History > 2006 > USA > Gay rights (IV-VI)

Despite laws,

gay wedding industry booms

Posted 12/25/2006
6:17 PM ET
AP
By Dionne Walker
USA Today

RICHMOND, Va. — He's no celebrity, but when Phillip McKee III tied the knot in September, he did it with all the pomp and circumstance of an A-lister: Custom-designed gold rings, a $2,000 kilt and a caviar-and-crepe reception at a five-star hotel.

McKee, 34, sank some $60,000 into his Scottish-themed nuptials, worth it he says for the chance to stand before a minister and be pronounced husband — and husband.

Even as lawmakers across the nation debate legislation banning same-sex marriage, couples are uniting in weddings both miniature and massive, fueling a growing industry peddling everything from pink triangle invitations to same-sex cake toppers.

Vendors say attention to the marriage issue has encouraged more gay couples to recognize their relationships, though in most states, the ceremonies are purely sentimental.

"For the longest time, there was so much shame and privacy around it that people didn't really give themselves permission to have ceremonies like this," said Kathryn Hamm, an Arlington-based wedding consultant who planned McKee's marriage to partner Nopadon Woods. "(Now) the market is growing as the headlines remain out there."

Unlike the multibillion dollar traditional wedding industry, experts say the gay wedding business is harder to track. Some estimates place its value at up to $1 billion.

In 2005, gays spent $7.2 million with vendors found at the Rainbow Wedding Network website, according to data collected by the site, which publishes a national magazine and hosts wedding expos. That's up from $2.1 million in 2002, according to Cindy Sproul, who co-owns the North Carolina firm.

Marriage-minded gays and lesbians are purchasing basics like flowers and limousines. But vendors say couples also are spending on items with a same-sex twist: rainbow bejeweled rings, double-bride thank you cards and "His and His" towel sets.

"We almost completely parallel what heterosexual couples are doing," Sproul said. "The only difference is there may be two grooms, or two brides."

Sproul estimated gay couples spend about $20,000 on ceremonies in states offering some form of recognition, like Massachusetts and Vermont. But couples elsewhere also are investing: Sproul said couples average $15,000 on ceremonies in states that have banned gay marriage such as Georgia, where an annual wedding expo her company hosts draws about 500, mostly black gays and lesbians.

Vinyelle White and Madeline Jones of Richmond spent $4,000 — a month's worth of their combined income — on their August ceremony, a homespun affair with handmade invitations.

"It may sound really stupid to say, but why not," said White, who visited gay wedding websites before choosing an African-themed wedding. "We're showing this is how much we love each other, whether it's legal or not."

Emerging in gay communities largely in the last decade, same-sex marriages — and weddings — recently have been drawn into the national spotlight by attempts to make the unions illegal.

Massachusetts is the only state to date to allow gay marriage, since the Supreme Court ruled in 2003 the state constitution guaranteed that right. According to the Registry of Vital Records and Statistics, 8,764 same-sex couples tied the knot in Massachusetts since the first same-sex weddings began taking place May 17, 2004 through Nov. 9, 2006, the most recent figures available.

In November, Virginia was one of seven states that approved gay-marriage bans, joining 20 that had done so in previous elections. But other states are moving in the opposite direction: New Jersey's gay couples gained new rights last week when the state legalized same-sex civil unions there.

Sharmayne Wesler, a planner with New York's annual GLBT Expo, credited the hubbub and well-publicized gay weddings like that of lesbian rocker Melissa Etheridge in 2003, with encouraging gays to formalize their relationships.

"They too want to be traditional," said Wesler, whose RDP Group has 70 wedding-specific vendors at its expo. "The trend ... is toward really large weddings, none of these simple affairs.

"They want to go to a ceremony with all the bells and whistles."

McKee and Woods invited 200 guests to their black-tie ceremony, followed by a cocktail hour and reception at the Ritz-Carlton, in Tysons Corner, Va.

Groomsmen received engraved pocket watches; a bagpiper, pianist and DJ serenaded guests, who dined on caviar and lobster.

McKee used gay wedding books, websites and a wedding coordinator to find things like gay-friendly photographers. The ceremony cost half their annual income.

In Virginia, the men were no more legally bound after the lavish wedding than before. Still, they considered it a good investment.

"For us, the essence of a marriage is our love," McKee said. "Whether the state honors it is the icing on the cake — it's not the cake itself."

    Despite laws, gay wedding industry booms, UT, 25.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2006-12-25-gay-weddings_x.htm

N.J. governor to sign bill sanctioning civil unions for gay couples

Posted 12/21/2006 9:07 AM ET
AP
USA Today

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey's gay couples are gaining all the rights and responsibilities of marriage under state law as New Jersey moves to become the third in the nation to institute civil unions and the fifth to offer some version of marriage.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine planned to sign the civil unions bill on Thursday.

When the law takes effect Feb. 19, New Jersey will join Connecticut and Vermont as states that allow civil unions for gay couples. Massachusetts allows gay couples to marry, while California has domestic partnerships that bring full marriage rights.

Gay couples granted civil unions in New Jersey will have adoption, inheritance, hospital visitation and medical decision-making rights and the right not to testify against a partner in state court.

The Legislature passed the civil unions bill on Dec. 14 in response to an October state Supreme Court order that gay couples be granted the same rights as married couples. The court gave lawmakers six months to act but left it to them to decide whether to call the unions "marriage" or something else.

Gay couples welcome the law, but some argue that not calling the relationship "marriage" creates a different, inferior institution.

Also, while the state law provide them with the benefits of married couples, they won't be entitled to the same benefits in the eyes of the federal government because of 1996 federal law that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. Surviving partners won't be able to collect deceased partners' Social Security benefits, for example, said family lawyer Felice T. Londa, who represents many same-sex couples.

Donna Harrison, of Asbury Park, has been with her partner, Kathy Ragauckas, for nine years. She isn't exactly celebrating the bill signing, though she said she and Ragauckas will probably get a civil union certificate.

"Although I think they provide some benefit, it is a different treatment of human beings," she said.

Chris Schwam and Steven Piacquiadio, of Collingswood, have been together for 20 years, have a 3-year-old son and had a big wedding in 1993, though it wasn't recognized legally. Schwam, 40, said they will get a civil union, but without a big fuss.

"I don't think my mother would be happy to pay for that again," he said.

The gay rights group Garden State Equality has promised to push lawmakers to change the terminology to "marriage." Others are considering lawsuits to force full recognition of gay marriage.

The bill creates a commission that will regularly review the law and recommend possible changes.

Corzine, a Democrat, said that seems a reasonable approach, but he said calling the arrangement a civil union rather than gay marriage is preferable.

"For most, people marriage has a religious connotation, and for many there is a view that that term is not consistent with the teachings of their religious belief," the governor said. "So there is not democratic support in the broader society for that label, even though there is strong support for equal protection under the law."

Senate President Richard J. Codey, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, said time could bring change.

"The history of civil rights progress, whether it's women's rights, minorities' rights or any other movement, is one that is typically achieved in incremental steps," Codey said. "This is, by no means, the end, but it is a major step forward."

Social conservative groups and lawmakers opposed the measure, reasoning it brings gay relationships too close to marriage, but it easily passed the legislature. Some have vowed to push to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, but Democrats who control the legislature said such proposals won't be heard.

The three-day waiting period required by the law is the same as with marriage licenses. Licenses will be valid for 30 days, and ceremonies can be officiated by anyone who performs weddings, including clergy and mayors. As with marriages, civil unions will have to be witnessed by one additional adult.

    N.J. governor to sign bill sanctioning civil unions for gay couples, UT, 21.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-21-civilunions_x.htm

In New Jersey, Gay Couples Ponder Nuances of Measure to Allow Civil Unions

December 16, 2006
The New York Times
By KAREEM FAHIM

HOBOKEN, N.J. Dec. 15 — Away from the loud political arguments over the New Jersey Legislature’s vote to establish civil unions for same-sex couples, gays and lesbians across the state have begun to grapple with the practicalities: What verb to use? Get unified?

After drinks at a bar here Thursday night, hours after the vote, Rosanna Durruthy, 44, said she and her partner would soon start planning the ceremony they had talked about for years. “This is great,” said Ms. Durruthy, a Hoboken resident who has lived with her partner for nine years. “Will we have the major event where we get the villa in Tuscany? We’re still discussing it.” (She favors the Amalfi coast.)

Ms. Durruthy celebrated the news amid laughter and a long embrace with her old friend Bill Carter, 37, who lives in Texas with his partner. Mr. Carter was happy for his friend and said he considered the law a collective leap forward, but added of his home state: “There are no rights there; sodomy just came off the books.”

New Jersey is the third state to give approval to civil unions; Massachusetts permits gay couples to marry but only if they live in the state. Since Vermont began allowing civil unions in 2000, between 250 and 400 New Jersey couples have gotten hitched there (along with about 200 New York couples a year). Connecticut’s civil union laws took effect in October 2005.

The 2000 Census found about 16,000 same-sex couples living together in New Jersey, though the Urban Institute, a research organization, says the true count is as much as 50 percent higher; nearly one-third of them are raising children.

In interviews with more than a dozen gays and lesbians over the past three days, many talked about following through on long deferred plans now that the law has been passed. Other couples welcomed the broader rights but said little would change, saying that their commitments did not need a government sanction. There was approval from single people as well, even if some had not followed the debate as closely as their friends who share children, homes or bank accounts.

The legislation does not spell out procedures for obtaining civil unions, but advocates for same-sex marriage and state officials said the process was likely to mirror that for marriage. In New Jersey, couples apply for a marriage license in the municipality where the bride lives, unless the bride lives out of state; such rules would most likely have to be tweaked.

After a 72-hour waiting period, set aside to make certain a couple wants to get married, a municipal registrar issues a marriage license. Weddings in New Jersey can be performed by mayors, many judges, village presidents and ministers.

Eric Kabel, who works for a nursing agency and lives in Rahway, said that he and his partner signed up for a domestic partnership in New Jersey the first day that a law passed in 2004 went into effect.

“Neither of us were real activists,” he said. “But we wanted them to see the number of people who signed up as partners.”

When the civil union law takes effect — 60 days after the governor’s expected signature — the couple will head to City Hall, Mr. Kabel said, adding, “I don’t care if the city clerk does it.”

But while they are eager to claim the rights and benefits provided by the new law, Mr. Kabel lamented that a heterosexual couple who met “five minutes ago” can get a marriage license, while he and his partner of 16 years cannot.

“We’re a suburban, boring couple, with a yard, a dog,” he said. “We’re friendly to our neighbors.”

Steve Mandeville and Victor Aluise, partners of 16 years who share a house in Ocean Grove, exchanged wedding bands years ago, in Sedona, Ariz.

“We were in a beautiful place, it was a beautiful day,” Mr. Mandeville recalled. “It doesn’t matter what you want to call it. If it will keep the heterosexual people happy, let’s just call it a union. Isn’t that what a marriage is anyhow?”

Mr. Aluise said the two had not yet decided if they would have another big ceremony, but they would wait until April 25 — the anniversary of their domestic partnership registration — to register for their union. “I’m elated, and I’m proud to be a New Jerseyan now,” he said.

Though advocates for civil rights for gay people vowed to keep pushing for same-sex marriage, Alan Fox, the manager of the bar in Hoboken where Mr. Carter and Ms. Durruthy had a drink, the Cage, said he had no desire for gays to win the right to marry.

Marriage, Mr. Fox said, had been for his parents (who eventually divorced). If he married, “it would be offensive to my people like my mother,” Mr. Fox said.

Jan Moore, 70, hailed the new law as good for young people. “They won’t be made to feel like second-class citizens, people who have to walk around and hide who they are or what they are,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Ocean Grove.

Ms. Moore’s partner, a 77-year-old woman who refused to give her name, gave voice to the fears felt by an earlier generation. “I was in New York when the cops used to raid bars,” she said. “You had to show papers. They’d say, ‘Does your mother know who you are?’ ”

She also said she had no interest in marriage. “I’m an old Italian,” she said. She said when she was growing up “it was always a man and a woman.”

Ms. Moore, a great-grandmother, said she and her partner have been together for 36 years.

“We’ve climbed a mountain,” Ms. Moore said. “I didn’t think I would see this in my lifetime.”

Laura Mansnerus contributed reporting from Trenton.

    In New Jersey, Gay Couples Ponder Nuances of Measure to Allow Civil Unions, NYT, 16.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/16/nyregion/16gay.html

Second Colorado evangelical resigns over gay sex

Tue Dec 12, 2006 9:00pm ET
Reuters

DENVER (Reuters) - A second Colorado evangelical leader in little over a month has resigned from the pulpit over a scandal involving gay sex, church officials said on Tuesday.

Paul Barnes has resigned from the 2,100-member Grace Chapel, a church he founded in suburban Denver, said church spokeswoman Michelle Ames.

Barnes' resignation follows last month's admission by high-profile preacher Ted Haggard that he was guilty of unspecified "sexual immorality" after a male prostitute went public with their liaisons.

Many evangelical Christians view homosexuality as a sin, though some are more strident on the issue than others.

Ames said Barnes told his congregation in a videotaped message on Sunday he had "struggled with homosexuality since he was five years old."

Barnes was confronted by an associate pastor of the church who received an anonymous phone call from a person who heard someone was threatening to go public with the names of Barnes and other evangelical leaders who engaged in homosexual behavior, Ames said.

Barnes, who is married with two grown daughters, then confessed to church elders.

Haggard had been a vocal opponent of gay marriage. He stepped down as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life "mega-church" in Colorado Springs.

