A new study by a Spanish gay rights group reports that about 10,000 gay marriages have taken place since Spain legalized gay marriage in 2007.
Spain has about 30 million people in 2008 over the age of 15. If 3 percent of the population is homosexual, that would be about 900,000 gay and lesbian adults. So 20,000 gay people have chosen to marry so far -- about 2 percent of gay adults. Why so few?
Gay marriage advocate (and--like Ted Olson, the lawyer opposing Prop 8--a Federalist Society member) and law professor Dale Carpenter recently said he was advising a Minnesota gay rights group on how they could lawfully exclude a street preacher from handing out literature against homosexuality at a large gay pride even in a public park that 200,000 folks will attend.
Prof. Carpenter argues that the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which had a right to exclude pro-gay rights groups from marching, is the relevant paradigm. A federal judge just said "no go guys." If the First Amendment means anything it means you can speak, preach, and hand out literature in a public park. Nobody is going to think that the gay rights groups authorized his speech. "As a festival attendee in a public forum, Johnson is entitled to speak and hand out literature, quintessential activities protected by the First Amendment, so long as he remains undisruptive," Judge Tunheim wrote in the 19 page ruling, according to the WSJ.
A win for the First Amendment. But look how many establishment and "conservative" gay rights figures now believe the First Amendment means: we get to restrict your rights to disagree?
The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that Hastings College of Law could require that all student groups be open to any student, regardless of that student's views. Theoretically Christian groups under this "all comers" policy would have to accept not only gay students, but atheists and Buddhists as members and officers of their groups, and vice versa. Gay rights groups would have to accept Prop 8 supporters as full voting members, too. But the Court left open the possibility that Hastings applied the policy in a discriminatory manner, against some groups but not others, as the facts of the case strongly suggest. Bottom line: Case continues. Most media will report this as a big win for Hastings. But see: http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/230398/i-cls-v-martinez-i-my-first-quick-take/david-french
Salon asks David Boies to describe the arguments for marriage as the union of husband and wife. Boies is clueless.
These are the guys who keep lauding each other as brilliant?
In a few days, NOM will be launching our Summer for Marriage Tour 2010, taking the message for marriage directly to the American people and building support for marriage all across the eastern half of the United States.
Over 33 days, we’ll travel more than 6000 miles, holding rallies in 23 cities from Maine to Minnesota to Atlanta and Tampa before heading back to Washington, DC for the tour finale on August 15th.
Many of the states we’ll be visiting are key battlegrounds in this critical debate, as we work to organize grassroots support for marriage as the union of a husband and wife at both the state federal levels, building support for state marriage amendments and opposing the repeal of DOMA.
Please visit www.marriagetour2010.com for the latest tour information, including the bus schedule, a chance to register for email alerts from the tour, and video footage of each tour stop.
We need your help to make this summer’s tour a success! Please click here to make your online contribution today. $60 would cover a penny per mile! $115 would be $5 toward the costs of each rally. Whatever you can give will go far as we work together to organize support for marriage all across the nation!
Then tell your friends and come out to see us when we come to your hometown this summer!
What does it take to get the WaPo to call you a "rising star" in the GOP and instant "Veepstakes" material in 2012? Be a pro-gay marriage, pro-choice Republican, of course.
Like Charlie Baker, running for governor of Massachusetts on the GOP ticket. WaPo, swooning, is pretending Baker is following the Scott Brown formula. But Sen. Brown was pro-marriage amendment and far more openly prolife than his opponent. (He describes himself as pro-choice but opposes partial birth abortion and federal funding; He was endorsed by the Susan B. Anthony List as well as NOM.) Baker did manage to sum up the energy to pledge to veto the so-called "bathroom bill" which adds gender identity to Massachusetts discrimination law--similar language in Maine this year lead the Maine Human Rights Campaign to propose integrating bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools and universities.
Baker is running just seven points behind an unpopular state governor in latest polls. Will be interesting to see how this plays out in Massachusetts, but don't hold your breath for anyone named Baker on the ticket in 2012.
