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03/03/2010
By the time you read this, Brian Brown will have made a few more pennies hurting gay families
We gay folk are not battling. We're living. We're loving. Today in D.C., we're marrying. You know: The stuff that heterosexual people refer to as "existence."
But thanks to the militant work of personalities like Brian Brown, our fair and free existence will never be easy and/or peaceful. He and his pals have vowed to fight us using any and every option they can think of to convince the American public that minority rights are meant to be repealed by a bare majority vote:
“It is very disappointing that voters in the District of Columbia have been precluded from exercising their constitutional right to a referendum so that they could decide for themselves whether the Council’s act to redefine marriage should be allowed to stand.However, this battle is far from over. While same-sex marriages will be permitted in the District for the time being, NOM will continue to fight to get an initiative on the ballot to restore marriage to what it has always been – the union of one man and one woman. Our legal case to secure the right to initiative is pending in the DC Court of Appeals and we are confident of eventual victory. The DC Council has erected an illegal barrier to the people’s initiative right by attempting to use the Human Rights Act to prohibit a marriage initiative in violation of the District Charter, the constitutional framework governing the District of Columbia. While Chief Justice John Roberts did not grant our request for an injunction to allow a referendum, he did specifically state that our argument “has some force” and could be pursued in the initiative case. We will do just that, so that the people of the District of Columbia can – as voters in 31 states have done – decide for themselves the definition of marriage.”
-Brian Brown, National Organization For Marriage
Very interesting (read: mind-numbingly frustrating) how he sidesteps the whole Human Rights Act thing, as if it's just a minor point. The whole reason why the HRA is being cited is because it explicitly bans discrimination against sexual orientation in matters of law, which is EXACTLY what Brian and company are seeking through their referendum/initiative drumbeats! But since an accurate assessment of the Act and why it's been used thus far to deny majority tyranny would too fully focus in on the fact that the anti-gay side is working to ban/hurt/discriminate/legally estrange, they act like the city's Human Rights Act is just some tool of the so-called "gay agenda." A casual reduction that should concern not only LGBT people, but also ANY group that's protected by this non-discrimination policy. This includes religious people.
The reality is that these paid operatives of Big Bias will not rest until their personal faith-based whims are written into CIVIL law. So we can't rest on our newly-licensed laurels. NOM and all of the rest of the usual suspects are circling overhead, waiting to pounce on any same-sex couple whose ring fingers reflect in the sunlight.
Your thoughts
Apparently, Brian Brown-nose the pope and Haggie the Horrible don't understand that we voted those 13 Council Members into office to represent us. Also, they obviously don't know what a representative democracy is or what our Constitution says about tyranny of the majority.
Posted by: Mykelb | Mar 3, 2010 3:37:09 PM
Watching all this nonsense from the UK is quite amusing.
The so-called "land of the free" quite clearly isn't.
Granted, the majority of the UK gay friendly laws were imposed by the EU as the local UK political dinosaurs are generally bigoted idiots themselves.
In the meantime, Herr Pope flaps about trying to influence
governments but fortunately most legislative bodies just ignore him.
The actual threat in the UK is now due to over representation and "positive" discrimination. i.e: imposing laws that ensure that organizations whether political or business have quotas of gays; ethnics; women etc.
This is pissing off the white middle class straights and the BNP ( British National Party ) which is basically the UK Nazi party, and to be honest as a believer in meritocracy, myself included.
Strangely enough only yesterday the "medieval" House of Lords approved religious ceremonies for UK Civil Partnerships and the Tory Party, the equivalent of the GOP
said it will bring in legislation that for tax purposes equates Civil partnerships with standard marriage.
Currently my partner is a beneficiary of my employers Health / Dental and Insurance benefit schemes.
Nobody cares one jot. It is just treated as life.
Of course you still get neanderthal bigots, but the law and the police response now lies on the side of the victim and they do not take ANY religious bollocks as a reason.
I really do hope your "Land of the Free", actually becomes one but watching from afar it seems the "freedoms" seem to be only for those that fit the lie that is the American Dream.
PS: Keep up the good work......
