Del Martin RIP

Icon of the GLBT civil rights movement.

From the San Francisco Chronicle

Del Martin, a pioneering lesbian rights activist who with her lifelong partner became a symbol for the movement to legalize gay marriage, died Wednesday morning. She was 87.

Martin died at a San Francisco hospital two weeks after a broken arm exacerbated her existing health problems, according to Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Her partner of more than 55 years and wife of just over two months, Phyllis Lyon, was with her.

"Ever since I met Del 55 years ago, I could never imagine a day would come when she wouldn't be by my side," Lyon, 83, said in a statement Wednesday.

"I also never imagined there would be a day that we would actually be able to get married," she added. "I am devastated, but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed."

Martin and Lyon exchanged vows at San Francisco City Hall on June 16, the first day same-sex couples could legally wed in California, after being together for more than half a century.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated the wedding, singled them out to be the first gay couple to be declared "spouses for life" in the city in recognition of their long relationship and their status as pioneers of the gay rights movement.

"The greatest way we can honor the life work of Del Martin, is to continue to fight and never give up, until we have achieved equality for all," Newsom said Wednesday.

[...]

In Martin's honor, Newsom ordered the American flags at City Hall and the rainbow flag in the Castro District, the heart of the city's gay and lesbian community, to be flown at half-staff until sundown Thursday. Plans for a public memorial are pending.

Full article here

Could Equality Have Saved Thomas Disch?

From The Advocate

Writer Thomas Disch's life had been hard over the last few years. His partner of 35 years, the poet Charles Naylor, died in 2005 after a long struggle with cancer that used up their savings. His own health was not good: Disch, a big man, was diabetic and had difficulty walking.

In October, the landlord of his rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan's Union Square won a decision in appellate court against Disch -- it was Naylor's name on the lease -- and was threatening to evict him. The pipes in his second home, in upstate New York, burst in 2007. When Disch assessed the damage months later, he found mold growing on keepsakes, books, the piano and the box containing his partner's ashes.

On July 2, he posted a piece on his blog, Endzone, about the rising price of food. Two days later, at 68, he shot himself in his apartment.

When we think about same-sex marriage, especially in states where it is legal, we tend to focus on happy couples like Phyllis Martin and Del Lyon, who married after more than 50 years together. We look at pictures of the newly betrothed surrounded by friends, family, and even cheering strangers. We treasure those symbolic moments of promise and commitment -- even as the hundreds of federal protections and benefits of heterosexual marriage remain vague abstractions.

But if Disch and Naylor had been married, at least one of those abstractions might have kept the science fiction writer in the world a little longer. Thanks to the 1989 decision in Raviv v. Raviv, their Union Square apartment would have been considered part of their communal marital property in New York -- even though the lease was in only one spouse's name.

Thomas Disch would at least have had the assurance that his home couldn't be taken away from him; his landlord would have had no legal standing to start proceedings against the grieving widower. But without marriage equality, same-sex couples have no protection against predatory landlords, hostile families or unsympathetic courts.

It's impossible to know someone else's heart; maybe Disch still would have killed himself. He had certainly been thinking about death. In a poem published on his blog in early June, he wrote:

Am I happy to have lived
When and where I did
America the 20th century
I've often said so
Grateful anyhow for my good luck
But I'll be happier soon
To have shed both when and where
My landlord has had me evicted
Katrina struck
As Charlie lay on the mattress
Of a New York hospice
And he had as little care
For the deaths of those other paupers
As for his own
May I achieve the same
Dark wisdom

We'll never know whether the specter of losing his apartment was the inspiration for his suicide or yet more fodder for the bleak outlook the writer couldn't shake. But one thing is certain: Gay marriage is more than a symbolic commitment -- it's a necessity.

A Heartwarming Coming Out Story

During the time Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick was courageously fighting for equal treatment under the law for GLBT Massachusetts residents, he did not know that his daughter is a lesbian.

