www.ac4lt.org

I want to thank all of my friends who came out to vote yesterday. These people stood against hatred, bigotry, intolerance and stood up for equality, tolerance and acceptance. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be the typical Virginian. I’ve always thought my friends were special, but I didn’t realize just how blessed I was to know them until yesterday.

In the weeks leading up to the election and even in the final few days, it seemed momentum was beginning to shift in our direction. Clearly, polls tell an incomplete picture.

The one thing that was clear was that northern Virginia was going to be a place where intolerance would not carry the day. I’m happy to say that was true. I live in district 8 which includes parts or all of Arlington, Fairfax, Alexandria and Falls Church. People voted against evil by 2 to 1. Unfortunately, statewide, they supported the amendment by 57% to 43%. If the polls were accurate this means that both the undecided vote and the inherent uncertainty in the poll went almost entirely toward the other side.

Only two districts voted against the amendment. District 8, my own, as I mentioned above and district 3. District 3 voted against the amendment by 53% to 47%, but only two jurisdictions carried the day, Richmond voted overwhelmingly against the amendment with 73% against. Also, Herico County eeked out a narrow majority of no votes by about 1%.

District 9 seems to be the heartland of hatred in the state, supporting the amendment by 3 to 1.

Looking at counties, rather than districts, here are the islands of hope within Virginia: Albemarle County (59% no), Arlington (74% no), Fairfax County (54% no), Alexandria (70% no), Charlottesville (77% no), Fairfax City (52% no), Falls Church (69% no), Fredericksburg (58% no), Lexington (62% no), Norfolk (54% no), Petersburg (65% no), Richmond (69% no) and Williamsburg (62% no).

So, much as I knew it was a long shot, Virginia was not the first to defeat a gay marriage ban at the polls. It wasn’t even as close as I thought it could be. I suppose Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan and their ilk still have a stranglehold on the minds of most Virginians.

However, Arizona, may have defeated it’s constitutional ban! The no’s carried the day by 51% to 49%. However, it hasn’t been officially confirmed.

Colorado defeated it’s domestic partnership amendment and passed it’s constitutional ban. Idaho passed it’s ban. South Carolina passed it’s ban as did South Dakota and Tennessee.

Of this, only Arizona’s possible defeat is a true surprise. If there is any surprise here at home it’s that the “yes” votes were less than 60% of the population. This proves the tide is slowly turning but it takes time to truly change people’s minds. Unfortunately, during that time, countless of people’s lives will be harmed.

Now we find out just how right or wrong the attorney general is. My expectation is that an assault on domestic partnership benefits will be next. And another attempt at an adoption ban. I hope that unmarried heterosexual couples won’t be caught in the net cast by the amendment. But, if they are, they can send their thank you notes to Delegates Marshall, Senator Newman and their comrades. The cynical part of me says that they did it to themselves, but I can still feel sorry and pity for them.

I’ve reached the point of rambling so I’ll finish with this. We lost. Even knowing that was the likely outcome, I’m disappointed. We did make progress. People are beginning to understand. I hoped that the politics of fear and hate were finally going to break down. While there was progress, it still has a long way to go.

The only question is will we turn the tide before the American Taliban gets a complete stranglehold on all our lives? Because once they run out ways to legislate homophobia, who will they target next?

On Friday, October 27th, the Fairfax County Federation of Citizens Associations and the Fairfax Committee of 100 co-sponsored a debate about Question #1, the Marshall/Newman “marriage” Amendment at the Fairfax Government Center.
Standing against the amendment were Jim Dyke, a partner at McGuire Woods and a former VA Secretary of Education, and Doug Koelemay, Managing Director at Qorvis Communications. Standing for the amendment were Delegate Bob Marshall, patron of the amendment and Victoria Cobb, executive director of the Family Foundation of Virginia. A Fairfax Public Access, Channel 10, film crew were taping; look on Channel 10 for replays of the event.