Posted by: Robert Aimes | Mar 3, 2010 3:40:33 PM
I don't know why they think they should be allowed to always vote our rights away. No other group in history has been subject to such indignation.
Posted by: Buffy | Mar 3, 2010 3:49:34 PM
hmmmmmm.... donate to Brian Brown or donate to David Catania who is up for re-election this year... what to do, what to do... :)
Posted by: DN | Mar 3, 2010 4:39:34 PM
Yes, there is another hearing pending, that's why Jackson asked for an injunction to put things on hold till after the hearing. But the injunction was turned down. Read the following for the delightful reasoning.
From the DC Agenda:
In a unanimous decision, Associate Judges Noel Kramer and Phyllis Thompson and Senior Judge John Steadman upheld a ruling last week by a D.C. Superior Court judge denying the injunction on grounds that it failed to meet the minimum requirements for such an action.
Superior Court Judge Brian Holeman ruled that Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., could not show that there was “substantial likelihood” that his underlying lawsuit seeking to overturn the same-sex marriage law through a voter referendum would succeed.
Holeman noted that a key factor in granting an injunction is whether an underlying case on which the injunction is based has a reasonable chance of succeeding.
The three-judge appeals court panel also held that Jackson and others who have joined him in requesting the injunction failed to show that allowing the marriage law to take effect would cause them “irreparable harm.”
The whole article is here:
http://www.dcagenda.com/2010/02/26/last-hurdle-removed-to-start-of-d-c-same-sex-marriages/
Posted by: Bob Barnes | Mar 3, 2010 4:44:17 PM
I especially like this:
"he did specifically state that our argument 'has some force' and could be pursued in the initiative case."
I wonder if it has the same force as the argument presented in a certain California court.
Boo ha BOO HA BOO HA HA!
Posted by: Dale | Mar 3, 2010 5:53:08 PM
"constitutional right to a referendum"
And just what Constitution would that be? The US Constitution has no provision for referendum. The people of the United States can't vote to enact federal law against, say, eating horsemeat like the CA voters did.
Perhaps he's thinking of the "Constitution of the State of New Columbia". he he. While that document does protect on the basis of sexual orientation, it has not been enacted.
Posted by: Timothy Kincaid | Mar 3, 2010 6:25:43 PM
"Restoring...marriage to what it's always been--the union of one man and one woman"? Why do they keep LYING to the American public like this?! Marriage has NEVER been as they are describing; marriage used to be (to quote "America's best Christian"), between "one man, his slave, and his whores"! Why does he think that heterosexual patriarchalists ought to define a legal definition, when patriarchal structures have been steam-rolling minorities for centuries in an effort to subjugate them. moreover, the Church has been on the wrong side of historical civil rights movements, and ours is no exemption!
Also note how they apparently want to dismiss with the protection of minorities in DC Civil Law! That would be a dangerous precedent! Rachel, where are you when we need you to call out NOM on their shite?! Oh, hayelll...What would Brian Boytanno do?! ;o) Moreover, I'm surprised that I've not see CNN cover this threatening anti-Gay agenda in an attempt to invalidate the HRA! This should concern EVERY minority, and ought not to be viewed as a mere "shield for the Gay Agenda"! How offensive!
@ Mykelb, while I (being a Socialist) agree with you re: a Representative Democracy, I don't think that the US Constitution actually says anything about majoritarian rule! And, this is what a lot of arguing between us and the Religious Right has been over...they believe that Majoritarian Rule *is* "Democracy" (of course, that's only because it favors them...if it favored us they'd be bitching about us oppressing them to their Reps. for not defending them!)! Hell, to quote my mom, "They bitch if they got hung by a new rope!"
But, does anyone know WHY *we* must suffer the indignity of ALWAYS have our civil rights put up to a popular vote when NO other minority in history has had to experience this before? And, why is the news media continually failing us by failing to admit that we are being victimized by the votes of a majority, which should NEVER occur in this country!
Posted by: Wade MacMorrighan | Mar 3, 2010 6:37:58 PM
"Restoring...marriage to what it's always been--the union of one man and one woman?"
Anthropologists disagree, you know, that pesky thing called science:
Posted by: Dale | Mar 3, 2010 7:11:30 PM
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