On June 14, 2007, the day that lawmakers finally voted down an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution, Katherine Patrick stood outside the State House and looked up at her father. Gov. Deval Patrick was standing on the front steps, surrounded by a jubilant crowd of hundreds that mobbed the brick sidewalk and spilled halfway across Beacon Street. As they cheered the defeat of the amendment - an effort led by the governor, Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Sal DiMasi - Katherine had never before felt more proud of her father.

"Because, of course, he didn’t know that I was gay then," the 18-year-old recalls. "So, for someone so publicly to fight for something that doesn’t even affect him was just like, ’That’s my dad,’ you know?" she says with a laugh. "That’s all I could think. I was very, very proud to be part of this family, and this state in general."

"It was great. I’m very glad," she adds, looking at her father. "Don’t cry, Dad." Patrick’s eyes are brimming with tears, prompting some good-natured teasing from his daughter. "He’s done some good things," she says with a laugh, patting his arm. "I appreciate it. Want a tissue? Oh, God. He’s a crier."

The Bay Windows article is here.

Callifornia Supreme Court: No Delay of Justice

NEWS RELEASE
June 4, 2008

California Supreme Court
Denies Rehearing and Stay in
Marriage Cases

Decision to become final on June 16 at 5:00 p.m.

San Francisco—The California Supreme Court today filed an order in the Marriage Cases (S147999; decision filed May 15, 2008), denying requests to stay its decision until after the November 2008 election and denying petitions for rehearing.

The rehearing petitions were denied by a 4-3 vote. Chief Justice Ronald George, and Justices Joyce Kennard, Kathryn Werdegar, and Carlos Moreno voted to deny rehearing. Justices Marvin Baxter, Ming Chin, and Carol Corrigan would have granted rehearing.

The order further specified that the decision of the court filed on May 15, 2008, will become final on June 16, 2008, at 5 p.m.

The full text of the order is attached.

New York Governor Paterson's Uncles Stanley and Ronald

How Governor Set His Stance on Gay Rights
By Jeremy W. Peters and Danny Hakim
New York Times, May 30,2008

When David A. Paterson was growing up and his parents would go out of town, he and his little brother would stay in Harlem with family friends they called Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald.

Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald, he said, were a gay couple, though in the 1960s few people described them that way. They helped young David with his spelling, and read to him and played cards with him.

“Apparently, my parents never thought we were in any danger,” the governor recalled on Thursday in an interview. “I was raised in a culture that understood the different ways that people conduct their lives. And I feel very proud of it.”

Mr. Paterson, who two months ago was unexpectedly elevated to be governor of New York, has accepted gay men and lesbians since early in life. From his first run for office, in 1985, he reached out to gays and lesbians, and in 1994, long before gay rights groups were broadly pushing for it, he said he supported same-sex marriage.

As he rose in politics, he became a go-between in the occasionally strained relationship between gay and black residents in his district and beyond, using his easygoing manner to broker disagreements and soothe hurt feelings.

On Thursday, the governor, who is still largely unknown to many New Yorkers, appealed to them to recognize what he called the basic common sense of allowing gay men and lesbians married elsewhere to gain the same rights here as heterosexual couples. In doing so, he is stepping to the forefront of an issue that has often tripped up his party nationally, and he is going further than either of the two Democratic presidential candidates have been willing to do.

“People who live together for a long time would like to be married — as far as I’m concerned, I think it’s beautiful,” he said in a news conference called to discuss his directive to state agencies to revise their regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like California.

“I think it’s fine, regardless of the tenets of religion or the beliefs of some,” he added. “It’s something that the government should allow for people. It’s maybe misunderstood in this generation.”

But already on Thursday, there were signs of a backlash against his decision, with some conservative groups mulling whether to mount a legal challenge to the directive. Some Republican legislators said that Mr. Paterson is wading into an issue that should be settled by the Legislature, and likened it to the ill-fated attempt by his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants without seeking legislative support.