Charlie Baker, best of luck, but to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, Scott Brown is a friend of ours, and you are no Scott Brown.
This is just a marketing scheme. But if you want to know how Mars Chocolates chose Charlotte, NC as America's Manliest City, take a look here. My question: why is a chocolate company ranking manliness at all?
David Weigel has resigned after numerous emails surfaced disparaging conservatives. Weigel was hired as a conservative to cover the "conservative beat" for WaPo. A few weeks ago, he blogged that he has sympathy for everyone he covers except for those who oppose gay marriage, whom he called "bigots." Now it appears his sympathies for conservatives are more generally limited. Weigel Resigns: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0610/Weigel_resigns.html
Background: More Leaked Weigel Emails: http://www.politico.com/blogs/onmedia/
NOM's founding Chairman of the Board, Robby George, is a renaissance man. Here's a photo of Robby at the Becket Fund gala (which I attended) where he was honored with the Canterbury Medal for his contribution to the religious liberty of all faith communities.
We here at NOM certainly understand that SSM and related laws based on the assumption that Christian and other traditional faiths' views of marriage and sex are somehow akin to racism are serious threats to religion in America and the world. We are grateful to Robby and to all defenders of religious freedom!
Insemination Services? Who knew? Lovely photo of two women headlined "They Just Found Out They Were Expecting Finally"
Because nothing causes infertility like attempting to have a child with another woman?
Dear Friend of Marriage,
Black Democrats to the rescue of marriage!
Saturday I had the honor of attending the D.C. State Democratic Convention with Bishop Harry Jackson.
African-Americans for marriage turned out in force, shocking the D.C. establishment!
I wish you could have been there. Strong marriage supporters, unafraid of the media or anything else, chanting "Let us vote! Let us vote!" If the mainstream media were what it should be, this would be the picture in every living room in America: Politicians blocking the door to the voting booth against citizens of D.C. in order to impose gay marriage on an unwilling populace.
The political establishment was shocked when all these newfound activists almost knocked off Harry Thomas in the straw poll the DC Dems conducted. His opponent, Delano Hunter, is a strong marriage supporter, eager to knock off a politician who ignored the will of his constituents and voted for gay marriage.
Exciting times!
They keep telling us "the culture has changed, gay marriage is the future." When they stop blocking the path to the voting booth, when they accept the legitimacy of elections like the one which passed Prop 8, then maybe they would have something believable to say about that. Let the people vote!
It's going to be a hard fight through the courts to vindicate the people's right to vote in D.C., but we are fighting for their rights and the rights of all Americans. Just as in Prop 8 last week, NOM's Chairman Maggie Gallagher was there, and NOM's Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund is helping fight for our constitutional rights.
If you believe in the right to vote, can you help us defend the Constitution from these ongoing attacks? We need to raise $8,479 in the next 48 hours for NOM's Legal Defense Fund, which supports not only Prop 8's able lawyers and the legal campaign to win back the right to vote in D.C., but also litigation designed to protect voters and donors from campaigns of harassment and intimidation. I am looking for 150 people willing to donate $57 each. Will you step forward to be one of NOM's 150 for the Legal Defense of Marriage?
Not everyone has money to give, we understand. (With six kids, believe me, I understand!) So here's something else you can do for marriage this week. Republican leaders have put up a website, America Speaks Out. But it's being slammed by liberals trying to create the impression that Republicans support gay marriage. We asked for your help on this before, but the website had glitches. Here's the good news: They've been fixed. Go here, login and vote "Thumbs Up" to protect marriage between a man and a woman.
Thank you!
How many times have you heard that you and I are like racists because we know that to make a marriage you need a husband and wife? Gay-rights advocates say this over and over--most recently, former judicial conservative Ted Olson stood before Judge Vaughn Walker and repeated this point ad nauseam. They don't just say we are racists; they try to get courts to rule as if marriage were akin to racism, founded only in bigotry. They use this argument in D.C., San Francisco and all across this country as their principle justification to taking away our right to vote for marriage.
