What the Stggle for Gay Rights Teach Us About…

Contents:

• SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?
• THE GAY PEOPLE AGAST GAY MARRIAGE
• WHY GAY MARRIAGE IS SO CONTROVERSIAL AMERI
• WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE
• WHY THE ROMANS ARE IMPORTANT THE DEBATE ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY MARRIAGE, RELIGN AND THE COURT
• METHODISTS STRENGTHEN STANCE AGAST GAY MARRIAGE AND OPENLY LGBT CLERGY
• AMONG THE NAVAJOS, A RENEWED DEBATE ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE
• A SOLUTN FOR THE GAY MARRIAGE CONTROVERSY
• THE LOGIL FALLACY GAY-MARRIAGE OPPONENTS DEPEND UPON

SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

On July 25, 2014 Miami-Da County Circu Court Judge Sarah Zabel led Florida’s gay marriage ban unnstutnal and stated that the ban “serv only to hurt, to discrimate, to prive same-sex upl and their fai of equal digny, to label and treat them as send-class cizens, and to em them unworthy of participatn one of the fundamental stutns of our society. The Amerin Psychologil Associatn, Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, and others nclud that legal gay marriage giv upl “accs to the social support that already facilat and strengthens heterosexual marriag, wh all of the psychologil and physil health benefs associated wh that support.

A 2010 analysis found that after their stat had banned gay marriage, gay, lbian and bisexual people suffered a 37% crease mood disorrs, a 42% crease alhol-e disorrs, and a 248% crease generalized anxiety disorrs. In 2012, the Williams Instute at the Universy of California at Los Angel (UCLA) found that the first five years after Massachetts legalized gay marriage 2004, same-sex weddg expendur (such as venue rental, weddg k, etc. 2016 printial ndidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fra stated that civil unns are aquate as an equivalent to marriage: “Benefs are beg btowed to gay upl [ civil unns]… I believe we need to rpect those who believe that the word marriage has a spirual foundatn… Why n’t we rpect and tolerate that while at the same time sayg ernment nnot btow benefs unequally.

Court papers filed July 2014 by attorneys fendg Arizona’s gay marriage ban stated that “the State regulat marriage for the primary purpose of channelg potentially procreative sexual relatnships to endurg unns for the sake of jog children to both their mother and their father… Same-sex upl n never provi a child wh both her blogil mother and her blogil father.

THE GAY PEOPLE AGAST GAY MARRIAGE

Lee Badgett, PhD, Director of the Center for Public Policy and Admistratn at the Universy of Massachetts at Amherst, stated that for many gay activists “marriage means adoptg heterosexual forms of fay and givg up distctively gay fay forms and perhaps even gay and lbian culture. Pla Ettelbrick, JD, Profsor of Law and Women’s Studi, wrote 1989, “Marriage ns ntrary to two of the primary goals of the lbian and gay movement: the affirmatn of gay inty and culture and the validatn of many forms of relatnships.

LGBT activist llective Agast Equaly stated, “Gay marriage ap hetero privilege… [and] creas enomic equaly by perpetuatg a system which ems married begs more worthy of the basics like health re and enomic rights.

Queer activist Anrs Zanichkowsky stated June 2013 that the then mpaign for gay marriage “tentnally and malicly eras and exclus so many queer people and cultur, particularly trans and genr non-nformg people, poor queer people, and queer people non-tradnal fai… marriage thks non-married people are viant and not tly servg of civil rights.

WHY GAY MARRIAGE IS SO CONTROVERSIAL AMERI

In Islamic tradn, several hadhs (passag attributed to the Prophet Muhammad) nmn gay and lbian relatnships, cludg the saygs “When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shak, ” and “Sihaq [lbian sex] of women is za [illegimate sexual terurse]. Matt Barber, Associate Dean for Onle Programs at Liberty Universy School of Law, stated, “Every dividual engaged the homosexual liftyle, who has adopted a homosexual inty, they know, tuively, that what they’re dog is immoral, unnatural, and self-stctive, yet they thirst for that affirmatn.

A 2003 set of guil signed by Pope John Pl II stated: “There are absolutely no grounds for nsirg homosexual unns to be any way siar or even remotely analogo to God’s plan for marriage and fay… Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go agast the natural moral law. On May 17, 2004, the first legal gay marriage the Uned Stat was performed Cambridge, MA between Tanya McCloskey, a massage therapist, and Marcia Kadish, an employment manager at an engeerg firm.

