Contraceptn, gay marriage: Clarence Thomas signals new targets for supreme urt | Abortn | The Guardian

Contents:

• SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?
• FIVE YEARS ON, LGBT+ UPL FEAR FOR FUTURE OF GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY MARRIAGE AND THE FUTURE OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• CLARENCE THOMAS: COURT SHOULD RENSIR GAY MARRIAGE, BIRTH CONTROL DECISNS NEXT AFTER OVERTURNG ROE
• CONTRACEPTN, GAY MARRIAGE: CLARENCE THOMAS SIGNALS NEW TARGETS FOR SUPREME URT
• THE GOP'S FUTURE IS PRO-GAY MARRIAGE. GET WH THE PROGRAM OR GET LEFT BEHD | OPN
• GAY MARRIAGE, OTHER RIGHTS AT RISK AFTER U.S. SUPREME COURT ABORTN MOVE
• RSIAN NSTUTN CHANGE ENDS HOP FOR GAY MARRIAGE
• NO, POLYGAMY ISN’T THE NEXT GAY MARRIAGE

SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?

The vast majory of scientific studi that have directly pared lbian and gay parents wh heterosexual parents have nsistently shown that the same-sex upl are as f and pable parents as heterosexual upl, and that their children are jt as psychologilly healthy and well adjted. 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.

FIVE YEARS ON, LGBT+ UPL FEAR FOR FUTURE OF GAY MARRIAGE

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. 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.

GAY MARRIAGE AND THE FUTURE OF HUMAN SEXUALY

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. 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. -based LGBT+ rights Tmp admistratn also argued agast extendg workplace protectns to LGBT+ people, a challenge nied by the Supreme Court’s historic cisn last week lg that feral law protected gay and trans people om discrimatn at spe this, gay and lbian fai, as well as LGBT+ activists, worry that same-sex marriage uld bee a target.

CLARENCE THOMAS: COURT SHOULD RENSIR GAY MARRIAGE, BIRTH CONTROL DECISNS NEXT AFTER OVERTURNG ROE

”‘SKIM MILK MARRIAGE’While an outright dismissal of same-sex marriage is nsired highly unlikely, legal experts say cisns at state level and the lower urts, many filled wh Tmp-appoted judg, uld ero protectns for gay upl. Support for same-sex marriage has also creased, wh more than six 10 Amerins favor, acrdg to the Public Relign Rearch Instute (PRRI), agast jt 36% approval remas divid across party l, wh nearly three-quarters of Democrats and two-thirds of pennts favorg same-sex marriage, vers 47% of Republins, acrdg to the PRRI’s the 2020 electn, the Republin Party has adopted the same platform as did for 2016, backg “tradnal marriage and fay, based on marriage between one man and one woman” spe the Supreme Court lg, most stat ntue to rry gay marriage bans on the books, wh Republins stat such as Florida and Indiana blockg attempts to strike down the outdated and effectual bans. ‘KEEP UP THE FIGHT’Meanwhile, the issue of whether relig groups should be able to refe to serve gay and lbian upl bee of spirual beliefs has e up several tim feral 2018, the Supreme Court sid wh a baker who cled to make a weddg ke for a same-sex uple, sayg would vlate his Christian s next ssn, the Court will also hear a dispute over the cy of Philalphia’s refal to place children wh a Catholic agency that bars gay and lbian upl om s latt lg on workplace discrimatn, Jtice Neil Gorsuch, a Tmp appotee, noted that the Court was “eply ncerned wh prervg the promise of the ee exercise of relign enshred our Constutn.