    Second Colorado evangelical resigns over gay sex, R, 12.12.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-12-13T015957Z_01_N12378716_RTRUKOC_0_US-EVANGELICAL-SCANDAL-GAY.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-2

Gay and Evangelical, Seeking Paths of Acceptance

December 12, 2006
The New York Times
By NEELA BANERJEE

RALEIGH, N.C. — Justin Lee believes that the Virgin birth was real, that there is a heaven and a hell, that salvation comes through Christ alone and that he, the 29-year-old son of Southern Baptists, is an evangelical Christian.

Just as he is certain about the tenets of his faith, Mr. Lee also knows he is gay, that he did not choose it and cannot change it.

To many people, Mr. Lee is a walking contradiction, and most evangelicals and gay people alike consider Christians like him horribly deluded about their faith. “I’ve gotten hate mail from both sides,” said Mr. Lee, who runs gaychristian.net, a Web site with 4,700 registered users that mostly attracts gay evangelicals.

The difficulty some evangelicals have in coping with same-sex attraction was thrown into relief on Sunday when the pastor of a Denver megachurch, the Rev. Paul Barnes, resigned after confessing to having sex with men. Mr. Barnes said he had often cried himself to sleep, begging God to end his attraction to men.

His departure followed by only a few weeks that of the Rev. Ted Haggard, then the president of the National Association of Evangelicals and the pastor of a Colorado Springs megachurch, after a male prostitute said Mr. Haggard had had a relationship with him for three years.

Though he did not publicly admit to the relationship, in a letter to his congregation, Mr. Haggard said that he was “guilty of sexual immorality” and that he had struggled all his life with impulses he called “repulsive and dark.”

While debates over homosexuality have upset many Christian and Jewish congregations, gay evangelicals come from a tradition whose leaders have led the fight against greater acceptance of homosexuals.

Gay evangelicals seem to have few paths carved out for them: they can leave religion behind; they can turn to theologically liberal congregations that often differ from the tradition they grew up in; or they can enter programs to try to change their behavior, even their orientation, through prayer and support.

But as gay men and lesbians grapple with their sexuality and an evangelical upbringing they cherish, some have come to accept both. And like other Christians who are trying to broaden the definition of evangelical to include other, though less charged, concerns like the environment and AIDS, gay evangelicals are trying to expand the understanding of evangelical to include them, too.

“A lot of people are freaked out because their only exposure to evangelicalism was a bad one, and a lot ask, ‘Why would you want to be part of a group that doesn’t like you very much?’ ” Mr. Lee said. “But it’s not about membership in groups. It’s about what I believe. Just because some people who believe the same things I do aren’t very loving doesn’t mean I stop believing what I do.”

The most well-known gay evangelical may be the Rev. Mel White, a former seminary professor and ghostwriter for the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Mr. White, who came out publicly in 1993, helped found Soulforce, a group that challenges Christian denominations and other institutions regarding their stance on homosexuality.

But over the last 30 years, rather than push for change, gay evangelicals have mostly created organizations where they are accepted.

Members of Evangelicals Concerned, founded in 1975 by a therapist from New York, Ralph Blair, worship in cities including Denver, New York and Seattle. Web sites have emerged, like Christianlesbians.com and Mr. Lee’s gaychristian.net, whose members include gay people struggling with coming out, those who lead celibate lives and those in relationships.

Justin Cannon, 22, a seminarian who grew up in a conservative Episcopal parish in Michigan, started two Web sites, including an Internet dating site for gay Christians.

“About 90 percent of the profiles say ‘Looking for someone with whom I can share my faith and that it would be a central part of our relationship,’ ” Mr. Cannon said, “so not just a life partner but someone with whom they can connect spiritually.”

But for most evangelicals, gay men and lesbians cannot truly be considered Christian, let alone evangelical.

“If by gay evangelical is meant someone who claims both to abide by the authority of Scripture and to engage in a self-affirming manner in homosexual unions, then the concept gay evangelical is a contradiction,” Robert A. J. Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, said in an e-mail message.

“Scripture clearly, pervasively, strongly, absolutely and counterculturally opposes all homosexual practice,” Dr. Gagnon said. “I trust that gay evangelicals would argue otherwise, but Christian proponents of homosexual practice have not made their case from Scripture.”

In fact, both sides look to Scripture. The debate is largely over seven passages in the Bible about same-sex couplings. Mr. Gagnon and other traditionalists say those passages unequivocally condemn same-sex couplings.

Those who advocate acceptance of gay people assert that the passages have to do with acts in the context of idolatry, prostitution or violence. The Bible, they argue, says nothing about homosexuality as it is largely understood today as an enduring orientation, or about committed long-term, same-sex relationships.

For some gay evangelicals, their faith in God helped them override the biblical restrictions people preached to them. One lesbian who attends Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh said she grew up in a devout Southern Baptist family and still has what she calls the “faith of a child.” When she figured out at 13 that she was gay, she believed there must have been something wrong with the Bible for condemning her.

“I always knew my own heart: that I loved the Lord, I loved Jesus, loved the church and felt the Spirit move through me when we sang,” said the woman, who declined to be identified to protect her partner’s privacy. “I felt that if God created me, how is that wrong?”

But most evangelicals struggle profoundly with reconciling their faith and homosexuality, and they write to people like Mr. Lee.

There is the 65-year-old minister who is a married father and gay. There are the teenagers considering suicide because they have been taught that gay people are an abomination. There are those who have tried the evangelical “ex-gay” therapies and never became straight.

Mr. Lee said he and his family, who live in Raleigh, have been through almost all of it. His faith was central to his life from an early age, he said. He got the nickname Godboy in high school. But because of his attraction to other boys, he wept at night and begged God to change him. He was certain God would, but when that did not happen, he said, it called everything into question.

He knew no one who was gay who could help, and he could not turn to his church. So for a year, Mr. Lee went to the library almost every day with a notebook and the bright blue leather-bound Bible his parents had given him. He set up his Web site to tell his friends what he was learning through his readings, but e-mail rolled in from strangers, because, he says, other gay evangelicals came to understand they were not alone.

“I told them I don’t have the answers,” Mr. Lee said, “but we can pray together and see where God takes us.”

But even when they accept themselves, gay evangelicals often have difficulty finding a community. They are too Christian for many gay people, with the evangelical rock they listen to and their talk of loving God. Mr. Lee plans to remain sexually abstinent until he is in a long-term, religiously blessed relationship, which would make him a curiosity in straight and gay circles alike.

Gay evangelicals seldom find churches that fit. Congregations and denominations that are open to gay people are often too liberal theologically for evangelicals. Yet those congregations whose preaching is familiar do not welcome gay members, those evangelicals said.

Clyde Zuber, 49, and Martin Fowler, 55, remember sitting on the curb outside Lakeview Baptist Church in Grand Prairie, Tex., almost 20 years ago, Sunday after Sunday, reading the Bible together, after the pastor told them they were not welcome inside. The men met at a Dallas church and have been together 23 years. In Durham, N.C., they attend an Episcopal church and hold a Bible study for gay evangelicals every Friday night at their home.

“Our faith is the basis of our lives,” said Mr. Fowler, a soft-spoken professor of philosophy. “It means that Jesus is the Lord of our household, that we resolve differences peacefully and through love.”

Their lives seem a testament to all that is changing and all that holds fast among evangelicals. Their parents came to their commitment ceremony 20 years ago, their decision ultimately an act of loyalty to their sons, Mr. Zuber said.

But Mr. Zuber’s sister and brother-in-law in Virginia remain convinced that the couple is sinning. “They’re worried we’re going to hell,” Mr. Zuber said. “They say, ‘We love you, but we’re concerned.’ ”

    Gay and Evangelical, Seeking Paths of Acceptance, NYT, 12.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/us/12evangelical.html

Romney’s Gay Rights Stance Draws Ire

December 9, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — Gov. Mitt Romney, the Massachusetts Republican who has built a presidential campaign on a broad appeal for conservative support, is drawing sharply increased criticism from conservative activists for his advocacy of gay rights in a 1994 letter.

Mr. Romney’s standing among conservatives is being hurt by a letter he sent to the Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts saying that he would be a stronger advocate for gay rights than Senator Edward M. Kennedy, his opponent in a Senate race, in a position that stands in contrast to his current role as a champion of a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

“We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern,” Mr. Romney wrote in a detailed plea for the support of the club, a gay Republican organization.

The circulation of the letter by gay rights groups in recent weeks has set off a storm of outrage among social conservatives, and by Friday was looming as a serious complication to Mr. Romney’s hopes.

Aides to Mr. Romney, who did not dispute the letter’s legitimacy, said that the governor’s opinions on gay issues had not changed. They said Mr. Romney had always been an opponent of same-sex marriage, had always opposed discrimination against gay men and lesbians and had been consistent in his views about allowing them to serve in the military.

“Governor Romney believes Americans should be respectful of all people,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, his spokesman. “However, over the past four years as governor, Mitt Romney has not advocated or supported any change in the military’s policies and he has not implemented new or special rights in this area.”

Mr. Fehrnstrom, echoing the language that Mr. Romney has frequently used on the campaign trail, said Mr. Romney had been “a champion of traditional marriage” and “fought the efforts of activist judges who seek to redefine marriage.”

Nonetheless, the breadth of the letter’s language and the specificity of many of the pledges stunned conservative leaders. Many of them had turned to Mr. Romney as a conservative alternative to Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, whose position on issues like abortion had been considered suspect.

“This is quite disturbing,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, who had praised Mr. Romney as a champion of traditional values at the group’s conference in late September. “This type of information is going to create a lot of problems for Governor Romney. He is going to have a hard time overcoming this.”

Paul Weyrich, a founder of the modern conservative movement, said: “Unless he comes out with an abject repudiation of this, I think it makes him out to be a hypocrite. And if he totally repudiates this, you have to ask, on what grounds?”

The letter, and Mr. Romney’s effort to reconcile it with the way he had presented himself on the campaign trail, reflects what has been one of the central challenges facing him in his campaign: how to move from winning an election in one of the most liberal states in the union to becoming the presidential candidate of a party whose nominating process is dominated by social conservatives.

As it is, he has shifted his position on abortion rights. Last year, Mr. Romney wrote an op-ed article for The Boston Globe saying that his views had “evolved and deepened,” and that he opposed abortion and thought decisions on its legality should be left to states.

The 1994 letter followed a meeting with the Log Cabin Club. Mr. Romney wrote, “I am not unaware of my opponent’s considerable record in the area of civil rights.

“For some voters, it might be enough to simply match my opponent’s record in this area,” he said. “But I believe we can and must do better. If we are to achieve the goals we share, we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern. My opponent cannot do this. I can and will.”

Mr. Romney, recounting in the letter the promises he made in the meeting with the club, said he had agreed to help sponsor a bill barring discrimination against gay men and lesbians if he was elected to the Senate and to broaden it to include protections for housing and credit.

He said he supported the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy created by former President Bill Clinton, and described it as “the first in a number of steps that will ultimately lead to gays’ and lesbians’ being able to serve openly and honestly in our nation’s military.”

Rich Tafel, who was the executive director of the club at the time, said he was stunned by what he described as the contrast between how Mr. Romney came across in their meeting and how he appeared on the campaign trail now.

“I’ve never seen anybody change like this,” he said. “It really does concern me.”

Viewed from some angles, Mr. Romney’s positions on gay rights seem consistent. He still says he opposes discrimination against gay men and lesbians and he always said he opposed same-sex marriage.

But his emphasis has shifted in the last two years. As he moves into this new phase of his career, Mr. Romney rarely talks about the need to protect gay men and lesbians from bias, instead presenting himself as a conservative stalwart in the fight against same-sex marriage, arguing that legally recognizing same-sex unions endangers the cultural support for heterosexual families.

The doubts being raised could improve the prospects of two fellow Republicans who have been seeking conservative support in bids for the presidential election: Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas.

    Romney’s Gay Rights Stance Draws Ire, NYT, 9.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/us/politics/09romney.html?hp&ex=1165726800&en=1b882f9a7cae6ec8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Cheney Pregnancy Stirs Debate on Gay Rights

December 7, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is expecting a baby with her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, Mr. Cheney’s office said Wednesday.

Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, said the vice president and his wife, Lynne Cheney, were “looking forward with eager anticipation” to the baby’s birth, which is expected this spring and will bring to six the number of grandchildren the Cheneys have.

Mr. Cheney’s office would not provide details about how Mary Cheney became pregnant or by whom, and Ms. Cheney did not respond to messages left at her office and with her book publisher, Simon & Schuster.

The announcement of the pregnancy, which was first reported Wednesday by The Washington Post, and Ms. Cheney’s future status as a same-sex parent, prompted new debate over the administration’s opposition to gay marriage.

Family Pride, a gay rights group, noted that Ms. Cheney’s home state, Virginia, does not recognize same-sex civil unions or marriages.

“The news of Mary Cheney’s pregnancy exemplifies, once again, how the best interests of children are denied when lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens are treated unfairly and accorded different and unequal rights and responsibilities than other parents,” said the group’s executive director, Jennifer Chrisler.

Focus on the Family, a Christian group that has provided crucial political support to President Bush, released a statement that criticized child rearing by same-sex couples.

“Mary Cheney’s pregnancy raises the question of what’s best for children,” said Carrie Gordon Earll, the group’s director of issues analysis. “Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father doesn’t mean it’s the best for the child.”

In 2004, Ms. Cheney worked on the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, which won in part because of the so-called values voters who were drawn to the polls by ballot measures seeking to ban same-sex marriage.

Mr. Bush voiced strong approval that year for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, as he did this year, too. While gay rights groups called on Ms. Cheney to speak out against the proposed ban in 2004, she remained silent.

But Ms. Cheney wrote in a book published this year that she had considered resigning from the campaign after learning that Mr. Bush would endorse the proposed amendment. She said that she decided to stay because other important issues were at stake in the 2004 campaign.