On a night where the weather was uncooperative, somewhere between 100 and 200 people showed up to hear the debate. Unfortunately, it seemed to be mostly a theater of the decided as roughly 80% of the audience seemed to strongly disapprove of the amendment with perhaps 20% of the audience in favor of it. It wasn’t clear how many undecided voters were actually there. This shows how much of a non-issue this is for the general public when only people whose lives are personally affected and those who through intolerance or misunderstanding want to hurt us.

The other disappointment was that the format was not interactive. Though audience questions were taken, they had to be pre-written before the debate started and were selected by the event sponsors. While this does allow them to screen out off topic questions, it doesn’t allow any follow up based on answers.

Still, despite this limitation, the event was interesting.

For example, according to Mrs. Cobb, our families aren’t families. According to her, we are “so-called families.” For a person who claims to be so concerned about the welfare of families to be so committed to working to ensure ours are disadvantaged is beyond comprehension.

Delegate Marshall reprised his well-worn litany of exaggerations and generalizations quoting limited studies and questionable statistics he said support his position that children should only be raised by heterosexuals, therefore marriage should be reserved for heterosexuals. He said “gay marriage is like a square circle; not possible.”

Mr. McQuire and Mr. Koelemay made some excellent points about the unintended consequences of the amendment, some of the most serious being the consequences to victims of domestic violence. Ms. Cobb and Delegate Marshall tried to gloss over with responses that amounted to, “that can’t happen here. Trust us. If it does, we’ll fix it.” Something says they’d be very selective about the “unintended” consequences they decided to fix.

Sadly, the following questions that should have been asked, never were given a hearing:

How does allowing two men or two women to marry affect a single heterosexual marriage?

Name one consequence of gay marriage in Massachusetts except that thousands of gay couples have been able to protect their families?

Since these questions were not answered, make sure they continue to be asked! Questions like these expose the hypocrisy of the pro-amendment position, and those people who are undecided about how to vote need to hear both the questions and the loud lack of an answer.

On Monday, September 19, 2005, I attended a meeting at McLean Bible Church. At this meeting, State Senator Ken Cuccinelli, Delegate Richard Black, Virginia Cobb of the Family Foundation and Patricia Phillips of the Concerned Women for America spoke in support of the proposed amendment that would ban same-sex marriage or recognition for anything trying to emulate marriage in Virginia.

As I listened to the arguments against same-sex marriage, I couldn’t help wonder what the fuss was about. Although I was too young to remember it, I later learned about the case of Loving vs. Virginia in school. In this case, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Commonwealth of Virginia contended before the Supreme Court that its ban prohibiting blacks and whites from marrying was both proper and valid. The trial judge in Virginia
said, as part of his justification, “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents.
And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” The implication is that permitting marriages to people with differing skin colors was contrary to God’s plan. In
many of the arguments of the day the words, “unnatural”, and ”against nature” were heard.

Thirty-eight years later, Senator Cuccinelli, speaking about same-sex marriage said that it was “contrary to the laws of God and nature”. Delegate Black called it “unnatural”. This has a familiar ring. Virginia legislators have a long history of trying to deny civil rights.

Senator Cuccinelli claimed that allowing same-sex marriage would “rip society apart” though he didn’t supply any justification for this. For the last year, Massachusetts has allowed same-sex marriage. Brian Lees, a Republican legislator in Massachusetts recently said, “Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry.“ What is most significant about Mr. Lees is that he was one of the co-sponsors of the Massachusetts marriage amendment in 2004.

Many provinces of Canada have allowed same-sex marriage for even longer and society in our northern neighbor does not appear to be on the verge of collapse. The Netherlands, where same-sex marriage has been allowed does have one study that Ms. Phillips claims shows the harm of same-sex marriage. However, the facts do not appear to support the claim. Marriage rates did not measurably drop nor did divorce rates measurably increase according to a July 2004 paper by Dr. M. V. Lee Badgett of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Even if the study she referenced were correct about its facts, correlation does not imply cause and there is no data to suggest that same-sex marriage hurts society in any way.

All four speakers claimed that marriage had to be protected. Over the last year, I have asked several legislators exactly how allowing two people of the same-sex to get married harms their marriage. I have yet to get a response. It seems quite the opposite to me. Allowing same-sex marriage would strengthen marriage by allowing loving, committed couples to formalize their relationship in a way that would promote strong family values.

