men and then back to women again. Some people are only interested in tall companions, some want fat ones, some only want one race … there is an infinite variety of possibilities that people find attractive.Sexuality

Then to complicate things even more, people do not always identify with the sex to which they were born, and even that can change over the years. Sexuality is a fluid thing with many gray areas and it cannot easily be placed into set categories and boxes. And you cannot always tell by looking at someone what those categories might be.

So when you are thinking about someone’s sexuality, there is one overriding question you should always ask:

Who cares?

As long as everything is between consenting adult humans, who cares? How does it hurt you or anyone else in the slightest? In fact, if those consenting adults are happy, why aren’t you happy for them?

So someone is still female but identifies a male and wants to use the male restroom. Who cares? Are you hurt in some way? So two people of the same sex want to express their love and get married. Who cares? Isn’t marriage a great thing that we should be encouraging? So someone is into all sorts of sexual behavior that disgusts you and makes you cringe at the thought. Who cares? No one if forcing you to get involved.

So much stress, hatred, and anxiety could be relieved if we all just remembered to ask ourselves that question.

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Let them eat cake

A conservative who thought he was being clever recently called a bunch of bakeries owned by gays and demanded that they make him a cake saying “Gay marriage is wrong” and all said no.

Aha! Clearly there is a double standard here.cake

Well, no, there isn’t. A bakery has the right to say they won’t make a cake that says “gay marriage is wrong” or “gay marriage is right” or “support Barack Obama” or “Vote Republican.”

If a bakery gladly makes penis-shaped cakes for heterosexual parties but refuses to make one for a homosexual party, then I think that is wrong. Clearly, they do not object to what they are making at that point, just who they are selling to. And that’s the problem. It’s the exact same product!

If you offer a product to the world, you should not be allowed to discriminate. You can’t say “I will sell this wedding cake design to everyone except the Irish,” for instance. And that’s the issue — when a gay couple asks a baker to give them a cake exactly like a straight couple gets, the bakery should not be allowed to say no. (I say “should” because in most states, it is perfectly legal for individuals to discriminate against gays, even when the state can’t discriminate.)

This is different from a service. A band can certainly refuse to play at a KKK rally or even a “Ted Cruz for President” event. A caterer can say that they don’t want to cater to you. A hall can refuse to rent to a group it disagrees with. I, as a lawyer, do not have to accept every single client that comes into my office with money.

There are plenty of gray areas here, but I think this is the basic distinction that many do not understand (or agree with).

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But Sharia Law Wants the Same Thing…

Not too long ago, Alabama residents passed a law saying that Sharia Law will never become part of Alabama’s laws, by gum, despite the fact that it would never happen anyway and such a thing is already prohibited by the Constitution which, you know, has been around for 225 years or so. There’s that very first amendment which clearly prohibits the establishment of any religious law in the country.  MOORE TEN COMMANDMENTS

But gosh darn it, the Founding Fathers didn’t mean to include Christian law! That’s a whole ‘nother thing! (Secret answer: Yes they did, in very specific terms.)

Judge Roy Moore is a shining example of how one can graduate law school and still be as stupid about the law as the day you go in. He’s the guy you may remember who was slapped down by the federal courts and lost his job because he installed a huge monument to the Ten Commandments in the courthouse.

Down there in Alabama, however, they’re still fighting the Civil War. They won’t acknowledge that the Constitution applies to them. So they said “screw you, yankees” and surrounded Judge Moore with the traditional flag of Traitors to This Country (the Confederate one) and praised him mightily. They then elected him to the Alabama Supreme Court, where he now is telling people that despite the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, they don’t have to accept gay marriage in Alabama because God’s law supercedes the Constitution.

He just don’t learn, do he?  “This power over marriage, which came from God under our organic law, is not to be redefined by the United States Supreme Court or any federal court,” Justice Moore told “Fox News Sunday.”  This raises an important question: Is organic law free-range?*

The federal courts have said “Nuh uh” and many of the lower courts in Alabama are now allowing people in love to get married, despite statues of Jesus weeping all over Montgomery. Moore still insists that his god told him to hate gay people, and that was more important than a federal judge.

I can’t wait for the Contempt charges to be filed against this guy. Pass the popcorn!

The ironic part of all of this? Sharia Law also prohibits gay marriage. So it’s not the result of the law that is important to them — it’s which god gets to decide it.

 

*Trick question!  There is no such thing as “organic law” except what Judge Moore pulled out of his ass.