As she promoted her book last spring, she said a federal ban on same-sex marriage would “write discrimination into the Constitution.” The vice president has hinted at disapproval of the proposed amendment. Asked where he stood on the issue during a campaign stop in Iowa in 2004, Mr. Cheney said, “Freedom means freedom for everyone.”

Dana Perino, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bush, said that Mr. Cheney had recently told the president about the pregnancy and that “the president said he was happy for him.” The Cheneys have five grandchildren by their other daughter, Elizabeth.

Mary Cheney, 37, is a vice president at AOL; Ms. Poe, a former park ranger, is 45.

    Cheney Pregnancy Stirs Debate on Gay Rights, NYT, 7.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/us/07cheney.html

Conservative Jews Allow Gay Rabbis and Unions

December 7, 2006
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

The highest legal body in Conservative Judaism, the centrist movement in worldwide Jewry, voted yesterday to allow the ordination of gay rabbis and the celebration of same-sex commitment ceremonies.

The decision, which followed years of debate, was denounced by traditionalists in the movement as an indication that Conservative Judaism had abandoned its commitment to adhere to Jewish law, but celebrated by others as a long-awaited move toward full equality for gay people.

“We see this as a giant step forward,” said Sarah Freidson, a rabbinical student and co-chairwoman of Keshet, a student group at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York that has been pushing for change.

But in a reflection of the divisions in the movement, the 25 rabbis on the law committee passed three conflicting legal opinions — one in favor of gay rabbis and unions, and two against.

In doing so, the committee left it up to individual synagogues to decide whether to accept or reject gay rabbis and commitment ceremonies, saying that either course is justified according to Jewish law.

“We believe in pluralism,” said Rabbi Kassel Abelson, chairman of the panel, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, at a news conference after the meeting at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York. “We recognized from the very beginnings of the movement that no single position could speak for all members” on the law committee or in the Conservative movement.

In protest, four conservative rabbis resigned from the law committee, saying that the decision to allow gay ordination violated Jewish law, or halacha. Among them were the authors of the two legal opinions the committee adopted that opposed gay rabbis and same-sex unions.

One rabbi, Joel Roth, said he resigned because the measure allowing gay rabbis and unions was “outside the pale of halachic reasoning.”

With many Protestant denominations divided over homosexuality in recent years, the decision by Conservative Judaism’s leading committee of legal scholars will be read closely by many outside the movement because Conservative Jews say they uphold Jewish law and tradition, which includes biblical injunctions against homosexuality.

The decision is also significant because Conservative Judaism is considered the centrist movement in Judaism, wedged between the liberal Reform and Reconstructionist movements, which have accepted an openly gay clergy for more than 10 years, and the more traditional Orthodox, which rejects it.

The move could create confusion in congregations that are divided over the issue, said Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive director of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which represents the movement’s more than 750 synagogues with 1.5 million members in North America.

“Most of our congregations will not be of one mind, the same way that we were not of one mind,” said Rabbi Epstein, also a law committee member. “Our mandate is to help congregations deal with this pluralism.”

Some synagogues and rabbis could leave the Conservative movement, but many rabbis and experts cautioned that the law committee’s decision was unlikely to cause a widespread schism.

Before the vote, some rabbis in Canada, where many Conservative synagogues lean closer to Orthodoxy than in the United States, threatened to break with the movement.

But Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, said: “I find it hard to buy the idea that this change, which has been widely expected, will lead anybody to leave, because synagogues that don’t want to make changes will simply point to the rulings that will allow them not to make any changes. This is not like a papal edict.”

The question of whether to admit and ordain openly gay rabbinic students will now be taken up by the movement’s seminaries. The University of Judaism, in Los Angeles, has already signaled its support, said Rabbi Elliot Dorff, its rector and the vice chairman of the law committee. He co-wrote the legal opinion allowing gay ordination and unions that passed on Wednesday.

The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, the flagship school in Conservative Judaism, will take up the issue in meetings of the faculty, the students and the trustees in the next few months, Chancellor-elect Arnold Eisen said in an interview. Mr. Eisen said he personally favored ordaining gay rabbis as long as it was permissible according to Jewish law and the faculty approved.

“I’ve been asking the faculty, and time and again I got the same answer,” Mr. Eisen said. “People don’t know what they themselves think, and they don’t know what their colleagues are thinking. There’s never been a discussion like this before about this issue.”

The law committee has passed contradictory rulings before, on issues like whether it is permissible to drive to synagogue on the Sabbath. But the opinions it approved on Wednesday reflect the law committee’s split on homosexuality.

The one written by Rabbi Roth upholds the prohibition on gay rabbis that the committee passed overwhelmingly in 1992. Another rebuts the idea that homosexuality is biologically ingrained in every case, and suggests that some gay people could undergo “reparative therapy” to change their sexuality.

The ruling accepting gay rabbis is itself a compromise. It favors ordaining gay rabbis and blessing same-sex unions, as long as the men do not practice sodomy.

Committee members said that, in practice, it is a prohibition that will never be policed. The ruling was intended to open the door to gay people while conforming to rabbinic interpretations of the biblical passage in Leviticus which says, “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination.”

The committee also rejected two measures that argued for a complete lifting of the prohibition on homosexuality, after deciding that both amounted to a “fix” of existing Jewish law, a higher level of change that requires 13 votes to pass, which they did not receive.

Rabbi Gordon Tucker, the author of one of the rejected opinions, said he was satisfied with the compromise measure. “In effect, there isn’t any real practical difference,” he said.

The Conservative movement was once the dominant stream in American Judaism but is now second in numbers to the Reform movement. Conservative Judaism has lost members in the last two decades to branches on the left and the right. Pamela S. Nadell, a professor of history and director of the Jewish Studies program at American University, said, “The conservative movement is wrestling with the whole question of how it defines itself, whether it still defines itself as a halachic movement, and that’s why there was so much debate and angst over this.”

    Conservative Jews Allow Gay Rabbis and Unions, NYT, 7.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/us/07jews.html

Massachusetts Governor Sues to Compel Vote on Same-Sex Marriage Amendment

November 25, 2006
The New York Times
By KATIE ZEZIMA

BOSTON, Nov. 24 — Gov. Mitt Romney filed a lawsuit Friday asking the state’s highest court to order the legislature to vote on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage or to place it on the 2008 ballot if lawmakers do not take up the provision.

The legislature voted 109 to 87 on Nov. 9 to recess a constitutional convention before the measure was taken up, which appeared to kill it. The convention was recessed until Jan. 2, the last day of the legislative session.

More than 170,000 people have signed a petition asking the legislature to amend the state’s Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. Massachusetts is the only state that permits it.

Mr. Romney, a Republican who did not seek re-election but is considering running for president, announced plans to file the lawsuit at a rally of same-sex marriage opponents on Sunday. The next day he sent a letter to the 109 lawmakers who had voted to recess, saying they were “frustrating the democratic process and subverting the plain meaning of the Constitution” by refusing to vote.

The lawsuit, filed by Mr. Romney, acting as a private citizen, and 10 other opponents of same-sex marriage, said the legislature had a “legal duty to act” on citizen petitions but had relied on procedural devices to “avoid a vote and evade its constitutional duties.” The legislature recessed before voting on the measure two other times this session.

The suit named the Senate president, Robert E. Travaglini, saying he had “failed to carry out his ministerial duty to require final action” on the petition. A spokeswoman for Mr. Travaglini, a Democrat, could not be reached for comment.

The suit asks the Supreme Judicial Court to “step into the constitutional breach” and direct Secretary of State William F. Galvin, also named in the suit, to place the amendment on the 2008 ballot if the legislature does not act.

Fifty of 200 legislators must vote in favor of the constitutional amendment in this session and in the next one for it to appear as a referendum on the 2008 ballot. Both sides have said the amendment has enough support to advance to the next session.

In a statement, Kris Mineau, the president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which circulated petitions for the amendment, applauded the lawsuit. Mr. Mineau said that the recess was a “deliberate effort by those in the legislature to kill the marriage amendment” and that the legislature had failed to “afford the citizens a fair up or down vote.”

Gary Buseck, legal director for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, which won the lawsuit that led to the legalization of same-sex marriage before the same court, called the lawsuit frivolous.

“I can’t see any way in which this lawsuit has any merit whatsoever,” Mr. Buseck said. “The bottom line is, the legislature acted in accordance with its rules and the Constitution and did the right thing to protect the now-declared constitutional rights of same-sex couples to marry. There’s no getting around that.”

Lawrence M. Friedman, a specialist on Massachusetts constitutional law at the New England School of Law, said the court must decide if the State Constitution requires the legislature to vote. Professor Friedman signed a brief supporting same-sex marriage in 2003 but has not been involved in the issue since then.

“This case is not about same-sex marriage,” he said. “This is a case, first, about what the legislature is required to do, and second, if there is anything the court can do about it.

“It’s not at all clear to me how this is something the court can remedy. It doesn’t seem likely to me the court will order the legislature to take a vote or subvert constitutional procedures and just put it on the ballot.”

    Massachusetts Governor Sues to Compel Vote on Same-Sex Marriage Amendment, NYT, 25.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/us/25marriage.html

Gay penguin book shakes up Illinois school

Updated 11/17/2006 7:39 AM ET
By Jim Suhr, Associated Press
USA Today

SHILOH, Ill. — A picture book about two male penguins raising a baby penguin is getting a chilly reception among some parents who worry about the book's availability to children — and the reluctance of school administrators to restrict access to it.

The concerns are the latest involving And Tango Makes Three, the illustrated children's book based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City's Central Park Zoo that adopted a fertilized egg and raised the chick as their own.

Complaining about the book's homosexual undertones, some parents of Shiloh Elementary School students believe the book — available to be checked out of the school's library in this 11,000-resident town 20 miles east of St. Louis — tackles topics their children aren't ready to handle.

Their request: Move the book to the library's regular shelves and restrict it to a section for mature issues, perhaps even requiring parental permission before a child can check it out.

For now, And Tango Makes Three will stay put, said school district Superintendent Jennifer Filyaw, though a panel she appointed suggested the book be moved and require parental permission to be checked out. The district's attorney said moving it might be construed as censorship.

Filyaw considers the book "adorable" and age appropriate, written for children ages 4 to 8.

"My feeling is that a library is to serve an entire population," she said. "It means you represent different families in a society — different religions, different beliefs."

Lilly Del Pinto thought the book looked charming when her 5-year-old daughter brought it home in September. Del Pinto said she was halfway through reading it to her daughter "when the zookeeper said the two penguins must be in love."

"That's when I ended the story," she said.

Del Pinto said her daughter's teacher told her she was unfamiliar with the book, and the school's librarian directed the mother to Filyaw.

"I wasn't armed with pitchforks or anything. I innocently was seeking answers," Del Pinto said, agreeing with Filyaw's belief that pulling the book from the shelves could constitute censorship.

The book has created similar flaps elsewhere. Earlier this year, two parents voiced concerns about the book with librarians at the Rolling Hills' Consolidated Library's branch in the northwest Missouri town of Savannah.

Barbara Read, Rolling Hills' director, has said she consulted with staff members at the Omaha, and Kansas City zoos and the University of Oklahoma's zoology department, who told her adoptions aren't unusual in the world of penguins.

She said the book was then moved to the non-fiction section because it was based on actual events. In that section, she said, there was less of a chance that the book would "blindside" someone.

    Gay penguin book shakes up Illinois school, NYT, 17.11.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-17-gay-penguins_x.htm

Landscapers Cause Furor by Shunning Gay Clients

November 11, 2006
The New York Times
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

HOUSTON, Nov. 10 — Last month, a local landscaping firm prompted a furor here by telling a gay couple in an e-mail message, “We choose not to work for homosexuals.”

The message quickly made its way around the Internet, and the company, Garden Guy Inc., was bombarded with threats and hate mail. But since then, the company’s owners say they have gained far more business than they have lost.

In an interview Friday, Sabrina Farber, 34, co-owner of the company with her husband, Todd, 37, said the company had picked up $40,000 in new business in the past two weeks, while losing only two clients worth about $500 each a year.

“I’m not saying that to gloat,” said Mrs. Farber, who described the frenzy as ugly and emotionally draining. But she said they would not do it differently and deserved credit for not masking their refusal with excuses.

“Why can’t people handle it when you say the truth?” she said.

One of the two gay clients, Gary Lackey, said, “We’re hoping things would die down” and declined to comment further in a telephone interview. The other member of the couple, Michael Lord, did not return a call.

The law appears to be on the Farbers’ side, said Lisa Graybill, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

“The federal law of public accommodations says if you hang out a shingle or open your door you don’t get to say, ‘Only to whites,’ ” Ms. Graybill said. But sexual orientation is not protected. And while some localities, like Seattle, have adopted ordinances extending antidiscrimination protection to gay men and lesbians, she said, Houston has not.

The uproar began after Mr. Lord contacted Garden Guy, whose Web site contains this slogan: “Treating you with respect and honesty are the cornerstones of our reputation.”

It also carries citations from the New Testament — Mrs. Farber volunteered that her husband was Jewish and now practices Christianity — and a message against same-sex marriage that the gay couple evidently overlooked: “The God-ordained institution of marriage is under attack in courts across the nation and your help is needed.”

Mrs. Farber and Mr. Lord talked business on the phone, but after Mr. Lord’s references to his “partner,” Mrs. Farber e-mailed Mr. Lord to cancel their appointment.

“I am appreciative of your time on the phone today and glad you contacted us,” she wrote. “I need to tell you that we cannot meet with you because we choose not to work for homosexuals.”

In the ensuing uproar, the family had to change its private phone numbers, Mrs. Farber said, and turned over to the police copies of threatening messages like “I will sodomize their children.”

Mrs. Farber said her husband, who holds a degree in horticulture from Texas A&M University, had done landscaping for gay clients before but had become increasingly “grieved” over visiting their homes to discuss design and plantings.