“It’s outrageous that the governor did what he did,” said Michael Long, chairman of the state’s Conservative Party. “He’s for same-sex marriage, that’s fine. I have no problem with that. To do this in the dark of night, through the back door, to begin the process of destroying the sanctity of marriage, is really wrong.”

It was shortly after Mr. Paterson was sworn in, on March 17, that his legal counsel, David Nocenti, approached him to discuss a February appellate court ruling in Rochester. In that case, the court said that because of New York’s longstanding practice of recognizing marriages from other jurisdictions, a community college in Monroe County must provide health benefits to the wife of a woman who was married in Canada.

Mr. Nocenti recommended that Mr. Paterson order all state agencies to bring their policies in line with that decision.

Mr. Paterson quickly agreed to do so, not only because the state risked legal exposure if it did not, but also because such a directive would be a strong statement of principle about an issue he cares about deeply. He met with his inner circle, and there was no dissent.

On May 14, Mr. Nocenti’s memo went out to the agencies. The governor’s plan called for not publicizing the directive until after June 30, when the agencies were asked to report back to Mr. Nocenti with the revisions necessary to comply with the court ruling. Once the governor approved those changes, he planned to announce them publicly. But Mr. Nocenti’s memo was reported on Wednesday night by The New York Times, and the governor described its contents at a dinner with gay advocates on May 17.

In the interview, Mr. Paterson said he believes deeply that gay men and lesbians today face the same kind of civil rights battle that black Americans faced. He acknowledged that this position put him at odds with some black leaders, who bristle at such comparisons.

“In many respects, people in our society, we only recognize our own struggles,” Mr. Paterson said. “I’ve wanted to be someone in the African-American community who recognizes the new civil rights struggle that is being undertaken by gay and lesbian and transgendered people.”

When Mr. Paterson became governor, gay activists cheered, saying they would have an ally in Albany even more committed than Mr. Spitzer. The Web site of The Advocate, a gay magazine, ran a story headlined, “Could Spitzer’s woes have a silver lining?” The story called Mr. Paterson “the best-case scenario for gays and lesbians in the state.”

Mr. Paterson introduced the State Senate’s first hate crimes bill in the 1980s and refused to support a compromise that did not include gay men and lesbians. When the Senate ultimately agreed to pass a hate crimes bill in 2000, it marked the first time the phrase “sexual orientation” appeared in New York State laws.

Mr. Paterson, then a senator, said: “Now I can die in peace,” adding, “If nothing else ever happens here, I feel that I can point to a contribution that I made.”

During his years as minority leader of the Senate, from 2002 to 2006, his warm relations with the majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican, helped pave the way for laws extending civil rights protections to gay men and lesbians, and coincided with a softening of Mr. Bruno’s views on gay rights.

“From the get-go, when I first introduced marriage, which was in, like, 2001, he put his name down right away as a sponsor,” said Senator Tom Duane, a Manhattan Democrat and the only openly gay member of the Senate. “The second I asked him if he wanted to be a sponsor, he said yes. When he was minority leader, he also fought for funding for groups and he’s been great on H.I.V./AIDS issues, as well. He has been 100 percent behind us.”

Some lawmakers said they particularly admired Mr. Paterson’s position on gay marriage because it would have been easy for him to let the issue rest once he became governor.
“I just think it shows the steel in his spine,” said Assemblyman Micah Z. Kellner, a Democrat who represents the Upper East Side. “He knows he is now the governor of all people in New York State, gay and straight.”

Mr. Paterson said he does not see his support for gay marriage as an issue of political fortitude, but rather something more human and almost reflexive.

“All the time when I’d hear Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald and my parents talk, they were talking about the civil rights struggle,” Mr. Paterson said. “In those days, I knew I wanted to grow up and feel that I could change something.”

