The Federal Prop. 8 Trial / Gay Marriage Catch-All

So I am having some trouble finding this info. Any "history" I am trying to find of gay pride parades and festivals starts with Stonewall.

What I am wondering is at what point did LGBT groups begin to organize nationally and annually. A large component in any civil rights matter for minorities, women, etc takes concerted and consistent effort. When you talk civil rights for African Americans, the roots are in the latter 1890's, but it is really in the war and post war that you see consistent and concerted efforts. And it is not until the 50's that you see the NAACP with the help of a simple lawyer named Thurgood Marshall begin a serious campaign against the laws.

KingGorilla wrote:

So I am having some trouble finding this info. Any "history" I am trying to find of gay pride parades and festivals starts with Stonewall.

What I am wondering is at what point did LGBT groups begin to organize nationally and annually. A large component in any civil rights matter for minorities, women, etc takes concerted and consistent effort. When you talk civil rights for African Americans, the roots are in the latter 1890's, but it is really in the war and post war that you see consistent and concerted efforts. And it is not until the 50's that you see the NAACP with the help of a simple lawyer named Thurgood Marshall begin a serious campaign against the laws.

This piece covers the pre-Stonewall history a bit & has links for further study:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...

Same-sex marriage upheld by Spain's highest court | http://ow.ly/f6RJ2

The support of gay marriage makes me proud to be a Marylander.

KingGorilla wrote:

So I am having some trouble finding this info. Any "history" I am trying to find of gay pride parades and festivals starts with Stonewall.

What I am wondering is at what point did LGBT groups begin to organize nationally and annually. A large component in any civil rights matter for minorities, women, etc takes concerted and consistent effort. When you talk civil rights for African Americans, the roots are in the latter 1890's, but it is really in the war and post war that you see consistent and concerted efforts. And it is not until the 50's that you see the NAACP with the help of a simple lawyer named Thurgood Marshall begin a serious campaign against the laws.

Unfortunately not much was being written down for obvious reasons and then a lot of the principles involved have passed away.

Try the documentary 'Before Stonewall'. Some crazy person posted it to youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v2qP...

I love that the anti-gay marriage movement has spent wasted collective billions recently in trying to promote their agenda.

Sure, billions of dollars could be better spent to benefit humanity in a positive way, I get that. I wish that was where that money could have gone. It's just that my heart warms every time I think about the possibility that some bigot is scowling at a hole in their bank account that only fell to ignorance or hate-induced futility.

I'm so proud of my home (WA!) state <3

Amoebic wrote:

I love that the anti-gay marriage movement has spent wasted collective billions recently in trying to promote their agenda.

Sure, billions of dollars could be better spent to benefit humanity in a positive way, I get that. I wish that was where that money could have gone. It's just that my heart warms every time I think about the possibility that some bigot is scowling at a hole in their bank account that only fell to ignorance or hate-induced futility.

I'm so proud of my home (WA!) state <3

The downside to that is that billions were also spent/wasted by the winning side.

Who wins? Advertisers, that's who.

Al wrote:

In New York social conservatives punished Republican state Senators that voted for same sex marriage by withholding their support. It worked, those senators lost their seats. Unfortunately they lost them to Democrats who've now taken that state's Senate.

This just cracks me up.

Phoenix Rev wrote:

What a great feeling to wake up to this morning: four HUGE wins for marriage equality.

I hate to break this to you but you're wrong. There weren't four big wins for marriage equality. There were six.

In Iowa Rick Santorum stumped hard for Republicans making a run at the state senate and one of the Iowa Supreme Court judges who affirmed same sex marriage in 2009 was up to be removed from the bench. Democrats held the state senate and Judge Wiggins kept his seat.

In New York social conservatives punished Republican state Senators that voted for same sex marriage by withholding their support. It worked, those senators lost their seats. Unfortunately they lost them to Democrats who've now taken that state's Senate. That pretty much derails NOM's plan to overturn SSM in New York.

wrong thread. But the news here is also good news!

Al wrote:

Rick Santorum stumped hard for Republicans

Why do these threads always devolve into hot, sexy talk?

Someone just posted this to my facebook page and I thought it was chuckle worthy

"It all makes perfect sense now: Gay marriage legalized on the same day as marijuana makes perfect biblical sense. Leviticus 20:13 "A man who lays with another should be stoned." Our interpretation has just been wrong all these years" -Katie Stephens
I am now taking bets on how fast the states' rights folks who wanted marriage equality decided at the state level and by popular vote will now be calling for a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

I was thinking a related thought, with regard to the pot legalization bills: both these issues are great ways to find out if a professed 'states rightsist' is actually interested in state rights, or if it's really about racism.