Dumbfounded by the e-mail message, Mr. Lord and Mr. Lackey forwarded it to friends, and it circulated widely on gay Web sites. A copy reached The Houston Chronicle, where a columnist, Rick Casey, broke the story on Oct. 20, suggesting that the Farbers “should refuse to do business with all sinners.”

With the affair spreading to the radio airwaves, Houstonians have piled on.

“It seems to me the Farbers must be a little naïve,” a letter writer, Joseph Carroll, wrote The Chronicle. “Don’t they realize they are probably doing business with homosexuals every day? They should check out their pharmacist, hair dresser, bank teller, the nurse at their doctor’s office, the waiter at their favorite restaurant and the church secretary.”

The Association of Professional Landscape Designers condemned the action of the Farbers, whose membership has lapsed, and instituted a requirement for members to abide by an antidiscrimination clause.

In addition to the criticism of the Farbers, there was also widespread support. Mrs. Farber cited one e-mail message from “Eric in St. Louis,” who wrote: “Life to the Farbers who have planted themselves like solid oak trees against these strong winds of perversion.”

Mrs. Farber said she and her husband never claimed to be perfect.

“We’re sinners, Todd and I,” Mrs. Farber said. But she added: “My husband made a personal choice, according to something he felt in his heart. It was never a judgmental choice or a hating choice or even a choice that said, ‘Well, we’re better than them.’ ”

    Landscapers Cause Furor by Shunning Gay Clients, NYT, 11.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/11/us/11landscape.html

Gain for Same-Sex Marriage in Massachusetts

November 10, 2006
The New York Times
By PAM BELLUCK

BOSTON, Nov. 9 — Lawmakers in Massachusetts, the only state where same-sex marriage is legal, dealt what appeared to be a fatal blow Thursday to a proposed constitutional amendment to ban it.

In a flurry of strategic maneuvering, supporters of same-sex marriage managed to persuade enough legislators to vote to recess a constitutional convention until the afternoon of Jan. 2, the last day of the legislative session.

On that day, lawmakers and advocates on both sides said, it appeared likely that the legislature would adjourn without voting on the measure, killing it.

“For all intents and purposes, the debate has ended,” said Representative Byron Rushing, a Boston Democrat and the assistant majority leader. “What members are expecting is that the majority of constituents are going to say, ‘Thank you, we’re glad it’s over, we think it has been discussed enough.’ ”

The measure had been expected by both sides to gain easily the 50 votes required from the 200 legislators as the first step toward making same-sex marriages illegal.

Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which sponsored the amendment, called the recess vote a “travesty,” and, waving a copy of the State Constitution, said the legislators had “just said that it’s irrelevant.”

As for whether the fight was over, Mr. Mineau said, “We’re assessing the situation.”

Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican who opposes same-sex marriage, said the vote was a “triumph of arrogance over democracy.” He said that he would “explore any alternatives” to try to force a vote, but that “my options are limited.”

Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Mr. Romney, said: “The fact that they put this off until the end of the year makes it easier for them to adjourn. If they were giving consideration, I think they would have recessed until tomorrow or maybe Monday or Tuesday next week.”

The action on Thursday came two days after Massachusetts voters elected Deval L. Patrick, a same-sex marriage supporter, as the state’s first Democratic governor in 16 years. Democrats were also elected to all of the statewide offices, leaving the state’s Republican Party in shambles.

But the fact that the amendment had enough supporters to pass the first 50-vote round indicated that the issue of same-sex marriage remains divisive three years after the state’s highest court ruled that such marriages were constitutional in Massachusetts. More than 8,000 same-sex couples have since married.

To bring the amendment before the legislature, the Massachusetts Family Institute had gathered 170,000 petition signatures. If the amendment were to get 50 votes, it would then require the votes of 50 legislators in another constitutional convention in the 2007-8 legislative session. Then it would be voted on in a referendum in November 2008.

Polls have generally found that just more than half of the citizens surveyed supported same-sex marriage, but about the same number wanted the constitutional amendment to come before voters.

The vote to recess followed a day of intense politicking and strategizing by supporters of same-sex marriage. Many legislators, even supporters of such marriages, had said they planned to vote for the amendment for fear that if they did not they would appear to be shirking their responsibility.

Gay rights advocates persuaded the legislators to first take up another amendment to ban same-sex marriage, one introduced nearly two years ago by a conservative lawmaker, but which was now considered by Mr. Mineau and other same-sex marriage opponents to be unable to pass constitutional muster because it would nullify the same-sex marriages that had already taken place.

Because that amendment had been initiated by a legislator and not a citizens’ group, it would have needed 101 votes to pass. On Thursday it was defeated unanimously.

Arline Isaacson, co-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said the plan was to give the legislators political cover with their constituents, because they “can all point to the fact that they fully debated same-sex marriage and took a vote on it.”

Same-sex marriage advocates also persuaded lawmakers to vote for a recess and not an adjournment because if they adjourned, Governor Romney could call them back into session.

Representative Michael A. Costello, a Democrat from Newburyport and a strong opponent of the amendment, said: “The way I looked at it was that we would kill it with a handgun or a hand grenade. It’s never been proper to put civil rights on the ballot. So we killed it through procedure, rather than on substance.”

The debate in the House was full of impassioned speeches.

“I’m 3,000 feet to the right of Attila the Hun, they tell me,” Representative Marie J. Parente, a Democrat from Milford who had lost her re-election bid on Tuesday, told her colleagues. “But you’re not. You’re the other side. The gracious people, the liberal people, the socially conscious people.”

For the 170,000 people who signed the petition and want a referendum, “does your graciousness end?” she asked. “Give the people the right to be heard.”

Senator Jarrett T. Barrios, who is gay and married, told the chamber, “It’s time for a little straight talk.”

Pointing to his wedding band, he said: “You don’t have to live next to us. You don’t have to like us. We are only asking you to end the debate,” so that “we will at least have the right to enjoy the same rights that the rest of you have enjoyed from time immemorial.”

Ariel Sabar contributed reporting.

    Gain for Same-Sex Marriage in Massachusetts, NYT, 10.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10marriage.html?hp&ex=1163221200&en=483323395748e3b8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Gay marriage loses at polls, stem cell may win

Wed Nov 8, 2006 7:41 AM ET
Reuters
By Mary Milliken

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Voters in seven U.S. states rejected gay wedlock by limiting marriage to unions between a man and a woman in one of the few bright spots for conservative Republicans in otherwise disappointing elections on Tuesday.

But Democrats and liberals were claiming victory on stem cell research and abortion, two major social issues that have polarized U.S. voters in recent years.

A lone stem cell initiative in Missouri was poised to win by a narrow margin, mirroring the nailbiting Senate victory of its main proponent, Democrat Claire McCaskill.

Missouri took center stage in the final weeks of the electoral battle after jarring ads by actor and Parkinson's patient Michael J. Fox to support stem cell research. Opponents worry it would lead to human cloning.

In South Dakota, voters favored repealing an abortion law considered the most restrictive in the nation after pro-choice groups campaigned heavily in that state.

As Democrats swept the Republicans out of power in the U.S. House of Representatives and threatened to do the same in the Senate, conservative voters appeared to have turned out to oppose same-sex marriage and possibly help some Republican races.

Republicans had hoped for a repeat of 2004 when conservative voters flocked to the polls to vote against gay marriage and helped secure U.S. President George W. Bush's second term.

"You definitely see a lot of turnout and support for these social issues, like limiting marriage," said University of Southern California law and politics professor Kareem Crayton.

But he said analysts would need some days to determine if ballot initiatives had motivated people to vote and decided close congressional races.

Of the eight states where marriage amendments were on the ballot, seven -- Virginia, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Dakota, Colorado and Idaho -- were headed toward opposing gay marriage. But supporters of gay marriage said they were seeing greater numbers voting in favor of their movement.

GAY GROUPS SEE GAINS

"Two years ago we had 11 of these on the ballot, and in only two of them did we do better than 40 percent," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

"This year there were eight and in at least five of them we did better than 40 percent."

Only Arizona voted against its marriage amendment, but analysts said that does not mean voters favor gay marriage.

"They were voting against a measure in the amendment that would have denied benefits to domestic partners," said Arizona State University analyst Bruce Merrill.

Conservatives will have to rethink their strategy on abortion after the loss in South Dakota where they viewed the strict law as their best chance to challenge a 33-year-old Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States.

"This means that there has been a rebellion against social, right-wing wedge politics that have been dominating this country," said Sarah Stoesz, CEO of South Dakota's Planned Parenthood, key backers of the campaign to kill the measure.

Tobacco and smoking taxes, property rights and minimum wage levels were also big issues among the 205 ballot propositions in 37 states, according to the University of Southern California.

Democrats were declaring victory on minimum wage increases in six states -- their counter-strategy to the conservatives marriage amendment proposals aimed at getting Democratic voters to the polls.

In California, the green power of Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Hollywood icons Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt were no match for big oil companies, which managed to convince voters to quash a tax on oil that would have gone to funding alternative energy. Both sides spent a total of $150 million in the battle.

And in the debate over drugs, two states, Nevada and Colorado, were set to reject proposals to legalize possession of one ounce of marijuana.

(Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard in Dallas, Tim Gaynor in Phoenix and Ann Grauvogl in Sioux Falls, SD)

    Gay marriage loses at polls, stem cell may win, R, 8.11.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-11-08T124106Z_01_N0829679_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-ELECTIONS-INITIATIVES.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-3

Church Leader Resigns Amid Gay Sex Claim

November 3, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:29 a.m. ET
The New York Times

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, has given up his post while a church panel investigates allegations he paid a man for sex.

The Rev. Ted Haggard resigned as president of the 30 million-member association Thursday after being accused of paying the man for monthly trysts over the past three years.

Haggard, a married father of five, denied the allegations, but also stepped aside as head of his 14,000-member New Life Church pending an investigation.

''I am voluntarily stepping aside from leadership so that the overseer process can be allowed to proceed with integrity,'' he said in a statement. ''I hope to be able to discuss this matter in more detail at a later date. In the interim, I will seek both spiritual advice and guidance.''

Carolyn Haggard, spokeswoman for the New Life Church and the pastor's niece, said a four-member church panel will investigate the allegations. The board has the authority to discipline Haggard, including removing him from ministry work.

The acting senior pastor at New Life, Ross Parsley, told KKTV-TV of Colorado Springs that Haggard admitted that some of the accusations were true.

''I just know that there has been some admission of indiscretion, not admission to all of the material that has been discussed but there is an admission of some guilt,'' Parsley told the station.

He did not elaborate, and a telephone number for Parsley could not be found late Thursday.

The allegations come as voters in Colorado and seven other states get ready to decide Tuesday on amendments banning gay marriage. Besides the proposed ban on the Colorado ballot, a separate measure would establish the legality of domestic partnerships providing same-sex couples with many of the rights of married couples.

The allegations stunned church members.

''It's political, right before the elections,'' said Brian Boals, a New Life member for 17 years.

Church member E.J. Cox, 25, called the claims ''ridiculous.''

''People are always saying stuff about Pastor Ted,'' she said. ''You just sort of blow it off. He's just like anyone else in the public eye.''

The accusations were made by Mike Jones, 49, of Denver, who said he decided to go public because of the political fight over the amendments.

''I just want people to step back and take a look and say, 'Look, we're all sinners, we all have faults, but if two people want to get married, just let them, and let them have a happy life,''' said Jones, who added that he isn't working for any political group.

Jones, who said he is gay, said he was also upset when he discovered Haggard and the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage.

''It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex,'' he said.

Jones claimed Haggard paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years. He said he advertised himself as an escort on the Internet and was contacted by a man who called himself Art, who snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience.

Jones said he later saw the man on television identified as Haggard and that the two last had sex in August.

He said he has voice mail messages from Haggard, as well as an envelope he said Haggard used to mail him cash. He declined to make the voice mails available to the AP, but KUSA-TV reported what it said were excerpts late Thursday that referred to methamphetamine.

''Hi Mike, this is Art,'' one call began, according to the station. ''Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply.''

A second message, left a few hours later, began: ''Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff, then that would be great. And I'll get it sometime next week or the week after or whenever.''

Haggard, 50, was appointed president of the evangelicals association in March 2003. He has participated in conservative Christian leaders' conference calls with White House staffers and lobbied members of Congress last year on U.S. Supreme Court appointees after Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement.

After Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004, Haggard and others began organizing state-by-state opposition. Last year, Haggard and officials from the nearby Christian ministry Focus on the Family announced plans to push Colorado's gay marriage ban for the 2006 ballot.

At the time, Haggard said that he believed marriage is a union between a man and woman rooted in centuries of tradition, and that research shows it's the best family unit for children.

Associated Press Writer Dan Elliott contributed to this report from Denver.

    Church Leader Resigns Amid Gay Sex Claim, NYT, 3.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Haggard-Sex-Allegations.html

Editorial

Conserving That Compassion

October 28, 2006
The New York Times

When future generations of Americans look back on the current era, they’ll puzzle over what it was about George W. Bush that made people imagine there was anything compassionate to his conservatism.

Having apparently lost all hope that he can use terrorism to scare voters into electing Republicans this November, the president has now begun raising the threat of gay marriage.

The moment the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a ruling on the subject this week, Mr. Bush began using every possible excuse to bring up “activist” judges and gay weddings on the campaign trail. “I mentioned his love for his family,” Mr. Bush said at a rally for a Republican Senate candidate in Michigan. “He understands what I know, that marriage is a fundamental institution of our civilization. Yesterday in New Jersey we had another activist court issue a ruling ...”

The court in New Jersey, for what it’s worth, was hardly activist. The State Legislature had given gay couples the ability to unite in domestic partnerships that gave them most, but not all, of the legal protections available to married heterosexuals. The court simply said that both kinds of partners deserved the same legal protection, and left it up to the lawmakers to figure out how to do it. Hardly a thunderbolt from the sky, but Mr. Bush took up the cause of protecting the “sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society” as if a cadre of antifamily jurists had just abolished matrimony.