Letter From a Mom to NY Governor Paterson

Found in the New York Times

God bless Gov. David A. Paterson! I am crying tears of joy as I read this article. We have been waiting so long for a person in a place of power to boldly step forward with courage and love for the gay community.

So often, politicians lose their passion to do what is right and just when they reach the point where they can make such a huge difference.

Governor Paterson will have a place in our hearts all of our lives. We have been married for 36 years and are blessed with four children. Our youngest, Jacob, happens to be gay. Three of them were married in the last couple of years. It has been a time of great joy for our family as they wed the love of their lives.

When our oldest son, Benjamin, got married, he asked Jacob to be his best man. Then our son Joshua got married and again Jacob was his best man. When our daughter, Britta, married her dear Matthew, she didn’t have a maid of honor. She had a man of honor, and it was her brother Jacob.

At each wedding, as Jacob stood by his siblings and signed the papers to make it legal, he did it knowing he did not have the right to marriage himself.
As a mom, I find that hard to understand and heartbreaking to know it is true. How can this country treat people in such a way that something as basic as finding love and being married can be denied to a whole segment of society?

We will do all that it takes to make sure our dear son Jacob can marry the love of his life. But right now, I want to send our love to Governor Paterson. He makes me want to move to New York!

Eden Prairie, Minn., May 30, 2008

Macy's Marriage Equality Advertisement in LA Times

If you can't read the small print, it starts out with "And now it's a milestone every couple in California can celebrate.

Has Bill O'Reilly Gotten a Clue?

Watch as anti-gay "family law attorney" Don Schweitzer tries to convince Bill O'Reilly that there's a good reason to oppose marriage equality. Billo just isn't buying it.

Hat tip to BradBlog

New Developments regarding California Marriage Equality

Did the California Supreme Court Pre-Empt the anti-gay initiative?

This legal analysist shows us how they may have done just that.

A Daily Kos diary breaks it down for us.

California citizens can amend the Constitution by ballot initiative, but they cannot change the fundamental parts of it (such as fundamental rights granted, and fundamental workings of the government) by ballot initiative. Changes of that scale are called revisions, and revisions can only be accomplished by a constitutional convention and popular ratification of the changes made by the convention, or by the Legislature passing the change and submitting it to the electorate for popular ratification.

With the CA Supreme Court ruling on May 15th, marriage was reaffirmed as a fundamental right in California, and furthermore, sexual orientation was placed into a protected category, subject to strict scrutiny. Therefore, a ballot initiative cannot take away that fundamental right, because that kind of a change is a revision of the Constitution, necessitating a constitutional convention. Additionally, any attempt to do so will come under the heading of strict scrutiny, which means that the government must show a compelling reason why it is excluding people from marriage. That cannot be done; there is no compelling reason. Ron George and his fellow justices made sure that they eliminated those arguments in their majority opinion.

And now there's a NEW POLL showing that a majority of Californians support marriage equality and oppose the anti-gay initiative.

The Field Poll result, released today, shows the highest level of support in more than three decades of polling Californians on the hot-button issue of same-sex marriage laws. The poll found 51 percent of registered voters favor the idea of allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed, while 42 percent disapprove.

An almost identical result was recorded in the random survey of whether voters favor an amendment to the state constitution that will likely appear on the November ballot, which seeks to define marriage as between a man and a woman: Fifty-one percent opposed that proposal, the survey reported, while 43 percent approved of the restrictive amendment.

The Humor of the Right Wing Christian Conservatives.

Huckabee jokes about Obama ducking a gunman

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention
Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

Ellen's Getting Married

Click Here To View the Video

Ellen DeGeneres and longtime girlfriend Portia de Rossi are jumping at the chance to get married.DeGeneres announced their engagement during a Thursday taping of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," telling the studio audience the news that the California Supreme Court had struck down state laws against gay marriage."So I would like to say now, for the first time, I am announcing: I am getting married," she said during the show, airing Friday.The studio audience leapt to its feet for a long ovation, and De Rossi ("Ally McBeal," ''Nip/Tuck") was sitting in the audience, beaming and clapping. [Article contines here.]