Malor wrote:
I am now taking bets on how fast the states' rights folks who wanted marriage equality decided at the state level and by popular vote will now be calling for a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

I was thinking a related thought, with regard to the pot legalization bills: both these issues are great ways to find out if a professed 'states rightsist' is actually interested in state rights, or if it's really about racism.

I made the same comment to my wife this weekend. Let's see how this plays out.

Paleocon wrote:

Someone just posted this to my facebook page and I thought it was chuckle worthy

"It all makes perfect sense now: Gay marriage legalized on the same day as marijuana makes perfect biblical sense. Leviticus 20:13 "A man who lays with another should be stoned." Our interpretation has just been wrong all these years" -Katie Stephens

I almost posted that but all versions of Leviticus 20:13 that I googled (I don't own a bible, I don't think) talked about death, not stoning.

Stoning was a popular method of execution for semitic tribes during that time period.

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. NOM is just... vile.

“Their international outreach is where we can have the most effect,” Brown said. “So for example, in Qatar, in the Middle East, we’ve begun working to make sure that there’s some price to be paid for this. These are not countries that look kindly on same-sex marriage. And this is where Starbucks wants to expand, as well as India. So we have done some of this; we’ve got to do a lot more.”

Seth wrote:

Stoning was a popular method of execution for semitic tribes during that time period.

What a fantastic article. When the media spokesperson for the Catholic Church can only pull misdirection ("polygamy is next!") and false equivalence ("you're crushing my freedom of religion!") to further their point, the fight at this point is obviously against them over time.

I've really wondered, though, if the slippery slope argument might not apply. I mean, people arguing for the right to arrange their social lives how they see fit is the ultimate endgame here, I would think.

Congrats to those states who've voted in favour of love and here's hoping the haters and the bigots get buried in the avalanche of popular opinion.

Malor wrote:

I've really wondered, though, if the slippery slope argument might not apply. I mean, people arguing for the right to arrange their social lives how they see fit is the ultimate endgame here, I would think.

That's been true for centuries though, hasn't it? (I'd argue for even longer, but I'll keep it constrained to America to sort of try to keep this on topic.) Our ethos changes over generations. While that change has accelerated over the past few centuries, I think that the root cause of that acceleration is technology and the increased access to information which it provides.

The question of polygamy as part of the slippery slope is amusing to me, as marriage, not gay marriage, opens that question. The legality of gay marriage is no more legally or socially complex than heterosexual marriage. In fact, there are notable societal benefits to permitting it. It doesn't change the arguments against polygamy. Gay marriage is not somewhere further down a slope, it's a correction.

Malor wrote:

I've really wondered, though, if the slippery slope argument might not apply. I mean, people arguing for the right to arrange their social lives how they see fit is the ultimate endgame here, I would think.

I don't really see it that way at all. To me, the question of gay marriage in the legal sense has always been pretty cut and dry. We cannot discriminate, as a nation, on the basis of gender. It's specifically disallowed on so many levels. The fact is that states and other organizations are having to go out of their way to actually forbid gay marriage, because it was not expressly forbidden beforehand. So what is the slippery slope? Tightening the definition of marriage up more and more, or correcting our concept of marriage to fit how we see adults and individuals legally in 99% of how this nation functions?

Polygamy at least has biblical precedent so I'm not sure why the Vatican's bringing that argument out.

Besides which, why not have the debate on polygamy? You have the debate on everything, opinions are reinforced or changed as the broader discussion continues, people vote when things reach a point where it's time to make a decision and sometimes things change. That's democracy in action.

Polygamy is the traditional form of marriage.

Maq wrote:

Polygamy at least has biblical precedent so I'm not sure why the Vatican's bringing that argument out.

Besides which, why not have the debate on polygamy? You have the debate on everything, opinions are reinforced or changed as the broader discussion continues, people vote when things reach a point where it's time to make a decision and sometimes things change. That's democracy in action.

I think the problem is not "we can't talk about polygamy". The problem is that people keep trying to draw an association between gay marriage and polygamy.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Polygamy is the traditional form of marriage.

If I may, polygamy is a traditional form of marriage. Polygamy, like being single, or having one spouse, was one of several traditional forms of marriage.

(Also in the mix, concubinage was also a traditional aspect of live in many ancient lands.)

That is why the "slippery slope" argument is rather hollow. You can't have the slippery slope when we have already gone down it, up the other side, and moved on.

Phoenix Rev wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Polygamy is the traditional form of marriage.

If I may, polygamy is a traditional form of marriage. Polygamy, like being single, or having one spouse, was one of several traditional forms of marriage.

(Also in the mix, concubinage was also a traditional aspect of live in many ancient lands.)

That is why the "slippery slope" argument is rather hollow. You can't have the slippery slope when we have already gone down it, up the other side, and moved on.

It's an awfully slippery slope when someone spills Santorum all over it.