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Idiot Who Wants to Swear Oath to Constitution Has Never Read It

Dr. Ben Carson, who has never studied Constitutional Law in his life but has studied medicine and still thinks life begins at conception, recently declared that Congress has the Constitutional authority to remove judges just because they don’t like them.

Most Americans aren’t aware of this Congressional power “because they don’t know the Constitution,” he said.  Exactly where in the Constitution is this power? He didn’t explain. Probably because it’s not there, I dunno.    Obamacare-27

Anyway, Bennie here thinks that judges who rule in favor of gay marriage should be removed because they made an unconstitutional decision. Let’s see, who decides whether a law is unconstitutional according to our Constitution? Is it the judicial branch? No, of course not. It’s Dr. Ben Carson.

Carson, who also believes Obamacare is Unconstitutional, has previously spoken about how wonderful it would be if Congress loved the Constitution like they used to. He then cited Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd as shining examples of people who loved the Constitution — you know, those two senators who were members of the KKK and believed that the Constitution only applied to white people. Those guys. (Yes, you can now do some psychoanalysis on Dr. Ben if you wish.)

And this guy is on the short list of Republican Presidential possibilities.

I am not making this up.

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Man in Dress Says Gay Marriage will Harm his Non-marriage

A man wearing a dress in Italy today declared that even though he has never had sex and is not married, allowing all people to be able to marry the person they love will destroy families.

Citing the supernatural, the man argued with a straight face that if people in love create loving, caring families, that such a thing would cause loving, caring families to be ruined.  papa

Surprisingly, his audience did not laugh him out of the room.  Perhaps they were just being kind to the old fellow, dressed as he was in a flowing white gown and a quaint little cap, which he said was required by the aforementioned supernatural being who spoke to him in his head and which no one else could hear or see.

Ironically, in other areas the man was completely coherent and spoke passionately about the evils of unbridled capitalism, the importance of caring for those less fortunate, and how we should all love each other no matter what.  Apparently, the magical being who speaks to him said, “Whoa there, kid, let’s not go too far.  Sure, love them all but don’t let them love each other if you know what I mean.”

 

 

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The battle is over

One of my most common posts was the “State Joins the 21st Century” whenever another state reached marriage equality, but it’s been happening so quickly now that I’ve missed quite a few.map

As I said way back when, this is inevitable.  Admittedly, I didn’t expect it to happen so fast, but I’m glad it did.

Hopefully, the reactionary Supreme Court won’t ruin everything.  It’s doubtful they will, since it was their decision in striking down the “Defense of Marriage Act” that led to this … but I am a pessimist when it comes to the Court, which seems determined to help turn our country into a religious oligarchy.

In general though, the battle is over.  Republicans have given up arguing about it except for the most radical religious nuts who think that allowing people in love to get married will lead to the apocalypse.

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South Carolina joins the 21st Century; Senator Graham has the vapors

Upon learning that his home state of South Carolina would be forced to allow gays and lesbians to marry, Senator Lindsay Graham waved his hands before his face, said “Goodness gracious me!  I think I have the vapors!” and then fainted.  He suffered minor injuries as he hit his head on the closet in which he resides.  Lindsey-Graham

For the rest of us, it was a day of cheering, as yet another federal court has ruled in favor of equality, leaving just the one that decided that no, the Constitution doesn’t say what every single other federal judge in the entire country has said it says.

The South Carolina Attorney General vowed to appeal to the 4th Circuit Court — the same Circuit Court that has already ruled in favor of gay marriage not too long ago.  In other words, Republicans once again will be using taxpayer money to fight another futile battle against equal rights, because Jeebus. Or something.  (Certainly not the law.)

 

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Judicial Activism knocks down Marriage Equality

A three panel federal court upheld anti-gay marriage laws yesterday.  Two Bush-appointed judges ruled that, despite the precedents set by the US Supreme Court and every single other federal court that has ruled on this issue, telling citizens they can’t get married is something perfectly fine.  “The voters should decide,” they argue.   gay+marriage+generic081612

Just like they did back in the days when laws prohibited people of different races from getting married, right?

The rest of the opinion was filled with the normal crap those against equality posted:  If we allow this, then we have to allow polygamy, and then the next thing you know people will want to marry their toaster.  You know, the kind of ridiculous arguments that those against equality have always spouted, going back to Dredd Scott.

This decision only applies to those states under the court’s jurisdiction:  Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee.

An appeal can be filed to the entire bench (an “en banc” appeal) to reconsider this decision, but it is just as likely that it will instead go directly to the US Supreme Court where this issue was ultimately heading anyway.