Good news. Heritage Foundation's Tom Messner just published a devastating critique of "the race analogy" in National Review Online. It’s posted here. Check it out.
His sensible conclusion?
"Defending marriage is not similar to defending racism. Loving didn't fundamentally redefine the natural understanding of marriage. Rather, the 1967 decision rescued marriage from an extreme ideology that sought to hijack marriage for purposes unrelated to marriage itself. Today, the courts faced with Perry and similar litigation should do the same."
In other words, it is gay-rights advocates who (like the racists of old with their bans on interracial marriage) are trying to hijack marriage for ideological purposes that have nothing to do with marriage's core mission.
Of course their motivations are "progressive" rather than racist and that makes a difference, but it doesn't change the fact that gay marriage is an illegitimate attempt to "take over" a natural institution and reality and use it for new ideological purposes.
As Chuck Cooper pointed out in the final arguments in San Francisco last week, race was never part of the natural definition of marriage. Interracial marriage had to be "banned" because people understood that these were marriages; the bans were designed to keep two races separate so one race could oppress the other. That's what the 14th Amendment was designed to prevent, not the common-sense understanding of marriage.
Thanks Tom for speaking out for the truth, common sense, and sound and intelligent understanding!
And thank you, my friends and fellow comrades in this great battle for God's truth about marriage, for all that you make possible.
We've got big plans for this summer: to fight back against out of control judges, and to defend the votes of millions of Americans from out-of-control judges and an out-of-touch political elite. I can't tell you more right now but stay tuned, it’s going to be exciting.
Let me end on a small grace note. We do so much here at NOM that I can only tell you a part of it. But one young college student recently wrote to thank us, in this case Maggie.
"I recently wrote a college paper on marriage as public policy, and I could not have done it without the extensive work you have done on the subject. I've read your newspaper columns before, but until I started researching this topic I was unaware of the exhaustive treatment you had given the matter. I am now more fully prepared to discuss and defend traditional marriage with any who wish to confront the issue. Your writings on the matter are at the same time intellectually challenging and emotionally compelling. Thank you for making so much information available. I hope anyone who wavers finds your work and is strengthened by it as I was."
The next generation. That's what it's all about, isn't it?
You are the reason we can do so much. God bless you and strengthen you and your family, this day and always.
Semper fi!
Faithfully,
Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage
2029 K Street, NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006
[email protected]
David Blankenhorn responds to Maureen Dowd's silly screed. http://familyscholars.org/2010/06/21/letter-to-the-new-york-times-not/
The statement of Michael Benjamin, D-Bronx:
Assembly Member Benjamin - Statement Against No-Fault Divorce
I am opposed to no-fault divorce because it would harm most women in divorce proceedings. According to the National Marriage Project at Rutger’s University, a woman’s standard of living drops by an average of 27% and a man’s increases by 10% following a divorce.
In addition to the economic disadvantages imposed by this bill, I am also against no-fault divorce because it would define marriage as something temporary and trivial. Under the provisions of the law, marriage would essentially be defined as a contract that could be broken at any time, for any reason.
Due to the economic disadvantage that women face, combined with my unwillingness to break down the blessed institution of marriage, I can not in good conscience vote for no-fault divorce.
Do our bodies matter or is everything socially constructed? This interview with a donor conceived young woman shows an incredibly sophisticated, nuanced exploration of how fatherhood--yes biological fatherhood, and motherhood, matter.
She was donor conceived, her older sister was adopted, and her younger brother, a product of her mom's second marriage, was born to and raised by his natural mother and father.
A social experiment all in one family that gives this young woman some incredible insights.
A web editor at The Nation writes in response to a new study My Daddy's Name is Donor, by Elizabeth Marquardt, Prof. Norval Glenn and Karen Clark. http://www.thenation.com/blog/36426/kids-are-just-fine-thanks
For some reason, this editor describes me as a key player at IAV, which sponsored the study. I have not been affiliated with IAV for more than 7 years.
Also the lead author's name is Marquardt, not Marquandt.
Does The Nation have editors?