“Even though they may still be legal, they don’t have the same protectns, and they don’t have the same equaly that heterosexual marriage do, ” he ’s this fear of gog back to send-class cizenship that has ma Stacey and Cheralyn termed to speak gay marriage was legal, Cheralyn went to urt to adopt Stacey’s last name: the judge was lg mostly on divorce s, she said, takg 30 sends wh the divorcg upl, whereas she was terrogated for 10 mut. Opn|The Future of Same-Sex Marriage ADVERTISEMENTEdorialJuly 14, 2013As historic and wele as we found the Supreme Court’s two recent cisns on same-sex marriage, they served to emphasize the lgerg equaly for lns of gay and lbian Amerins who do not live the 13 stat that enforce the right of all adult Amerins to marry the person of their New Jersey, Gov. While such tensy n have the benef of clarifyg jt what is at stake - on both sis of the argument - n also obscure some of the eper, trsilly related, the UK, the arguments put forward by the aln ernment favour of legalisg gay marriage have been, appropriately, at once liberal and nservative.

CONTRACEPTN, GAY MARRIAGE: CLARENCE THOMAS SIGNALS NEW TARGETS FOR SUPREME URT

In liberal terms is seen as a matter of equal rights; nservative terms a matter of promotg the good of fahful, long-term relatnships for homosexual as well as heterosexual ristg the change - mostly, but not entirely, relig people - argue that the issue is beg amed the wrong way. For them is not a matter of extendg the right, nor the teleologil good, of marriage to gay people, but rather of refg the very thg which marriage centuri - ed, for lennia - they argue, marriage has been unrstood as a njugal relatn between men and women lked to the natural bearg of children. Opponents also pot out that neher the Uned Natns nor the European Unn regard homosexual marriage as a human right; rather, is seen as a matter that mt be left to the judgment of civil law and, by implitn, to lol cultural a right to enter to heterosexual marriage is regnised, this means that currently the i gentium - "ternatnal law" - regnis somethg specific about heterosexual unn.

THE GOP'S FUTURE IS PRO-GAY MARRIAGE. GET WH THE PROGRAM OR GET LEFT BEHD | OPN

The ep reason for the reportedly rather choate and temperate wrath of Sttish Cardal Keh O'Brien the face of the proposed alteratn marriage law is no doubt his sense that a supposed "extensn" of marriage to gay people fact remov the right to marry om heterosexual n seem like a perversely ntorted claim, but s logic is que straightforward: the tend change the fn of marriage would mean that marriage as tradnally fed no longer exists. Th heterosexual people would no longer have the right to enter to an stutn unrstood to be only possible for heterosexuals, as doubly regnisg both the unique social signifince of male/female relatnship and the importance of the njugal act which leads naturally to the procreatn of children who are then reared by their blogil effect, if marriage is now unrstood as a lifelong sexual ntract between any two adult human persons wh no specifitn of genr, then the allowance of gay marriage renrs all marriag "gay marriag.

" Given such a suatn, were not for the space afford by non law (namely, the possibily of church marriage) a rort to habatn - which has hherto been unrstood as "mon-law marriage" - would be the only logil path for clear-thkg loss of sexual differenceThere are two other reasons for the current unprecented advocy of gay marriage. The send, and arguably most important factor, is the technologisatn of childbirth, allied to the creased acceptance of the adoptn of children by gay the lk between sex and childbirth is beg creasgly tenuo, heterosexual marriage is creasgly nnected wh child-rearg rather than wh procreatn.

This is surely part of the reason why heterosexual marriage has received special public regnn and logic of homosexualyCan we say that homosexual relatnships are of equal importance the nstutn of society? But also has to do wh the different logic of Jam Alison - one of the most subtle and profoundly orthodox Catholic advot of a theologil regnn of homosexual practice - puts , is rather like parg soccer to gby (or maybe the other way round! But homosexuals are at once solidary, rivalry and relatns of attractn to their own sex which - as Girard himself has argued - tends to crease exponentially the ntagn of mimetic sire and s rultg agon, not to mentn the gmentatn of the other hand, homosexuals are neher a relatn of solidary wh nor attractn to the oppose sex, but may well sometim be a relatnship of rivalry.