After France's first same-sex marriage, and a vote the UK Parliament which puts England and Wal on urse for gay weddgs next summer, two US Supreme Court lgs expected soon uld hasten the advance of same-sex marriage across the Atlantic. A send lg will be ma on the legaly of California's gay marriage while favourable lgs will spark celebratns among pro-marriage supporters across the US, some gay men and women will stead see as a victory for a patriarchal stutn that bears no historil relevance to lbians are opposed to marriage on femist grounds, says Cldia Card, a profsor of philosophy at the Universy of Wisns-Madison, bee they see as an stutn that serv the terts of men more than women. A muny ma up of lns of people is bound to hold a range of views on any subject, but will surprise many that some of the people who on the face of stand to ga the most om gay marriage should oppose .

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE

And the ntrary views are not often the UK, Daily Mail lumnist Andrew Pierce says that for speakg out agast gay marriage the past, he has been attacked as a homophobe and Uncle Tom, spe a long history of champng gay strongly believ that civil partnerships - troduced 2005 to give same-sex upl equal legal rights - are enough.

WHY THE ROMANS ARE IMPORTANT THE DEBATE ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE

" He thks there are more gay people agreement wh him than people may thk - at a dner party he hosted for 11 gay iends, only one was favour of marriage, one was uncid and the rt were agast, he says. A webse lled Homovox featured 12 gay men and women opposed to , wh some of them cg a belief that children benef most om oppose-sex many years, the nservative stutn of marriage was never on the gay mpaign agenda, says activist Yasm Nair, who -found a group provotively named Agast Equaly.

But beme an objective the early 1990s - regretfully, her view - when the movement emerged om the seismic shock of the Aids epimic, pleted of polil gay people who are favour of same-sex marriage believe anythg short of marriage is not rarely hear arguments agast by gay people themselv, says Stampp Corb, publisher of magaze LGBT Weekly, who se strong parallels wh the civil rights movement. And the US, the notn of "separate but equal" rekdl memori of segregatn and the creatn of send-class so many different pots of view on a subject that has long divid Ameri, perhaps the bate jt unrl the obv - gay people are like everyone n follow the Magaze on Twter and on Facebook. Stat are among the world's trailblazg jurisdictns regnizg gay marriage and gay rights, whereas the lears of var other stat would endorse the crimalizatn of homosexualy altogether, as is now the se much of the Third, after the Supreme Court held 2003 that nsensual sex between men uld not be crimalized, many social nservativ were appalled.

"Many Amerins do not want persons who openly engage homosexual nduct as partners their bs, as sutmasters for their children, as teachers their children's schools, or as boarrs their home, " he other words, bis gay marriage, the unrlyg qutn of homosexualy is much more ntroversial Ameri than most other Wtern natns. Sixty percent of Amerins felt that homosexualy should be accepted by society, a far lower proportn than the people of Spa (91 percent), Germany (87 percent), France (86 percent), and Bra (81 percent). Moreover, until "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) was recently repealed, Ameri stood alone the Wt ntug to ban gays om the ary, a policy characteristic of Third World, thorarian, and Islamist natns.

GAY MARRIAGE, RELIGN AND THE COURT

That not only explas why women's reproductive rights like abortn and ntraceptn are exceptnally ntroversial nservative Ameri, but also why gay rights e such clash over gay rights is an extensn of the nflict between tradnal patriarchy and the more egalarian genr system of morn tim. Yet, the extraordary weight of Christian fundamentalism nservative Ameri exacerbat ncerns about sexual qutn of gay rights illtrat the great polarizatn between ntemporary liberal Ameri and nservative Ameri. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTA supposed requt for a webse for a same-sex weddg played a mor role a major clash between ee speech and gay rights at the Supreme Supreme Court led last week that a Colorado graphic signer has the right to refe to create webs for same-sex Jiang for The New York TimAfter the Supreme Court led last week that a Colorado graphic signer has the right to refe to create webs for same-sex marriag, crics of the cisn raised qutns about a form clud urt papers the se that appeared to show that a gay uple had sought the servic of the signer, Lorie man who supposedly submted the form said he was unaware of s existence until a reporter for The New Republic lled him.