Gavin Newsom Blasts Democratic Candidates

Mayor Newsom, you're not the only one who's sick and tired of these people using us as pawns in a political chess game.

For a quick review of the ClintonObama doublespeak about equal treatment under the law: http://rallianceblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/are-these-candidates-of-change.html

Gavin Newsom Vindicated

San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera and mayor Gavin Newsom speaking after the Supreme Court decision. (Newsome is introduced about halfway through).

And now, a reminder of the shabby treatment Gavin Newsome received from Barack Obama. http://rallianceblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/actions-speak-lounder-than-words-barack.html

A Good Day For America

State Supreme Court says same-sex couples have right to marry

SF Chronicle 05-15 10:31 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California, the state Supreme Court said today in a historic ruling that could be repudiated by the voters in November.

In a 4-3 decision, the justices said the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the "fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship." The ruling is likely to flood county courthouses with applications from couples newly eligible to marry when the decision takes effect in 30 days.

The ruling set off a celebration at San Francisco City Hall. As the decision came down, out-of-breath staff members ran into the mayor's office where Gavin Newsom read the decision.

Outside the city clerk's office, three opposite-sex couples were waiting at 10 a.m. for marriage certificates. City officials had prepared for a possible rush on certificates by same-sex couples, but hadn't yet changed the forms that ask couples to fill out the name of the "bride" and "groom."
[...]

Denmark After 15 Years of Gay Marriage

I quickly checked Google to see if I could find this study, so far no luck. If anyone out there knows where to find it, please let me know.

Will Cuba Outshine US in Human Rights Arena?

"In the early years of the revolution much of the world was homophobic. It was the same here in Cuba and led to acts which I consider unjust. "

Mariela Castro

In recent years the US has been falling further and further behind in the Human Rights pack. And now it looks like Cuba is about to pass us by.

From the BBC:

There is a Castro who is fighting to introduce radical changes in Cuba.

Not the new president, Raul, although he has promised to push through "structural and conceptual" changes to this communist island in the Caribbean.
It is Raul's daughter, Mariela Castro.

[...]

She is currently attempting to get the Cuban National Assembly to adopt what would be among the most liberal gay and transsexual rights law in Latin America.

The proposed legislation would recognise same-sex unions, along with inheritance rights. It would also give transsexuals the right to free sex-change operations and allow them to switch the gender on their ID cards, with or without surgery.

[...]

"In Cuba marriage is not as important as the family and at least this way we can guarantee the personal and inheritance rights of homosexuals and transsexuals."

She says that her father is supportive of her work, although he advises her to move slowly.
"I've seen changes in my father since I was a child. I saw him as macho and homophobic. But as I have grown and changed as a person, so I have seen him change."

Mariela's mother, the late Vilma Espin, was an internationally recognised champion of women's rights.

[...]

The Gay Roosters Find a Home

Julius and Big Daddy, the roosters who chose each other as companions, have found a forever home on a farm in Alabama, reports foster mom Brenda Lee in Los Angeles.

The roosters came to L.A.'s A Dog's Life Rescue organization last year as a couple, and continued to eschew "normative chicken social conventions," Lee's partner, Jayna, wrote.
Big Daddy, who is much larger, "is Julius' protector, and at night he roosts over Julius like a mama hen sitting on a brood of chicks," Jayna wrote.

The women agreed to foster the fowl until a place could be found with rooster-friendly zoning codes. It took eight months, Lee said.

Their suburban San Fernando Valley neighborhood technically forbids roosters for noise-abatement reasons ("The rescue group did some talking," Lee says), as does New York City, where the roosters made quite a splash on gay blogs.

"We only got two calls. And one person wanted to split them up, which was out of the question," Lee said.