GAY MARRIAGE, OTHER RIGHTS AT RISK AFTER U.S. SUPREME COURT ABORTN MOVE

Of urse, there n, to some extent, be a solidary of homosexual perspective wh the oppose sex, ground the fact that both share the same sexual object - but notorly this n often be ntrived, agile and particularly subject to this stctural analysis imply that homosexualy is necsarily a sister realy?

Equally, the absence of eher solidary or attractn relatn to the oppose sex n lead towards a valug of their pure human otherns for s own sake and a solidary transcendg genr difference is this doubly "angelic" potential of homosexualy which arguably leads so many gay people to a notably advanced gree of public ditn and transcennt creativy. Most people are, and need to be, bound to their own sex by simple natural solidary of perspective, and bound to the oppose sex by sheer force of physil is partly for this reason that marriage has been publicly regnised as pecially securg both the ntuy of fai (an analogo extensn of the "same" of genr solidary) and the alliance of one fay wh another (an analogo extensn of attractn to the other sex) same analysis also dit utn about extendg marriage to gay upl.

For is arguable that more radil gays have a pot suggtg that fily and longevy of relatnships do not have exactly the same imperative for a homosexual logic which tends, s more sublime form, towards a human solidary is not, of urse, to ny that permanence and exclivy of gay relatnships should not be enuraged, but do suggt that the breakdown of the relatnships is not the same social tastrophe as the llapse of a heterosexual marriage. This difference is, fact, today publicly regnised the circumstance that a gay civil partnership n be stantly dissolved on a whim, whereas divorce remas somewhat more cumbersome and here we see one of the irrolvable difficulti of refg marriage: would be tolerable to impose difficult divorce obstacl on gay people, but equally tolerable to make divorce entirely stant for heterosexual upl, sce many marriag n be saved by allowg a longer time for nsiratn and by the sheer weight of the difficulti volved legal separatn.

RSIAN NSTUTN CHANGE ENDS HOP FOR GAY MARRIAGE

Children, kship and the grammar of societyThe send reason for the new advocy of gay marriage, alongsi the flatteng-out of sexual difference, is, as I've already dited, the rise of acceptance of gay parenthood, taken alongsi the creasg pture between sex and childbirth. Inevably all this uld only be thorised by "relign, " and many archaeologists are now ncludg - om the evince of burial practic by both Neanrthal and Cro-Magnon human begs - that relign is olr even than spoken this n appear to place Christian apologetics an odd dilemma, for precisely the evince which "downgras" the fay at the origs reveals that humany is above all homo relig and that the fay is ls a natural than a relig realy om the outset. Once the above practic have been rejected, then follows that a gay relatnship nnot qualify as a marriage terms of s orientatn to havg children, bee the lk between an terpersonal and a natural act is entirely ccial to the fn and character of fact that this optimum ndn nnot be fulfilled by many valid heterosexual marriag is entirely irrelevant, for they still fulfil through ial tentn this lkage, bis stag the unn of sexual difference which is the other aspect of marriage's herently heterosexual character.

NO, POLYGAMY ISN’T THE NEXT GAY MARRIAGE

) Consequently, while marriage was seen as radilly natural, also fell wh the purview of non rather than secular one rponse to the adoptn of gay marriage by the secular state might be to revis the implitns of the historil rise of civil marriage. Here we face the qutn of whether, after the legalisatn of gay marriage, the church and other relig bodi n any longer be nsired by the state as legal marriage brokers - as they are today the UK but not many other untri like France, where relig people mt unrgo both a relig and a civil prent, Church and State divergenc the unrstandg of marriage are tolerated wh rpect to divorce, and is expected that this will be the same wh rpect to the admissn of homosexuals to the married state. However, Catholic adoptn agenci the UK have now been expected to ply wh the allowance of gay adoptn (which has led to their closure) and by analogy there n be no guarantee that this suatn will go would seem likely that the stat of the Church as broker of state-regnised marriag will be qutned by many if they ntue exercise what will be perceived as unjt discrimatn agast gay people.