I’m surprisedthere weren’t more people at that protest. We had at least those numbers at the Question 1 protest in Portland, which is obviously a fraction of the size of New York. Then again, weather was undoubtedly a factor; I’ve heard from a friend who was there that it was pretty miserable. Thanks, New Yorkers who went.

Didn’t Stonewall teach themthat you don’t mess with NY Gays?
They are about to be taught a lesson on tolerance. I hope those that voted to support hate are self reliant. The service industry is chock full of people they have just made second class citizens.

2010Message time…

A Radical (and Conservative) New Approach – A Grand CompromiseI posted this on Joe.My.God last night. I’m not quite ready to support this myself yet. But given the emerging backlash against “Marriage Only” in the community, maybe they will find this intriguing.
A Grand Compromise designed to divide and conquer our opponents for a change. A Constitutional Amendment to mandate Civil Unions (or even Civil Partnerships like the U.K.) on a national level for same-sex couples (which would mean demoting marriages for people like me who are now legally married ).  It would guarantee FULL EQUAL benefits and responsibilities on both the state and national level.  It would allow for full marriage equality after X number of years (negotiable but hopefully not more than 20). After that, states could decide (perhaps by vote of legislatures or voters but not court decisions) to allow for same-sex marriages but could not allow for less than what the amendment mandated. We might even have to say (as in the UK) that clergy could not solemnize these unions or partnerships although blessings after the fact would be allowed.  
This would be a take it or leave it offer that would have to be acted on quickly or it would be withdrawn. I don’t think most of our opponents would go for it but based on recent events, the Mormons might. Like I said, divide and conquer.
If it doesn’t pass, we can say to voters and legislatures that this proves the real issue isn’t the word marriage but any state recognition of same-sex relationships. We would get credit for being willing to compromise.
As I said, I’m just putting this out there for discussion. I haven’t heard any really new ideas. Just a different strategy (federal vs. state).
An argument for this from the left – It could be seen as anti-assimilationist. It recognizes the uniqueness of lesbian and gay relationships. When I got married, I insisted on “I now pronounce you husband and husband” not “partners for life”. And yet, I still use the term partner most of the time because it fits our relationship a lot more than the word “husband”. And it’s a word that our community chose as a better word than lover, which used to be the term we used. I’m amazed at how easily lesbians have embraced the word “wife.” The lesbian feminists I knew in the 70s hated that word. It epitomized patriarchy and male supremacy. Maybe Civil Partnerships is actually preferable to Civil Unions.
There is one sweetener that could definitely get me to support something like this. It could get a lot of gay men at least to support this. If we are going to have separate institutions than give us something in return for marriage. Let us control our bars and yes, boathouses and sex clubs. Let us live by our values and not have heterosexual morality imposed on us. You could even remove the time limit and make it permanent. That, I would go for.

The Rally Was Planned Two Hours BeforehandThere’s another rally tonight with one full day’s notice, and there should be many more people:
http://www.facebook.com/event….

Separate Is Inherently UnequalThanks for sharing your view.  My one argument against it is that granting civil unions to some and marriage to others is akin to separating white and colored people, and we know from history that separate is inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional.  I would say that another idea is to replace all existing marriages with civil unions so that our government recognizes civil unions and our religions recognize marriages – I think this is an ideal solution, but I wonder if it would be practical and executable, because I believe that the majority of people would still not be willing to replace their legal marriages with legal civil unions, as funny as that may initially sound.  As long as marriages are socially held in high regard over civil unions, civil unions will never be treated as equally as marriage, and though civil unions will carry the same rights, somehow “confusion” will enable people to still treat us differently since we don’t have marriage.  Therefore, I think that we should continue to fight for marriage equality, as to me, that is the right thing to do.

My Message to the NY State Senate: “You’re Cowards”My video message to every New York State Senator who was silent during the debate and voted against marriage equality.

Priorities: Gay bar harrassment vs Civil RightsMy, how the decades have moved us…NOT!
“Harass a gay bar and start a revolution called “stonewall”
Deprive the LGBT community of their basic civil rights and….nada.
I’m NOT impressed, New York.  
Iowa is sooooooo major league compared to you guys!!!  
 

I just hope that activists across the country learn from this…STOP PUSHING MARRIAGE!!!!
The electorate is not there yet and neither are the politicians.
WAY too much energy is being put into the marriage issue when their are bigger issues that need to be dealt with.
More importantly, its just plain stupid to push for marriage when you KNOW that there is not enough public or political support of it. Civil unions get you the same thing without stirring up the emotional and religious pot.