All this is, as everyone knows, just a show for rousing the base. If the last month has taught us anything about the Republican Party, it is that homophobia is campaign strategy, not conviction. Congressmen who trust their careers to gay staffers vote for laws to enshrine second-class citizenship for gays in the Constitution. Gay appointees and their partners are treated as married people at official ceremonies and social gatherings. Then whenever an election rolls around, the whole team pretends it’s on a mission to save America from gay marriage.

Mr. Bush and his faithful acolytes seem perfectly willing to stoke fears that create division and sorrow in a country that doesn’t need any more of either. The president has just a little more than two years left in office. You’d think that for once he’d want to consider devoting his time to making things better instead of worse.

    Conserving That Compassion, NYT, 28.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/28/opinion/28sat1.html

For Gay Couples, Ruling Has a Cash Value

October 28, 2006
The New York Times
By TINA KELLEY

TRENTON, Oct. 26 — The New Jersey Supreme Court granted gay couples the same rights as married couples this week, leaving it to the State Legislature whether to call their partnerships marriages or civil unions.

But for Cynthia and Lucy Vandenberg, the landmark ruling is also about another M-word: money.

The Vandenbergs, who have been partners for 12 years, have been forced to open their checkbooks repeatedly over the years to pay thousands of dollars in taxes on health benefits and for legal transactions that married couples rarely face.

There was the $1,500 to change their surnames, for instance, the $1,400 or so in taxes they paid annually for additional health benefits, and the $1,000 they spent so one could adopt the biological child of the other.

“For all of this, you need to hire an attorney, or you find out the hard way,” said Lucy Vandenberg, 37, the director of the state’s Council on Affordable Housing.

Now they wonder how the court’s decision will affect their next child, a son Lucy is carrying. Will Cynthia Vandenberg have to pay to adopt him?

The court gave the State Legislature 180 days to amend New Jersey’s marriage laws to allow same-sex couples to marry, or to create a parallel system such as a civil union to provide them with all the rights of married couples.

In their decision, the justices made it clear that they understood “the social indignities and economic difficulties” gay couples have faced.

“Without the benefits of marriage, some plaintiffs have had to endure the expensive and time-consuming process of cross-adopting each other’s children and effectuating legal surname changes,” the court said.

Other “economic disadvantages,” the court added, included “paying excessive health insurance premiums because employers did not have enough to provide coverage to domestic partners, not having a right to ‘family leave’ time, and suffering adverse inheritance tax consequences.”

The Vandenbergs, who live in Mill Hill, a gentrifying neighborhood in downtown Trenton, have formed a family with another gay couple, John Hatch, 44, and David Henderson, 48, who live a block and a half away and have been together 18 years.

In a 20-page parental contract signed by all four of them, Mr. Hatch and Mr. Henderson each agreed to be the biological father of one of the Vandenbergs’ children, to give up his parental rights so the biological mother’s partner could adopt the child, and to share in parenting responsibilities.

In other words, a contractually constructed partnership of four adults to raise the children.

Their daughter, Devin, who is almost 2, calls Lucy “Mama,” Cynthia “Mommy,” Mr. Hatch “Daddy” and Mr. Henderson “Dad.” Devin spends most of her time at the Vandenbergs’, though as she gets older she will stay with Mr. Hatch and Mr. Henderson on Tuesday nights and weekends.

They say some straight couples they know envy the arrangement. “It’s great having more adults around,” Lucy Vandenberg said.

Mr. Henderson, a real estate developer, said so many areas of law involve marriage that it is hard for him to imagine a new legal system that would provide equal protection for him and his family.

If the New Jersey Legislature refuses to approve a same-sex marriage law, he said, “it scares me that they could ever actually create some parallel system that was truly equal. Is separate ever equal?”

During an interview with the family, Cynthia Vandenberg, 43, who stays home with Devin, asked Mr. Hatch whether he and Mr. Henderson would marry, should the New Jersey Legislature agree to same-sex marriage.

“You wouldn’t go to Las Vegas?” she asked, then stopped herself. “I mean Atlantic City?”

No, he said, he fantasizes about a celebration in nearby Mill Hill Park.

All four drove to a rally in Montclair on Wednesday night after the court handed down its decision. Also there was Whitney Pillsbury-Clarke, 37, who lives in South Orange with his partner, John Pillsbury-Clarke, 41, and the three children they took in as foster children and later adopted.

“They’d give us the kids, they wouldn’t even blink,” he said, referring to the State of New Jersey. “But we were not good enough to get married. That’s always burned us.”

He described a wall in their house with the various validations of their commitment.

“There’s our certificate of domestic partnership in New York City, a commitment ceremony certificate from the Metropolitan Community Church, and a domestic partnership certificate from New Jersey we got two years ago,” he said.

As he spoke, his children, Sabrina, 5; Caitlin, 4; and Dylan, 2, piled in and out of a double stroller and skillfully negotiated the sharing of a bag of bread.

“And now maybe there will be a civil union, and eventually, a marriage certificate,” he said, adding that he would like to see federally recognized marriage, so his family could move to any state.

“We’ll probably need more wall space,” he said.

Looming somewhere beyond the Legislature’s decision is the question of how other states will treat New Jersey’s same-sex couples. The United States Constitution does not require states to recognize marriages from other states, said Andrew Koppelman, a law professor at Northwestern University and the author of “Same Sex, Different States.”

“No court in American history has ever so held,” he said.

As Mr. Hatch said, “Domestic partnership is pretty good when you’re in New Jersey, but it has no benefit when you’re not.”

And there are other legal questions that have yet to be resolved. For instance, if a same-sex couple lives in New Jersey, would both partners be eligible for health care benefits under a plan offered by a New York company where one of them works?

Debra E. Guston, a Glen Rock lawyer with several gay and lesbian clients, including the Vandenbergs, said she suspected that many thorny legal issues would arise before a new law was in place.

“I’m sure there’ll be a partner who passes away during these six months, and the survivor has to deal with whether or not they’re exempt from the estate tax,” she said.

Already, one of Ms. Guston’s clients, a schoolteacher in West Paterson, may be helped by the ruling. The teacher’s school board had refused to extend benefits to her partner, but will probably have to reconsider, after the Supreme Court decision.

“It certainly has accelerated the discussion,” Ms. Guston said.

Alicia Heath-Toby, 43, of Newark, one of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case, spoke at the Montclair rally, summing up her desire to have the same marital rights as straight people, and to have her love described in the same terms — in legal documents, in daily conversation, on insurance forms.

“No longer is it O.K. to check the ‘other’ box — if I have to check the ‘other’ box one more time. ...” she said, as the cheering crowd drowned out the rest of her sentence.

“ ‘Other’ is no longer acceptable,” she added. “Let us as a state be able to say, I am more than an ‘other.’ ”

    For Gay Couples, Ruling Has a Cash Value, NYT, 28.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/28/nyregion/28gay.html

G.O.P. Moves Fast to Reignite Issue of Gay Marriage

October 27, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 — The divisive debate over gay marriage, which played a prominent role in 2004 campaigns but this year largely faded from view, erupted anew on Thursday as President Bush and Republicans across the country tried to use a court ruling in New Jersey to rally dispirited conservatives to the polls.

Wednesday’s ruling, in which the New Jersey Supreme Court decided that gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights and financial benefits as heterosexual couples, had immediate ripple effects, especially in Senate races in some of the eight states where voters are considering constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage.

President Bush put a spotlight on the issue while campaigning in Iowa, which does not have a proposal on the ballot. With the Republican House candidate, Jeff Lamberti, by his side, Mr. Bush — who has not been talking about gay marriage in recent weeks — took pains to insert a reference into his stump speech warning that Democrats would raise taxes and make America less safe.

“Yesterday in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue a ruling that raises doubts about the institution of marriage,” Mr. Bush said at a luncheon at the Iowa State Fairgrounds that raised $400,000 for Mr. Lamberti.

The president drew applause when he reiterated his long-held stance that marriage was “a union between a man and a woman,” adding, “I believe it’s a sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society and the well-being of families, and it must be defended.”

The ruling in New Jersey left it to the Legislature to decide whether to legalize gay marriage. Even so, the threat that gay marriage could become legal energized conservatives at a time when Republican strategists say that turning out the base could make the difference between winning and losing on Nov. 7. With many independent analysts predicting Republicans will lose the House and possibly the Senate, President Bush’s political team is counting on the party’s sophisticated voter turnout machinery to hold Democratic advances enough that Republicans can at least maintain control.

“It’s a game of margins,” said Charles Black, a Republican strategist who consults frequently with Karl Rove, the chief White House political strategist. “You’ve got about 20 House races and probably half a dozen Senate races that are either dead even or very, very close. So if it motivates voters in one or two to go vote, it could make a difference.”

Democrats predicted Thursday that the debate would not dramatically alter the national conversation in an election that has been dominated by the war in Iraq and corruption and scandal in Washington. But across the country, Republicans quickly embraced the New Jersey ruling as a reason for voters to send them to Capitol Hill.

In Virginia, the court decision could not have come at a better time for Senator George Allen, a Republican whose campaign for re-election had been thrown off course by allegations that he had used racially insensitive remarks. The Virginia ballot includes a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Mr. Allen supports it; his Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, argues that the ban is unnecessary.

On Thursday, Mr. Allen could be found in Roanoke at a rally held by backers of a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage. Victoria Cobb, an organizer of the events, said the New Jersey ruling was giving the cause “a new momentum.”

“It’s an issue that’s going to play a big role in the next 12 days,” Mr. Allen’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, said in an interview.

In Tennessee, another state with a proposal to ban gay marriage, Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., a Democrat running for the Senate, was sparring with Republicans over an advertisement in which the Republican National Committee asserts that Mr. Ford supports gay marriage — an assertion Mr. Ford says is wrong. On Thursday, he responded with his own advertisement, calling the Republican ad “despicable, rotten lies.”

Mr. Ford says he will vote for the Tennessee gay marriage ban. With early voting under way, the Republican candidate, Bob Corker, is telling voters that he has already cast his ballot in favor of the gay marriage ban.

And in Pennsylvania, where Senator Rick Santorum, the Senate’s leading Republican backer of a gay marriage ban, is fighting for his political survival, conservative advocacy groups were working furiously to revive the gay marriage debate. Pennsylvania does not have a ballot initiative.

“It’s an important wedge issue to talk about between candidates where there are two distinct viewpoints on the issue,” said Joseph Cella, president of Fidelis, a national Catholic advocacy group that has embraced Mr. Santorum for his views on abortion and gay marriage. Mr. Cella said his organization, which was also working to pass a gay marriage ban in Colorado, was contemplating an advertising campaign.

As of January 2006, 45 states had enacted some form of law — from a simple statute to a constitutional amendment — banning same-sex marriage. In addition to Virginia, Tennessee and Colorado, the states that have proposed constitutional amendments on the November ballot include Arizona, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

For conservatives, the debate brings back memories of 2004, when they rallied in opposition to a Massachusetts court ruling that same sex couples had a right to marry. The issue proved central in places like South Dakota, where Senator John Thune, a Republican, railed against activist judges in his successful campaign to oust Tom Daschle, then the Senate Democratic leader.

This year, by contrast, conservatives have felt frustrated that the debate over gay marriage and the judiciary is no longer front and center.

“I think they’ve been a little sedate,” Mr. Cella said. But in the wake of the New Jersey ruling, he said, conservatives “are really getting motivated, and this is a shot in the arm to propel that.”

Democrats, though, insist they are not concerned.

“It’s not going to be close to the issue it was in 2004,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “In 2004 they scared people that the court ruling in Massachusetts would just change America and families dramatically. By 2006, it’s clear that hasn’t happened, and so the scare tactic, what motivated people to go to the polls, just isn’t there.”

One place the New Jersey court ruling is not likely to have much of a political impact is, paradoxically, New Jersey, a largely Democratic state that does not have a proposed gay marriage ban on the ballot.

The Republican Senate candidate, State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., has been distancing himself from his party throughout the campaign, in which he has focused largely on economic issues, domestic security and alleged ethical improprieties on the part of his Democratic opponent, Senator Robert Menendez. A Kean spokeswoman said Thursday that theme is unlikely to change.

“We’re going to stick with the issues that we’ve been winning on this entire campaign,” the spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, said. Gay marriage, she said, “is not an issue that he’s not talking about, or that he’s trying to avoid. But in terms of our marquee issues that we’re winning on, I don’t think it rises to an issue that’s going to define the campaign.”

    G.O.P. Moves Fast to Reignite Issue of Gay Marriage, NYT, 27.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/us/politics/27marriage.html?hp&ex=1162008000&en=bb70e8d08855d229&ei=5094&partner=homepage

New Jersey Court Backs Full Rights for Gay Couples

October 26, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID W. CHEN

TRENTON, Oct. 25 — New Jersey’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights and financial benefits as heterosexual couples, but ordered the Legislature to decide whether their unions must be called marriage or could be known by another name.

In a decision filled with bold and sweeping pronouncements about equality, the New Jersey Supreme Court gave the Democratic-controlled Legislature 180 days to either expand existing laws or come up with new ones to provide gay couples benefits including tuition assistance, survivors’ benefits under workers’ compensation laws, and spousal privilege in criminal trials.

All seven justices agreed that the state’s Constitution demands full legal rights for same-sex partners. But its ruling, 4 to 3, revealed a split in how to proceed. The majority said that lawmakers, not the court, should decide whether to call those arrangements a marriage, a civil union or something else. The three dissenters went further, asserting that gay couples, like their heterosexual counterparts, must be allowed to wed.