METHODISTS STRENGTHEN STANCE AGAST GAY MARRIAGE AND OPENLY LGBT CLERGY

Sce many of our polil stutns are rived om ancient Roman precents, a quick look at Roman laws regardg homosexualy serv to illtrate what may be drivg some of the current ntroversy surroundg gay unns the Uned the world of the ancient Greeks seems to have tolerated homosexualy (as seen the poems of Sappho and the dialogu of Plato), that of the Romans was more ut.

Although there is scholarly bate, Roman lerature of the republic and early empire suggts that men who engaged nsensual liaisons were often mocked as unmanly, but nsensual homosexual sex self was not would change the later Roman Empire. While the first three centuri of the empire saw no legislatn as far as we n tell regardg homosexualy, asi om the ntuatn of the Lex Sntia as marked by s catn by the Roman jurists, the fourth century there would be dramatic new laws nmng male homosexualy.

AMONG THE NAVAJOS, A RENEWED DEBATE ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE

In a law of 390, survivg the Theodosian Co and the Lex Dei (‘Law of God’), the emperors Valentian, Theodosi, and Ardi ordaed that any man takg the role of a woman sex would be publicly burned to laws certaly monstrate a change om the Roman Republic where, to be sure, homosexual rape of male cizens was nmned but nsensual homosexual sex was tolerated, even if sometim mocked. So, would appear that the growg fluence of the Bible an creasgly Christian Roman empire led emperors to nmn homosexual we look at the current attempts the Uned Stat to ban homosexual marriage, we mt clarify what the premis for such measur are. Their rearch validated the strategy proposed by lears like the late Harvey Milk, an openly gay San Francis polician who urged gays and lbians to “e out” to their parents, neighbors, iends, and workers.

A SOLUTN FOR THE GAY MARRIAGE CONTROVERSY

“We pos that this is bee the Inter facilat workg and people-to-people munitn, which turn n brg about shifts societal views as people learn that people who are close to them may be gay, ” says Jenifer Whten Woodrg, a polil scientist at the Universy of Massachetts, Lowell, who helped nduct the study. In their book, Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attus about LGBT Rights, rearchers Brian Harrison and Melissa Michelson offered their own mol for how public acceptance towards homosexualy has advanced so quickly—one that emphasiz -group learship om people like Portman.

They found that “relig participants exposed to the quotatn attributed to Reverend Lawrence were more likely to say that they supported marriage equaly, more likely to say that they would likely vote for a ballot measure their state tablishg marriage equaly, and more likely to approve of gay and lbian parentg. “The succsful e of ‘g out’ wh the gay rights movement was precisely why undocumented immigrant youth activists elected to borrow the term for their purpos, ” says Enriquez, a soclogist at the Universy of California, Irve.

Adam* said was dangero to e out as gay his home untry and feared beg forced to an arranged marriage wh a said he was "so lucky" to wed his soulmate, Ray, Manchter and wish everyone uld marry who they love. 'Authentilly myself'Ray said he had also stggled growg up gay the 1970s and 80s England, which was "tough" said his relig school "dmmed to you, 'you are gog to hell'" Adam returned home to Sdi Arabia, spe beg more than 3, 000 apart and later rtricted by the Covid-19 panmic, they kept touch daily and the romance years ago, Ray proposed on a vio ll and after succsfully applyg for a UK fiancé visa, Adam moved to Manchter December 2022.

THE LOGIL FALLACY GAY-MARRIAGE OPPONENTS DEPEND UPON

Adam said he had been aaid to even wear lours his home untry so the first thg he did when he moved was start to "grow my mullet, got my ears pierced and booked appotments for tattoos" relled how, ntrast, one of his gay iends Sdi had been forced to marry a woman, addg: "It has ed not only his life but the life of his wife.

The uple, who live London, said a "really betiful memory" was on the way home when one of their sons shouted out of the black b wdow to Trafalgar Square, "My dads jt got married" and cheered "Yay, gay marriage". Letters|Gay Marriage, Relign and the Court ADVERTISEMENTlettersRears take issue wh an opn wrten by Jtice Clarence Thomas and joed by Jtice Samuel Drago for The New York TimTo the Edor:Re “Thomas and Alo Raise Doubts on Same-Sex Marriage Rulg” (news article, Oct. 6):Whout a ht of irony, Jtice Clarence Thomas, addrsg gay marriage an opn joed by Jtice Samuel Alo, wrote that “those wh scerely held relig beliefs ncerng marriage will fd creasgly difficult to participate society.