A Constitutional amendmentis DOA regardless of the issue. The Constitution is, by design, difficult to ammend. That is one of the reasons that the cons have failed to seriously push for a ban. You need near universal support in both congress and in the states to get an amendment passed.

I disagreeThere are many folks who can argue the points much clearer than I can, but for me it simply comes down to this: I have been MARRIED for 17 years- not “civil unionized.”
And I want everyone to have the exact same right to marry in this country that I have.
Without judgement.
Without question.
Without restriction.
Without bureaucratic/ theocratical nonsense and bigotry.

Opponents would use this as an argumentfor a populace against civil unions and do everything to block them as well if such a measure lost (and it almost certainly would given how many States ban same-sex unions). Further, it won’t do what you say it would (i.e., proving that opposition is to the relationships not marriage) if there’s a mandate for “marriage” in there.

I just hope that activists across the country learn from this….STOP BLINDLY SUPPORTING THOSE DEMOCRATS WHO ARE ONLY INTERESTING IN GETTING INTO POWER AND GETTING THEIR FACES AT THE PUBLIC TROUGH.

Given that we’ve now lost this battle until 2011, I think Civil Unions would be, at least, a good compromise until then.

Unfortunately,at least, one Democrat with a pro-LGBT record voted against this so it’s a little hard to tell who your allies are.

Probably soYou and Sci are both more pragmatic than I… I keep forgetting that while it’s all well and good to want everyone on the platform with me, sometimes it takes steps to get there.
It sucks- I hate it- but it’s a harsh reality.  

The Next Move Is to Canada where our lives and loves are respected by the law.

No thanks.It’s still a place where gay films (not even porn) can be stopped at the border, where Andrea Dworkin style anti-porn, anti-sex attitudes have been enshrined into law.
Marriage is important, but it isn’t everything. I’ll stay right here in San Francisco, Prop 8 or no Prop 8.

A misreading of historyAs Leland Traiman said in his guest editorial in B.A.R.:

The term, “separate but equal,” was always a lie. The racists who promoted it never really wanted African Americans treated equally. Everyone, with a wink and nod, knew that. But its opposite, that “separate can never be equal,” is also a lie. If that were true then men and women would share the same public toilets and affirmative action would not exist. Domestic partnerships were invented by LGBT folk to obtain the benefits of marriage when most of us viewed marriage as a discredited patriarchal institution. Comprehensive domestic partnerships and civil unions are now specifically designed to avoid any inequalities. This painstaking legislative word-smithing gives lie to the notion that separate cannot be equal.

The only reason that domestic partnerships & civil unions are not equal to marriage is because of the denial of federal benefits, except those benefits are denied to those of us who are legally married too. If those benefits could be obtained, the we truly would have equal, parallel institutions. That’s what they have in the UK and apart from Peter Tatchell and Outrage, there hasn’t been much of a push for full marriage equality there.

Maybe a law thenCongress could mandate equal treatment of same-sex relationships under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Unfortunately, the courts have limited Congresses role under that Amendment. That’s why the 1964 Civil Rights Act was done under the guise of regulating interstate commerce. Maybe the same logic could be applied here.
The appeal of the Constitutional amendment to the Right is that it can’t be easily changed. It would be the only way to circumvent a favorable ruling in one of the federal cases challenging DOMA and Prop 8. In fact, the possibility of our winning one of those cases might be the only thing that might motivate part of the Right to support this. And since a victory in those cases would mean that we would immediately drop our support for this approach, that might provide an incentive for them to push this through the states quickly.
I know this is far-fetched, but guess what? So is marriage equality on a national level. If we can’t even win California and New York, what does that say about our chances elsewhere? If the Iowa ruling ever gets to the voters, we lose. We might even have lost in Massachusetts, that’s why we fought so hard to keep it off the ballot there. Most straight people are bigots. Just look at the reactions to Adam Lambert all over the internet. Do you really think people who are that freaked out at the sight of two men kissing are going to vote for marriage equality?
The only reason most of us don’t encounter violence more often is because we can make ourselves invisible. Even here in San Francisco, there are certain neighborhoods I will not hold my partner’s hand. During last year’s Frameline Film Festival, there was a documentary called “The Butch Factor” about gay men and masculinity. There was a non-butch couple from San Francisco featured who described the daily harassment and threats they get. As if to demonstrate the point, after the movie many of us headed back to the Castro from the Mission District (a largely Latino neighborhood), where the theater was located. Many people were holding hands. We had people screaming at us including one man in a car shaking his Bible at us. Luckily it was only a Bible and not a gun. And that’s in San Francisco.
I’m just depressed because of the NY defeat (I’m a native New Yorker). I’m sure I’ll snap out of it soon. But maybe I’m just being realistic.
 