The New Jersey court did not go as far as Massachusetts, which in 2003 became the first state to permit gay marriage. Instead, it could be considered the new Vermont, which created civil unions for gay couples in 2000, in the politically, legally and culturally charged world of same-sex marriage.

“Our decision today significantly advances the civil rights of gays and lesbians,” Justice Barry T. Albin wrote for the majority. “We have decided that our State Constitution guarantees that every statutory right and benefit conferred to heterosexual couples through civil marriage must be made available to committed same-sex couples.”

But the ruling passed along the thorniest question, of whether true equality demands the same name, to the Legislature, saying “such change must come from the crucible of the democratic process.”

Within minutes of the court’s 3 p.m. announcement, three Democratic Assemblymen, working with Garden State Equality, a gay rights organization, said they would introduce a bill demanding marriage.

But reaction from their fellow legislators was guarded, with some saying privately that civil unions, not marriage, would be the likely result. In a joint statement, the Assembly speaker, Joseph J. Roberts Jr., and the Senate president, Richard J. Codey, both Democrats, called the 180-day deadline “unreasonable” and said, “The only remaining issues now confronting the Legislature are ones of terminology and clarification.”

For people involved in the legal battle over gay marriage, the decision is an important shift from recent court rulings in New York, Washington state and California that essentially rejected gay couples’ claims on marriage and the benefits it confers. And by issuing a nuanced and complicated 90-page ruling that left observers struggling to declare who won and who lost, the court may have neutralized gay marriage as an issue in the Nov. 7 elections, when eight states will consider ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage.

“The decision certainly minimizes what the radical right thought they might have had as a mobilizing tool in the last days of the election,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy organization.

Nathaniel Persily, who teaches law and political science at the University of Pennsylvania and was a co-author of a recent paper titled “Gay Marriage, Public Opinion and the Courts,” praised the justices for “an incredibly smart and politically astute opinion.”

“The court has placed itself exactly where a majority of the American people are,” Professor Persily said. “A majority of Americans are in favor of equal rights for gays tantamount to marriage, but a majority is also against calling that relationship marriage.”

At the same time, he added: “This must be seen as a win for gay rights. They did not get the name they want, but they are getting more rights than could have been imaginable just a few years ago. Who would have thought 50, 20, even 10 years ago that a unanimous state supreme court would have said that gay relationships are entitled to equal rights as heterosexual relationships?”

But conservative groups opposed to same-sex marriage blasted the ruling as an example of the justices essentially trading judicial robes for legislative pens.

“The court is holding a legal gun to the head of the State Legislature, and saying, ‘Listen, there are two bullets, you get to pick the bullet: either gay marriage or civil unions,’ ” said Matt Daniels, president of Alliance for Marriage, an organization based in the Washington area that supports a federal Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. “And that is not democracy. That is court-imposed policy-making that takes this out of the hands of the people.”

Until now, courts in many other states — including the Court of Appeals in New York in July — had rejected similar lawsuits by same-sex couples, with the common rationale being that only the legislative branch can define or redefine marriage. No legislature has yet done that, though several states, including New Jersey, and dozens of cities and towns have enacted domestic partnership laws to grant gay couples some benefits in recent years.

Nineteen states have adopted constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. Most others have statutory bans, but New Jersey and four other states do not. In addition to Massachusetts, where more than 8,000 gay couples have married in the past three years, Vermont and Connecticut authorize civil unions, which generally offer the same legal protections, if not the same societal status, as marriage.

Wednesday’s ruling caps a legal journey begun in 2002, when seven couples who had been denied marriage licenses in their towns filed the lawsuit now officially known as Lewis v. Harris. Two lower courts rejected their constitutional claim, with the Appellate Division ruling in June 2005 that marriage between members of the same sex was neither a fundamental right nor one covered by the constitution’s equal-protection clause.

Many gay-marriage advocates thought New Jersey’s high court, which heard the case Feb 15, was their best shot at victory.

It is regarded as one of the most liberal and independent in the country, having been among the first to strike down a ban on sodomy and rule in favor of adoption rights for gay couples.

The 4-3 split on Wednesday did not break along traditional political lines: the majority included all three justices appointed by a Democratic former governor, while the three dissenters, who backed the more far-reaching solution of opening marriage to gays, were named by a Republican.

“We do not have to take that all-or-nothing approach,” Justice Albin wrote of the marriage question in the majority opinion.

“We cannot find a legitimate public need for an unequal legal scheme of benefits and privileges that disadvantages same-sex couples,” he said. “We cannot find that a right to same-sex marriage is so deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people of this state that it ranks as a fundamental right.”

The court also expounded about the importance of equal treatment to protect children, diverging from the rulings of other state courts, which had said protecting procreation was one rationale for limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.

“There is something distinctly unfair about the state recognizing the right of same-sex couples to raise natural and adopted children and placing foster children with those couples,” Justice Albin said, “and yet denying those children the financial and social benefits and privileges available to children in heterosexual households.”

In the dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz argued that the semantic distinction of marriage versus civil unions was itself a meaningful one, arguing that the institution “bestows enormous private and social advantages.”

Agreeing that same-sex couples deserve the same rights and benefits as heterosexual ones, she wrote that she “can find no principled basis, however, on which to distinguish those rights and benefits from the right to the title of marriage.”

As the case now moves from the domain of the courts to that of the legislature, some parties are gearing up for a fight.

Several Republican legislators — including State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., who is in a close race to unseat United States Senator Robert Menendez — said on Wednesday that they would like to see an amendment to the State Constitution banning same-sex marriage. But with the Democrats in control of both legislative chambers, and Mr. Codey and Mr. Roberts voicing opposition, such a ban seems unlikely.

At the same time, Garden State Equality, the gay rights group, began its lobbying campaign for marriage immediately after the decision, buying several weeks of television time for a new advertisement that began appearing on cable Wednesday night.

The ad features a cancer-stricken police officer, Lt. Laurel Hester, recalling her fight for death benefits for her female partner. Ms. Hester, bald and struggling to breathe, taped the commercial before she died early this year. The ad concludes with words appearing on the screen that read, “Support marriage equality. Your gay neighbors are depending on you.”

Patrick Healy contributed reporting from New York, and David Kocieniewski and Laura Mansnerus from Trenton.

    New Jersey Court Backs Full Rights for Gay Couples, NYT, 26.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/nyregion/26marriage.html?hp&ex=1161921600&en=179e1fdb5c46876e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Connecticut Episcopal Bishop Will Bless Gay Unions

October 23, 2006
The New York Times
By FERNANDA SANTOS

The leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, Bishop Andrew D. Smith, has authorized priests to give blessings to same-sex unions during religious ceremonies. The move threatens to further alienate the conservative wing of his church and deepen a fissure between progressive and orthodox Episcopalians nationwide.

“I believe in my heart and soul that it is time for this church, this diocese, formally to acknowledge and support and bless our sisters and brothers who are gay and lesbian, including those who are living in faithful and faith-filled committed partnerships,” Bishop Smith said on Saturday in a speech at a diocesan conference in Hartford.

The decision, reported yesterday by The Hartford Courant, does not authorize Episcopal clergy to officiate at civil unions or create an official prayer service for the blessings. Rather, it permits parishes to acknowledge gay and lesbian couples who have had a civil union granted by the state. Connecticut approved civil unions last year.

The decision allows each parish to choose whether to acknowledge same-sex couples during religious services, said Karin Hamilton, spokeswoman for the diocese.

Nationwide, nine other Episcopal dioceses — in Arkansas, California, Delaware, Long Island, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Vermont and Washington, D.C. — have enacted policies allowing the blessing of same-sex couples, according to Integrity, a national Episcopal gay organization based in Rochester. Kansas used to have the same policy, but it was rescinded there in 2003, when the diocese ordained a new bishop, Dean E. Wolfe.

“What happened in Connecticut is great news for the church, because what it says is that we’re going to continue to move forward to fully include all of the baptized in the body of Christ, whether they’re gay or straight,” said the Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity and an Episcopal priest in Los Angeles. “We should be in the business of building bridges, not walls.”

But the Rev. Canon David C. Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council, an orthodox umbrella group, said that Bishop Smith’s decision “is proof of his disregard for the larger Anglican Communion and further evidences his militancy with the homosexual gay agenda.”

“Bishop Smith and some other bishops as well are literally choosing to pull themselves and their churches out of the broader religious community,” Canon Anderson continued. “In the future of the Anglican community, there might be no place for people like Bishop Smith.”

With about two million members in the United States, the Episcopal Church has taken significant steps toward inclusiveness in the past few years, most notably with the election of V. Gene Robinson in 2003 as bishop of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in the history of the denomination.

The same year, clergy and laymen overwhelmingly approved a resolution that recognized the blessing of same-sex unions as a prerogative of individual parishes.

The moves strained relations between congregations in the United States and those in the global, more traditional, Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the American arm.

A 2004 report commissioned by the communion’s leader, the archbishop of Canterbury, recommended that the Episcopal Church apologize for the ordination of Bishop Robinson and stop blessing same-sex couples and electing gay bishops.

The Episcopal Church responded at its triennial conference this year, calling on dioceses to avoid backing the election of openly gay bishops.

But in Connecticut, Bishop Smith has continued to push forward his changes, as he has done since becoming the diocesan bishop seven years ago.

In 1999, he changed a longstanding policy to allow the ordination of gay clergy members. In 2000, he and other religious leaders voted to extend health benefits to the same-sex partners of diocesan employees.

“I believe that it is time for us to rethink, repray and reform our theology and our pastoral practices; to welcome, recognize, support and bless the lives and faith of brothers and sisters who are gay and lesbian in the equal fullness of Christian fellowship,” Bishop Smith said in his speech, which drew effusive cheers.

The Rev. Christopher Leighton one of six priests who rebelled against Bishop Smith over his support of Bishop Robinson, said yesterday that Bishop Smith’s position on the blessing of same-sex unions only complicated matters.

“He had a very fiery speech, interrupted by applause at several points and in the end, he got a standing ovation,” said Father Leighton, of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Darien. “This is where the vast majority of the diocese stands on this matter; the problem is that the worldwide Anglican community will have no part in this.”

Father Leighon added, “It’s not that we’re against gays. It’s rather that we’re affirming the traditional beliefs that only a man and a woman should be intimate for life in holy wedlock.”

    Connecticut Episcopal Bishop Will Bless Gay Unions, NYT, 23.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/nyregion/23bishop.html?hp&ex=1161662400&en=a2be2a7204645369&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Gerry Studds Dies at 69; First Openly Gay Congressman

October 15, 2006
The New York Times
By DAMIEN CAVE

Gerry E. Studds, the first openly gay member of Congress and a demanding advocate for New England fishermen and for gay rights, died early Saturday at Boston University Medical Center, his husband said.

The cause was a vascular illness that led Mr. Studds to collapse while walking his dog on Oct. 3 in Boston. He was 69.

From 1973 to 1997, Mr. Studds (whose first name was pronounced GAIR-ee) represented the Massachusetts district where he grew up, covering Cape Cod and the barnacled old fishing towns near the coast. He was the first Democrat to win the district in 50 years, and over the course of 12 terms, he sponsored several laws that helped protect local fisheries and create national parks along the Massachusetts shore.

A former Foreign Service officer with degrees from Yale, he was also a leading critic of President Ronald Reagan’s clandestine support of the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. He staunchly opposed “Star Wars,” or the Strategic Defense Initiative, which Mr. Studds once described as “the Edsel of the 1980’s” — overpriced and oversold.

His homosexuality was revealed through scandal. In 1983, he was censured by the House for having had an affair 10 years earlier with a 17-year-old Congressional page. For Mr. Studds, formal and dignified, a model of old New England reserve, the discovery sparked intense anguish, friends said.

He had long been unsure of the role his sexuality should play. At the nation’s first major gay march on Washington in 1979, he told friends he could neither attend nor stay away.

“His act of courage was to jog within a block of it,” said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, the congressman from Mr. Studds’s adjoining district, who announced his own homosexuality four years later. “He felt that conflicted.”

Once outed, however, Mr. Studds refused to buckle to conservative pressure to resign.

“All members of Congress are in need of humbling experiences from time to time,” Mr. Studds said at the time. But he never apologized. He defended the relationship as consensual and condemned the investigation, saying it had invaded his privacy.

He went on to win re-election in 1984, surprising both supporters and opponents.

For some, it echoed an earlier, unexpected accomplishment: In 1968, as a 30-year-old teacher at St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., Mr. Studds was one of two crucial figures who persuaded Senator Eugene McCarthy to bring his antiwar presidential campaign to the state’s primary. Members of the campaign partly attributed Mr. McCarthy’s surprisingly strong showing there — which helped force President Lyndon B. Johnson out of the race — to the 12-day tour Mr. Studds had scheduled.

“He was a major factor for us in the New Hampshire primary,” said Seymour M. Hersh, who was the press secretary for Mr. McCarthy. “Gerry was just there; he was there with ideas, he was there to organize.”

Mr. Studds’s re-election in 1984 had reverberations of its own.

“In a sense, he became a role model,” said Charles Kaiser, author of “1968 in America” and “The Gay Metropolis.” “His experience convinced other people that it would now be possible to run as an openly gay person.”

Mr. Studds also seemed emboldened by his re-election. He began to demand more money for AIDS research and treatment. He pressed for the right of gay people to serve openly in the military, releasing a previously suppressed Pentagon report in 1989, which concluded that sexuality “is unrelated to job performance in the same way as is being left- or right-handed.”

In addition to speaking on the House floor on behalf of gay marriage, he set an example. In 2004, he and his longtime partner, Dean T. Hara, became one of the first couples to marry under a Massachusetts law allowing gay marriage.

“Gerry often said that it was the fight for gay and lesbian equality that was the last great civil rights chapter in modern American history,” Mr. Hara said in a statement.

“He did not live to see its final sentences written,” Mr. Hara added, “but all of us will forever be indebted to him for leading the way with compassion and wisdom.”