They also claimed that same-sex marriage was a “biological impossibility”. They implied that marriage only existed for procreation and that anyone who had a marriage where the father did not sire and the mother did not bear the child was living less than the ideal marriage. Of course, procreation is only one of the reasons people marry. I know many heterosexual couples that either through circumstance or choice do not have children. Does this lack invalidate their marriages? All of them would loudly proclaim that it does not.

Finally, I’d like to address the one concrete example that was given. Delegate Black said that one of the reasons that same-sex couples wanted to marry was hospital access. He went on to say that it was a non-issue, that no hospital had ever banned a partner from visiting. I suspect he is wrong but even if he were right, he has missed the most important part of the issue. He said that it was as simple as the partner in the hospital saying it was OK for the other partner to visit. What if this person is unconscious? What if medical decisions need to be made? While a medical power of attorney can prevent this problem, what if the document is not present? For him to dismiss matters of life and death as mere access is
disingenuous and misses the point. This is just one of many rights that married couples take for granted yet we are forced to scramble through the legal system to protect our families because people like Delegate Black refuse to recognize the legitimacy of our families. His refusal hurts not just lesbian and gay Virginians but our children.

In closing, I’d again like to focus on a statement by Senator Cuccinelli. He believes that marriage is in trouble. He believes that divorce and single-parent families threaten the family. Yet, instead of trying to solve those problems, he has chosen to ”protect” marriage by keeping it available only to heterosexual couples. I suggest that he actually focus on the real problem instead of attacking a group of people because it is politically popular.

In the 1950′s it was common to equate homosexuality with the communist threat. In recent years, some prominent people have claimed that gays were somehow responsible for terrorism. The truth is that most gay people, like most straight people, are good, hardworking people who love their country and their families. Passing the marriage amendment would do nothing to protect marriage but it would institutionalize discrimination against gay and lesbian Virginians.

For much of the last year or so, ever since the Massachusetts courts ruled that banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, politicians have been saying that these matters should not be decided by the court. Now, the Governator, after the California legislature has become the first in the nation to pass a same-sex marriage law, has said that the issue should be decided by the courts.

Huh?

You politicians really need to get your story straight. You can’t rail against the courts and then hide behind them. Not on the same issue. If you do, it smacks of cowardice and homophobia.

The same goes for New York’s Mayor Bloomberg. He says he supports same-sex marriage on one day and then appeals a court decision that would allow it in New York City.Seems that if he really supported the decision, there wouldn’t be a need to appeal it.

But, for now, it’s California in the same-sex spotlight and it’s anybody’s guess what will happen. That it got this far is a major victory and even if it is vetoed now, it will be back and eventually it will become accepted both in California and the nation. It’s just a question of when. Now is a good time to start.

Arnie, stop waffling and sign it!

Spain’s recently passed law to allow same-sex marriage went into effect over the weekend. While America debates banning flag burning and making discrimination against lesbian and gay Ameicans part of our constitution, Spain has stepped up and said that marriage is a civil right and ensured that it is extended to all of its citizens. The law makes Spain the third nation to pass a law allowing gay and lesbians to marry. It joins the Netherlands and Belgium. Canada is poised to become the fourth later this year.

The Catholic Church is apalled that Spain would do such a thing. Pope Benedict XVI even called on Spanish government officials to defy the law and refuse to carry out the ban. The level of hypocrisy in the leadership of the Catholic Church is amazing to behold. They spend years covering up the actions of their own pedophile priests, even to the point of allowing them to continue their practices in differenc dioces yet to allow two human beings to formally join their lives together in a loving, committed relationship is something they find immoral. To quote Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride, “They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.”

Fortunately, not all Christians are so rigidly closed-minded. The United Church of Christ has endorsed the concept of marriage equality. It is claimed that they are the largest Church in the US to support marriage equality. I congratulate them on their action and hope that Bush and his corps of advisors that uses religion as a weapon will take note that not all Americans will tolerate that behavior.

Congratulations to Spain!