I thought the turnout was highconsidering it had about 2 hours notice. It was 3 or 4 times the war protest just 2 blocks south at the army recruiting station, which presumably had more lead time, and is one of the many “more important issues!”

A Constitutional Amendment?!!!You lost me there. We’ll have marriage equality in NY before you can even get Congress to send it to the first state for ratification. I would bet everything I own on that.

that is so dumbWe’ve passed the House (3 times) have the gov’ner lined up to sign, so we fell 8 votes short.
Hey New Yorkers, should we give up on the 10th yard line?!?!
What do you say?!?!

Said with no sense of actualpragmatic idea of how to go about that in the state of New York.

I think Civil Unions would be, at least, a good compromise until then.

Go back to square one? Write a new bill? Vet it though all the legal hurdles? Introduce it. Get it to pass the House. Get it to pass the Senate.
All the while, at least half of the opponents we currently have won’t vote for ANY GLBT-friendly legislation. At all. Civil unions, marriage, ENDA…
That plan would accomplish nothing pragmatically, in my opinion.
Meanwhile, we have an opportunity to focus on the Nov 2010 elections and as we did last cycle, replace the scum with better candidates. NYers, gay, straight and other, have had it up to hear with Albany, for a million reasons.
We need to focus on finding GLBT-friendly candidates to run in the primaries to replace the bums when the voters kick them out next round. It shouldn’t be hard since most of the no votes came from New York City.

That is not completely accurateMarriage is more than just a contract and a granting of benefits. It bestows a right of kinship upon two unrelated adults who previously had none. That is why a marriage is recognized everywhere in the world, and CUs and DPs are not. Depending on the state law where it was issued, CUs and DPs may not establish a right of kinship, particularly in states where DPs can be entered into by people already related by blood, such as siblings in an interdependent household. There are only two ways to be legally related in this country; one is by a tie of blood, the other is a legal declaration of kinship, either adoption or marriage. Not civil unions, not domestic partnerships, but marriage.
Marriage creates a legal family, inviolably and unquestionably. DPs and CUs do not. Please see my article on the Wisconsin DP lawsuit for details of such legal fiascos.

Diarist Sidney Kennedy commented“while they were certainly separate, they were never equal…”

Compromise instead of justice? Count me out.I would rather protest, disrupt, face jail, lose my bar status, whatever than happily compromise away my claim upon full citizenship and equality.
Are you afraid to fight, to sacrifice, to exact a cost from  our enemies when they do damage to us?
What kind of radical movement are we? We reek lately of mattachinistic accomodationism.
If the movement in the states actually committed to persuing this, I would be out of here very quickly and on my way back to either Madrid or Canarias. The Cause would be lost for another generation or two at least, there would be no hope and no reason that I could put forward to make myself, as a Lesbian professional, stay here with a people willing to enshrine and encode into law their second or third class status.

Call it marriage or call it horseshoesThe fact is that if it even has a smidgen of legal or civil rights our opponents will fight against it and they’ll win.  They’ll win because there are four groups involved in our civil rights battle: the activists, the apathetic, the ignorant, and the hateful.  Unfortunately, the haters pretty much have control over 3 of those 4 groups.  We can’t win with only ourselves and the handful of people in our corner fighting for this.  Hell, I have friends and family who are all rah-rah supportive but then won’t lift a finger to actually do anything about it.

It’s not the least bit pragmaticand makes no sense.
Since NY is home to thousands of married same-sex couples, whose marriages are fully respected by their state’s laws, what does this pragmatic compromise do to/for those people? Does your plan require them to swap married for civilly united? If so, I think you’ll have a fight on your hands.
The pragmatic thing to do in NY is to create a transit fund for any couple that wants to marry but can’t afford the bus fare to Ontario, Vermont or MA.
That would be a practical solution to the interim problem of building the political power required to pass a marriage bill that requires no compromise from anyone.

ever heard of something called the Internet?My friends tell me you can find porn there…
I love me some Canada; I’d move there in a minute if I wasn’t addicted to tennis.

Then make them explain PUBLICLYwhy they voted against this, and go from there.

I won’t say much to New YorkThey know exactly how we are feeling, but next vacation won’t be to NYC.

Question for Maura HennesseyGiven that international law is her thing, she may know a bit about the legal precedents in other (specifically European) countries.
Is there such a legal principle as “separate is not equal” in England, France, and in other European countries where gays have domestic partnerships but not marriage?