Mr. Studds’s past had recently resurfaced. In the final two weeks of his life, the two-decade-old controversy surrounding Mr. Studds became an issue in the 2006 midterm election campaign as a new Congressional page scandal unfolded.

Though his name had barely been mentioned in Washington since he retired, the resignation late last month of Representative Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, revived interest in Mr. Studds’s own dalliance with a teenage page in 1983.

Across the country, several Republican candidates sought to deflect criticism aimed at their own party by reminding voters about Mr. Studds. The National Republican Congressional Committee chastised Democrats in this year’s race for taking contributions from party leaders who had served with Mr. Studds.

In the Oct. 16 issue of The Weekly Standard, printed before Mr. Studds’s death, the conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer also invoked the retired Massachusetts congressman as he drew a contrast between Republicans and Democrats. Mr. Krauthammer argued that Mr. Foley had resigned immediately and that Mr. Studds had left Congress only after Democrats had lost their majority, which he called “the political equivalent of dying in your sleep.”

Mr. Hara, Mr. Studds’s husband, declined to comment on the newest criticism.

A memorial service will be held in November. In addition to Mr. Hara, Mr. Studds is survived by his brother, Colin Studds; his sister-in-law, Mary Lou Studds; his sister, Gaynor Stewart; four nephews; and his English springer spaniel, Bonnie.

    Gerry Studds Dies at 69; First Openly Gay Congressman, NYT, 15.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/us/15studds.html?_r=1&oref=login

Gay Marriage Losing Punch as Ballot Issue

October 14, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK JOHNSON

DENVER, Oct. 13 — The debate over same-sex marriage was a black-or-white proposition two years ago when voters in 11 states barred gay couples from marrying.

But this year shades of gray are everywhere, as eight more states consider similar ballot measures. Some of the proposed bans are struggling in the polls, and the issue of same-sex marriage itself has largely failed to rouse conservative voters.

In some cases, other issues, like the war in Iraq and ethics in Washington, have seized voters’ attention. But the biggest change, people on both sides of the issue say, is that supporters of same-sex marriage this year are likely to be as mobilized as the opponents.

The social conservatives, who focused on marriage in 2004 and helped President Bush gain re-election in some hard-fought states in the Midwest, have been offset by equally committed and organized opposition. Slick advertising, paid staff and get-out-the-vote drives have become a two-way street.

“The opponents of these measures have had a lot more time to organize and fund their efforts; that has made for a bit of a different complexion,” said Julaine K. Appling, the executive director of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, which supports a constitutional amendment in that state defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Proposals like Wisconsin’s are also on the ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia. And while most of the measures are expected to pass, their emotional force in drawing committed, conservative voters to the polls, many political experts say, has been muted or spent.

Recent polls in Arizona, Colorado, Virginia and Wisconsin, for example, have suggested only narrow majorities in support, in contrast to the 60 to 70 percent or more majorities in most states that voted on the issue in 2004. Two recent polls in South Dakota suggested that the same-sex marriage amendment might actually lose, while a third said it seemed likely to pass.

“As it stands right now, conservative turnout is not going to be as strong as it has traditionally been,” said Jon Paul, the executive director of Coloradans for Marriage, which is supporting a ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage.

Some pollsters say people might just be burned out on the subject of marriage and its boundaries.

“It doesn’t seem to be salient to what most Tennesseans are concerned about right now,” said Robert Wyatt, the associate director of the Middle Tennessee State University poll. The ballot proposal there will almost certainly pass, Dr. Wyatt said, but few people think it will drive turnout or swing the tight race for the Senate between Bob Corker, a Republican, and Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., a Democrat. Both candidates support a ban on same-sex marriage.

Dr. Wyatt said efforts to stir enthusiasm among conservatives have mostly fallen flat.

“It’s one of those things that’s like preaching to the choir,” he said.

The momentum against same-sex marriage at the ballot box has also been hurt by court cases that have upheld bans on same-sex marriage — notably rulings by the highest courts in New York and Washington this summer — by removing some of the urgency for constitutional amendments.

Here in Colorado, the debate has been complicated by the presence of two ballot measures on the subject that in essence work in opposite directions. One measure would add a ban on same-sex marriage to the Constitution, and the other would create a framework of legal rights for same-sex couples in civil unions.

Scholars who track gender-law issues say that gay rights groups and their allies have worked hard since the last election to create a middle-ground position on the question of partnership rights that could appeal to voters who might not vote for same-sex marriage.

The position, which has been repeated like a mantra across Colorado this year by advocates for the civil union proposal, holds that civil unions are not marriage and that if voters want to hold marriage apart as a separate institution for heterosexuals, that would be fine. But it is only fair and just, they say, that couples in other types of relationships have legal protections, too.

Opponents of the civil union bill say that the moderation line is a smokescreen and that same-sex marriage in Colorado will become a reality in fact, if not in name, if the civil union proposition is approved.

“It is nothing short of Orwellian doublespeak to say it is not marriage,” State Representative Kevin Lundberg, a Republican from eastern Colorado, said at a recent forum in Denver on the ballot proposals.

Political analysts suggest that just like patrons perusing an old-fashioned Chinese restaurant menu, voters in Colorado considering the two measures might take one from Column A and one from Column B. Some people say they plan to do just that.

Joel Sidell and Dona Maloy — longtime unmarried partners who live in the Denver area — show how the lines have fractured. Mr. Sidell, 62, a retired police officer and a Republican, said he would probably vote for the ban on same-sex marriage and against civil unions.

“To me, it still does not seem right for a woman to be able to marry a woman and a male to marry a male,” Mr. Sidell said. “I don’t think it’s the sanctity of the term. It just doesn’t seem proper.”

Ms. Maloy, 61, is a Democrat who said she planned to vote the opposite of her partner — no on the marriage amendment and yes to benefits for same-sex partners.

“I think that marriage is a personal thing; at least it is for me,” she said. “Legally, I don’t see why people can’t all have the same rights.”

The two major party candidates for governor in Colorado have also taken opposite sides on the marriage-civil union debate. The Democrat, Bill Ritter, has said he will vote for civil unions and against the constitutional amendment, while the Republican, Representative Bob Beauprez, has said he plans to vote against civil unions and for the same-sex marriage ban. Pollsters say those positions do not appear to be swaying the race, which Mr. Ritter has led by 10 to 15 percentage points in recent polls.

Tangled legal questions over parental rights, health care decisions and employer benefits have emerged in some states where efforts to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions were successful in the past, complicating calculations about how the bans play out in real life. The case of Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins is one example.

Ms. Miller and Ms. Jenkins were joined in a civil ceremony in 2000 in Vermont, which allows same-sex contracts. Ms. Miller had a baby in 2002 through artificial insemination, and they raised the child together. Now they have separated, and both Vermont and Virginia, which does not recognize the validity of Vermont’s civil union system, have claimed jurisdiction over the question of child custody.

Legal experts say the case is probably headed for the Supreme Court. In the meantime, Virginia’s same-sex marriage ballot proposal would define marriage as between a man and a woman and also put into the Constitution the legal language at the heart of the custody battle: that civil unions formed in other states are invalid in Virginia.

That prohibition on civil unions is even too far-reaching for some opponents of same-sex marriage, said Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“It’s so sweeping, it’s giving some people pause,” Mr. Sabato said.

Meanwhile, gay men and lesbians continue to come out in ever greater numbers, especially in some of the states that will be voting on the marriage issue next month.

From 2000 to 2005, the number of people identifying themselves in Census surveys as being in a same-sex couple grew by 30 percent, to about 770,000, according to a study released this week by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, which tracks and researches gay legal issues.

Of the eight states with ballot measures, the study found that six had growth rates higher than the national average, led by Wisconsin, up 81 percent; Colorado, up 58 percent; Virginia, up 43 percent; and South Carolina, up 39 percent.

Conservatives like Mr. Paul of the Colorado marriage group say the low-key tenor of the same-sex marriage debate could change in a thunderclap if a court decision that appears to undermine traditional marriage boundaries is handed down before the election. The New Jersey Supreme Court has a case pending and could issue a decision before Election Day.

Katie Kelley contributed reporting.

    Gay Marriage Losing Punch as Ballot Issue, NYT, 14.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/14/us/politics/14marriage.html?hp&ex=1160884800&en=882b3ae02a33e0bb&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Man Charged in Hate Crimes; Brooklyn Victim Is in a Coma

October 12, 2006
The New York Times
By AL BAKER

A 19-year-old man was charged with hate crimes yesterday in connection with an attack on a Brooklyn man who was lured to a desolate meeting place Sunday night, robbed and forced onto the Belt Parkway, where he was struck by a car and critically injured, the police said.

The victim, Michael J. Sandy, was still in a coma yesterday, relatives said. The attack is being treated as a hate crime because investigators believe the assailants singled out Mr. Sandy for being gay and arranged over the Internet to meet him at a place often visited by gay men. Three other men were being questioned yesterday in connection with the attack, the police said. Officials said a group of as many as four men orchestrated the rendezvous in order to rob Mr. Sandy, telling him in Internet messages to bring enough money to pay for a hotel room.

At 9:40 p.m. on Sunday at the meeting place — a narrow, garbage-strewn parking lot near Sheepshead Bay, sandwiched between Plumb Beach and the eastbound lanes of the parkway — Mr. Sandy, 28, was attacked by at least two of the men, the police said. He backed away from them and, at one point, darted into the path of a car, which struck him and kept going, the police said. The police were still seeking the driver of the car that struck Mr. Sandy.Other cars on the highway were forced to stop as the attack spilled across three lanes of roaring traffic. One witness told detectives that after Mr. Sandy was struck by the car, she saw a man drag him to the shoulder of the Belt Parkway and rifle his pockets.

Detectives investigating Internet communications Mr. Sandy had had were led to the first suspect, John Fox, 19, of Knapp Street in Brooklyn, who is a sophomore at SUNY Maritime College. Mr. Fox was charged yesterday with first-degree assault as a hate crime, and first- and second-degree robbery, also as hate crimes, said a spokesman for Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney. Mr. Fox faces a potentially longer prison term than if the hate crime statute was not applied, according to the spokesman.

Three other men were being questioned at the 61st Precinct station in Brooklyn, the police said. One of those men, a 20-year-old, was expected to stand in police lineups, according to the police. But the police said it was unclear if the two other men would face criminal charges. Also unclear was what role each of the four men played in the incident. The four men range in age from 16 to 20 and all live in Brooklyn near the attack site, the police said.

“The perpetrators had an online interaction with the victim, and they lured him,” said one investigator, referring to what he said was an exchange of AOL instant messages over the course of about an hour.

When asked why the case was being classified as a hate crime, the investigator said: “Because of the totality of the evolution of the crime.”

But the case underlined the fine distinction prosecutors must consider when applying the state’s hate crime law. Under the law, established in 2000, a hate crime is typically defined as one in which a victim is chosen because of race, color, sexual orientation, religious practice or some other protected category, said Brian S. MacNamara, an assistant professor of law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“The prosecutor will have to prove that in the underlying assault and robbery the victim was targeted in some way because of his sexual orientation,” said Professor MacNamara. “It’s a little bit tricky because, obviously, the main crime was the robbery, so you have to prove that the motivation for selecting that victim was substantially because he was gay.”

As Mr. Fox was led from the precinct station yesterday, his hands cuffed behind his back, his father, John Sr., yelled out, “John, I care about you.”

He later defended his son to reporters, speaking about his son’s goal of becoming a naval officer, and said he was perplexed by the hate-crime charge. “He never did anything like that before,” the elder Mr. Fox said. “Why would he be rabidly anti-gay? I don’t know.”

McCartha L. Lewis, Mr. Sandy’s aunt, said the family was rallying to support her nephew as he remained in critical condition yesterday at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center. She said that Mr. Sandy was in a coma with his breathing supported by a respirator, and that the family was struggling with whether to remove him from it.

Ms. Lewis said the family wanted to wait at least until today, Mr. Sandy’s 29th birthday, before making that decision.

“The doctors want us to pull the plug, but I told them no,” said Ms. Lewis, 66, a singer who lives in Jamaica, Queens.

Mr. Sandy’s father, Ezekiel E. Sandy Sr., is Ms. Lewis’s brother, and she said that another of his sons, Tony, had come from Tobago to be with the family.

“He’s a very good boy,” Ms. Lewis said of Michael Sandy. “He is a hard worker and he is very nice.”

    Man Charged in Hate Crimes; Brooklyn Victim Is in a Coma, NYT, 12.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/nyregion/12attack.html

Foley Case Upsets Tough Balance of Capitol Hill’s Gay Republicans

October 8, 2006
The New York Times
By MARK LEIBOVICH

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 — Every month or so, 10 top staff members from Capitol Hill meet over dinner to commiserate about their uneasy experience as gay Republicans. In a wry reference to the K Street Project, the party’s campaign to build influence along the city’s lobbying corridor, they privately call themselves the P Street Project, a reference to a street cutting through a local gay enclave.

For many of those men and other gay Republicans in political Washington, reconciling their private lives and public roles has required a discreet existence. But in the last week, the Mark Foley scandal has upset that careful balance.

Since Representative Foley, Republican of Florida, resigned after it was revealed he had sent sexually explicit electronic messages to male pages, gay Republicans in Washington have been under what one describes as “siege and suspicion.”

Some conservative groups blamed the “gay lifestyle” and the gathering force of the “gay agenda” for the scandal. Others equated homosexuality with pedophilia, a link that has long outraged gay men and lesbians.

Conservative blogs and Web sites pointed out that gay staff members played principal roles in investigating the Foley case, suggesting that the party was betrayed by gay men trying to hide misconduct by one of their own. In the meantime, a group of gay activists, angered by what they see as hypocrisy by gay Republicans, have begun circulating a document known as The List, a roster of gay Congressional staff members and their Republican bosses.