But this week, the foster moms fielded a call from an Alabama farmer, and Julius and Big Daddy were flown Thursday to their new home.

A Hero Awaits His Answer

I remember the day when I phoned my sister, Anne, just about every hour as she and her long-time partner stood in line waiting for their turn to marry. It was incredibly exciting. They kept me informed of each and every development as it occurred and about all the amazing things they were seeing. And then they were married .... for awhile ... until the wingnuts decided to get the courts to nullify approximately 4,000 marriages.

(Check out the earlier post about the way Barack Obama shunned Gavin Newson at a fundraiser Newsom organized for Obama at Obama's request.)

Gavin Newsom awaits his answer (Gay.com)

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom rushes into the room across from his office, apologizing for being late. He explains that he?d been walking down Market Street, talking to panhandlers about what it would take to get them off the streets. Fiery idealism like that has come to define Gavin Newsom. Although he is a bona fide policy wonk, his political passion is what captured the attention of the nation four years ago, when -- less than a month into his first term -- Newsom decided to permit same-sex couples to marry in San Francisco. As we sit down, the political fallout from that decision continues.

[...]

Newsom seems genuinely surprised when asked whether he believes the California Supreme Court's ruling might affect the presidential race. "I've been waiting for years for this case," he says, "but I didn't think of it in this context. Of course, the issue could come right back to the fore.' But, he says, that only serves to underscore the conundrum he mulled over four years ago: "When is the right time? There never is a right time. Mid-term congressional election? Not the right time -- we have a chance to take back the House. The next presidential election? Not the right time -- we have a chance to possibly win. It's never the right time. We need to get over these stale arguments. If you believe in something, do it. And do it with conviction. And if you screw up, learn from it, admit your mistakes and failures, and move forward in a more thoughtful way."

[...]

Among gay leaders, there appears to be a genuine consensus that the question of marriage equality would not be in the California courts right now, and that polling in the state would not show a dead heat between those for and against the rights of gays to marry, were it not for the political risks Newsom took, the public conversation that ensued, and the educational opportunities that unfolded. There are also few who doubt that gays will continue to hail Newsom as a hero; he has an indelible place in our history. And as someone who truly seems to believe that politicians are supposed to do what they believe in, not just what polls well, it's a position he's proud to hold. The marriages, Newsom says, are "the most glorious reflection I have in my life, outside of personal experiences with family . . . it has given me courage for everything else that I've done, and a sense of purpose beyond the issue. I know what it is to be privileged to be in a position to do something, even if people don't like it."

Obama on Christian Gay Bashing

I find it interesting that while the press has picked on on John McCain's gay-bashing buddy, the utterly repulsive John Hagee, they have generally ignored something that happened in an Obama rally last Thursday, 02/28.

Ben Smith of Politico.com describes it to us.

Obama's rally in Beaumont today was the highest-energy of this Texas swing, with a crowd that was about three-quarters black cheering at almost every turn.

An interesting moment came when he was asked a question about LGBT rights and delivered an answer that seemed to suit the questioner, listing the various attributes — race, gender, etc. — that shouldn't trigger discrimination, to successive cheers. When he came to saying that gays and lesbians deserve equality, though, the crowd fell silent.

So he took a different tack: "Now I’m a Christian, and I praise Jesus every Sunday," he said, to a sudden wave of noisy applause and cheers. "I hear people saying things that I don’t think are very Christian with respect to people who are gay and lesbian," he said, and the crowd seemed to come along with him this time.

The moment reminded me of a conversation I had recently with a senior figure in the national gay rights movement, who noted that Obama's deference to some black Christian discomfort with homosexuality — his refusal to dump the "ex-gay" gospel singer Donnie McClurkin from a tour — angered some gays and lesbians; but conversely, that his ability to sell gay rights in the black church is unique and appealing.

Daniel Radcliffe's Big Gay Kiss

Daniel Radcliffe got more than he expected as he received a Whatsonstage award for his performance in Equus.