“You can see where it would be easy for some people to blame gays for something that might bring down the party in Congress,” said Brian Bennett, a gay Republican political consultant. He was a longtime chief of staff to former Representative Robert K. Dornan, Republican of California, who regularly referred to gays as Sodomites.

“I’m just waiting for someone in a position of authority to make this a gay issue,” Mr. Bennett said of the Foley case.

The presence of homosexuals, particularly gay men, in crucial staff positions has been an enduring if largely hidden staple of Republican life for decades, and particularly in recent years. They have played decisive roles in passing legislation, running campaigns and advancing careers.

Known in some insider slang as the Velvet Mafia or the Pink Elephants, gay Republicans tend to be less open about their sexual orientation than their Democratic counterparts. Even though the G.O.P. fashions itself as “the party of Lincoln” and a promoter of tolerance, it is perceived as hostile by many gay men and lesbians. Republicans have promoted a “traditional values” agenda, while some conservatives have turned the “radical gay subculture” into a reliable campaign villain. And there are few visible role models in the party; Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona is the only openly gay Republican in Congress.

As the blame from the Foley case has been parceled out in recent days, some people in Washington suggested that the Republican leadership’s inadequate response to alarms about Mr. Foley was borne of squeamishness in dealing with a so-called gay issue. Meanwhile, some Republican staff members worried that several gay men caught up in the scandal would be treated unfairly.

They include Kirk Fordham, Mr. Foley’s onetime chief of staff who resigned Wednesday as an aide to Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, Republican of New York, and Jeff Trandahl, formerly the clerk of the House of Representatives, a powerful post with oversight of hundreds of staffers and the page program. The two men were among the first to learn of Mr. Foley’s inappropriate communications. Along with the Republican leadership, they have been criticized for failing to act more aggressively to stop the congressman’s behavior, and possibly covering up for Mr. Foley.

Mr. Fordham and Mr. Trandahl did not hide their homosexuality, and they were well known in Washington’s gay community. (Neither returned phone calls seeking comment.) Others, though, strenuously protect their private life.

“You learn to compartmentalize really well,” said one Republican strategist who, like many gay Republicans interviewed for this article, would speak only anonymously for fear of adversely affecting his career.

Mr. Fordham’s history illustrates the potential tensions between private life and professional rhetoric. After leaving Mr. Foley’s office in 2004, he worked as finance director for the campaign of Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida. In that race, a Martinez campaign flier accused a political rival of favoring the “radical homosexual lobby” by supporting hate crimes legislation that included protections for gay men and lesbians.

One of the inevitable facts, said Mr. Bennett, the former Dornan aide, is that “there are just going to be some days when it’s hard to be a gay Republican.”

When asked why he remains in the party, Mr. Bennett gave an answer common to gay Republicans: he said that he remained fundamentally in sync with the small government principles of the party and its approach to national security, and that he was committed to changing what he considers its antigay attitudes.

“I’m fighting hard, every day,” said Mr. Bennett, who was among a small group of gay Republicans who met with George W. Bush during his 2000 presidential campaign.

Like Mr. Bennett, other gay staff members wind up working for politicians they consider infamous for their inflammatory remarks and hostility to their cause.

Robert Traynham, the top communications aide to Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, endured the fallout from an interview with The Associated Press in 2003 in which Mr. Santorum seemed to equate homosexuality with bestiality, bigamy and incest, among other things. Mr. Traynham had been openly gay for years, but that was not widely known in his professional life — until a gay rights advocate revealed his sexual orientation last year. Mr. Traynham confirmed the report, and Mr. Santorum issued a statement in support of his aide.

In contrast to what many view as the right’s increasingly antigay rhetoric, members of both parties say there has been a growing tolerance for gay men and lesbians within the Republican ranks.

“There’s been a change from 20 years ago when people used to be hyperconscious of staying in the closet,” said Steve Elmendorf, an openly gay Democratic strategist who was the chief aide to former Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who served as the Democratic leader. “Now there’s more of an evolution to a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ rule.”

An addendum could be “don’t flaunt.” “You just don’t wear it on your sleeve, bottom line,” said one gay Republican staff member.

“I always made a point of dating women,” said Mr. Bennett, who disclosed that he was gay after his tenure with Mr. Dornan.

Others point out that advancing the beliefs and careers of the boss is a priority, and staff members are expected to stay in the background. “Discretion is what most members expect from their staff, no matter who you are,” said Tracey St. Pierre, who was chief of staff for former Representative Charles T. Canady, Republican of Florida.

“For many conservative Republicans, just being gay in itself is an act of indiscretion,” said Ms. St. Pierre, who is gay but was not open about it until shortly before leaving Mr. Canady’s office. When she worked with him in the mid-1990’s, one of his chief causes was legislation that would ban same-sex marriage. Ms. St. Pierre, who works for a federal agency, considers herself an independent now.

The code of behavior largely extends to Republican politicians themselves, a point underscored by Mr. Foley, who just this week publicly acknowledged that he was gay. He appeared in public with women whenever possible and held parties at his home, which one guest described as decorated with photographs of himself with attractive women.

Mr. Foley had always refused to discuss his sexual orientation, a topic that drew increasing attention as he considered a bid for the Senate in 2004. Amid intensifying rumors about his personal life, he decided not to run.

Despite Mr. Foley’s silence, people on Capitol Hill assumed he was gay. “It was commonly known on Capitol Hill by staff and members,” said Representative Ray LaHood, Republican of Illinois. “People have their own lifestyles as long as they mind their own business and play by the rules.”

Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida who served with Mr. Foley, said, “If you’re a gay Republican, you have to act like a Republican.” Mr. Scarborough, who is now the host of “Scarborough Country” on MSNBC, said “acting like a Republican” entailed going out on the campaign trail “talking about guns, chewing tobacco and riding around in a pickup truck.”

He contrasted that with gay Democrats, “who can strut around and still get a standing ovation.” He cited the case of former Representative Gerry E. Studds, a Democrat of Massachusetts who is openly gay, who became embroiled in a sex scandal involving a page and still won re-election. And Representative Barney Frank, another gay Democratic Massachusetts congressman, has attained almost iconic status among gay men and lesbians.

Gay members of both parties describe the Foley matter as something that could jeopardize the role that gay men and lesbians have assumed in Republican politics.

One gay Republican campaign strategist said he feared that conservatives would “play to the base” and redouble their efforts to vilify homosexuals. “It’s one of the places the party goes when it’s in trouble,” he said. “A lot of us are holding our breath to see how this plays out.”

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.

    Foley Case Upsets Tough Balance of Capitol Hill’s Gay Republicans, NYT, 8.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/washington/08culture.html?hp&ex=1160366400&en=04a2c0bca257d759&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Gay Unions Get Strong Support From Spitzer

October 7, 2006
The New York Times
By DANNY HAKIM

By saying on Thursday night that he will push to legalize gay marriage, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer put himself at the vanguard of the effort to recognize such unions, staking out a position that most prominent Democrats, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, have shied away from.

Mr. Spitzer, who is running for governor and holds a commanding lead in the polls, made his strongest declaration yet in support of gay marriage in his remarks to the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state’s leading gay lobbying group. He told the audience, “We will make it law in New York.”

If elected, Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, would be the most prominent state official in the nation to call for the legalization of gay marriage, though Democratic candidates for governor in California and Massachusetts have also expressed support. Many prominent Democrats, including Senator Clinton, have supported gays on other issues but not on this one, which has led to friction in their relations with gay leaders. Among the few prominent politicians who support it are Senators Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats; and Lincoln Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican.

The nationwide effort to legalize gay marriage has sputtered since a Massachusetts court legalized such unions in that state in 2004. In July this year, the New York State Court of Appeals said the issue should be decided by the State Legislature, giving the issue new immediacy in the state.

Mr. Spitzer’s position could be a perilous one for a politician considered presidential material, and he has acknowledged that if elected governor, he would first push other legislative priorities including cutting property taxes and overhauling Medicaid . But last night he said he would not let outside pressures influence his stance.

“We will not ask whether this proposition of legalizing same-sex marriage is popular or unpopular; we will not ask if it’s hard or easy; we will simply ask if it’s right or wrong,” he told a crowd of nearly 1,200 gathered at a Midtown hotel ballroom. “I think we know in this room what the answer to that question is.”

Even with a governor’s support, there is the not insubstantial matter of the State Legislature. Gay marriage bills have not advanced beyond committees in the Assembly, where Democrats have an overwhelming majority, and would face a difficult path in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Mr. Spitzer’s Republican opponent, John Faso, does not support gay marriage.

Shortly after Mr. Spitzer’s speech, Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, said he did not expect action in the first year of a potential Spitzer administration.

“New York has a lot of problems,” he said. “When Eliot Spitzer takes office on January 1, he’s going to have to fix Medicaid reform, there’s school funding, there’s a dragging upstate economy, and he needs to tackle those issues, but I’m confident that at the end of his first term as governor, we’ll have marriage equality in New York State.”

Mr. Van Capelle has not been known for his patience. In a video played shortly before Mr. Spitzer’s speech, Mr. Van Capelle criticized politicians who call themselves friends of the gay community but don’t follow through with reliable support, as pictures of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and United States Senators Clinton and Charles Schumer flashed on the screen.

Thomas K. Duane, a gay state senator from Manhattan, called Mr. Spitzer’s speech “beyond reassuring.”

“There was no tremendous imperative for him to come and be as forceful as he was, which is a very good sign. He could have come and equivocated.”

He also expressed some optimism that the measure might succeed in the State Senate, which is controlled by a slim Republican majority. Joseph L. Bruno, the Republican Senate majority leader, has said he does not support gay marriage, but his stance on gay issues has moderated over time, giving Mr. Duane some hope.

Mr. Bruno rescinded domestic partner benefits for Senate staff members when he first became majority leader in 1994 but later reversed himself on that and other issues. In 2002, speaking in support of the Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act, he said, “Maybe I have become more enlightened,” adding that he wanted to recognize that “people have the right to live their lives as they see fit.”

But his staff reiterated yesterday that he opposes gay marriage.

The newly designated leader of the Senate Democrats, Malcolm Smith, made an unexpected appearance at the Pride Agenda’s event on Thursday and assured Mr. Duane that he was supportive of their cause. On Wednesday, he had been noncommittal on the issue.

Mr. Silver has declined to take a position on gay marriage. Deborah Glick, a Democrat from Manhattan who is the Assembly’s only openly lesbian lawmaker, said that if Mr. Spitzer introduced a bill on his own, it would reshape the dynamics of the debate in Albany.

“Clearly the dynamic is shifting,” she said, adding that while Mr. Spitzer’s general support would be helpful, “it would be even more helpful if there was a bill from the governor for the Legislature to consider. It puts the governor’s full weight behind it.”

    Gay Unions Get Strong Support From Spitzer, NYT, 7.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/07/nyregion/07gays.html?hp&ex=1160280000&en=3a183d9c83908c7d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

California Court Upholds State’s Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

October 6, 2006
The New York Times
By JESSE McKINLEY

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 5 — In the latest turn to a long and winding legal fight over same-sex marriage, a California appeals court on Thursday upheld the state’s ban against it.

The 2-to-1 decision, which reversed a lower court’s finding that the ban violated the California Constitution, said the plaintiffs in the case were asking the courts “to recognize a new right,” a step it said only the Legislature or the voters could take.

“Courts simply do not have the authority to create new rights,” said the decision, written by Justice William McGuiness, “especially when doing so involves changing the definition of so fundamental an institution as marriage.”

Justice J. Anthony Kline dissented, taking issue in part with the majority’s contention that because of domestic partnership laws, same-sex couples had rights comparable to those of married heterosexuals.

Domestic partnership and marriage are inherently unequal, Justice Kline said.

Dennis Herrera, the city attorney for San Francisco, said that the decision was a disappointment but that the city and other plaintiffs would appeal to the California Supreme Court.

San Francisco threw one of the first punches in the gay-marriage battle in February 2004, when Mayor Gavin C. Newsom directed the city’s clerk to begin issuing marriage licenses for same-sex couples. The move was almost immediately challenged in court.

Those challenges were upheld in 2004 by the State Supreme Court, which said Mr. Newsom had overstepped his authority but which stopped short of ruling on the constitutionality of state marriage laws, including a 2000 ballot measure, Proposition 22, that defined marriage as the union of man and a woman.

A decision on the constitutionality of the laws was not long in coming, however. In April 2005, Judge Richard A. Kramer of San Francisco County Superior Court ruled that limiting marriage to people of the opposite sex impinged on a fundamental right to marry, and declared the ban unconstitutional.

Like previous decisions, Judge Kramer’s ruling was immediately appealed. It was this appeal that led to Thursday’s decision.

Groups opposed to gay marriage characterized the appellate court’s ruling as a “crushing defeat to the same-sex-marriage agenda.”

In a statement, Matthew D. Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which argued the case for an anti-gay-marriage group, said: “The marital union of a man and a woman uniquely fosters responsible procreation, contributes to the continuing well-being of men and women, to society, to children and to the state. Same-sex relationships by definition and nature cannot constitute marriage.”

The mood among supporters of a right to same-sex marriage, meanwhile, was still optimistic, despite a series of earlier legal setbacks around the nation, including defeats at the high-court level in New York and Washington State and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s veto of a bill, adopted by the Democratic-controlled Legislature, that would have lifted California’s ban.

Jon W. Davidson, legal director of the gay rights group Lambda Legal, said the organization had always believed that the issue was bound for the State Supreme Court.

“Many of these cases around the country have been very close,” Mr. Davidson said. “It’s hard to know for sure what the California Supreme Court would do, but I think we would get a fair shake there.”

    California Court Upholds State’s Ban on Same-Sex Marriage, NYT, 6.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/us/06gay.html