Tag Archives: marriage equality

Japanese Partnership Registries are Being Standardized

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As of November 1, 20 prefectures and 150 municipalities in Japan have joined a sort of “interstate compact” for partnership registries, the “Partnership System Municipal Cooperation Network”. While multiple such agreements were established between cities and some between prefectures, this is the first to be advertised as one which any jurisdiction in Japan can join.

Outside of recognition by the national government and ongoing litigation in national courts on same-sex marriage, this network is the most high-profile effort at a national partnership registry for same-sex and unmarried couples in Japan to date. It is also the most serious attempt at such since the first partnership registry was established in Shibuya ward in Tokyo in 2015.

Should be interesting to watch progress on this network in 2025, despite what’s likely to happen in the United States.

The “Least” Offensive Ways by Which the Abrahamic Fanatics Carve Out Exceptions on LGBT Rights

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Abolishing Marriage Licenses

On August 29, 2019, over four years after the landmark Scotus ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, Alabama followed through on a lingering threat to abolish marriage licenses. The resulting law is…..interesting, to say the least.

Under the new law, county probate judges are now required to record marriage certificates but are no longer required to issue licenses. Couples are no longer required to apply for a license, and only need to complete and send a marriage certificate to a probate judge, who is required to declare the marriage valid. A ceremony may be held for the wedding, but solemnization is no longer required for a recognized marriage in Alabama.

Coincidentally, this method is similar to how marriage is done in Australia. Over there, marriage licenses do not exist, and are instead carried out in the following manner:

  1. the couple notifies a certified celebrant one month in advance
  2. the couple meets the celebrant in person with at least two witnesses over the age of 18 present
  3. the celebrant recites the required words to solemnize the marriage
  4. the couple signs the certificate in front of the celebrant and witnesses
  5. the celebrant sends the marriage certificate to that state’s Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, who registers the marriage as valid.

The Alabama system seemingly discards the need for a celebrant of any type. It’s as close as Alabama might get to common-law marriage. Unironically, this makes sense, even with the Respect for Marriage Act codifying Loving v. Virginia and Windsor v. United States into law. Now, on the other hand….

The “Utah Compromise”

I still think about how Utah’s SB 296 from 2015 has been hailed since as the “Utah Compromise” on LGBT rights. It was written to protect against discrimination in housing and employment for LGBT people. And now SCOTUS may further gut anti-discrimination laws in order to force this compromise on those states which have more comprehensive civil rights laws in place.

Only Indiana and Arkansas went so far as to pass their bills into law (Georgia and Arizona’s were both vetoed by Republican governors), and both did so without an LGBT nondiscrimination bill being considered by their Republican majorities.

The RFRA moment reached its crescendo in state legislatures in 2015-16 in the run-up to and aftermath of Obergefell v. Hodges, after which the religious right shifted its war-making in the direction of targeting public accommodations for transgender people.

What if this outgoing Congress had passed the Fairness for All Act, which adds the broad religious exemptions to LGBT rights protections sought by the LDS church? The ACLU criticized the bill in 2019 due to its singling-out of sexual orientation and gender identity for religious exemptions, its attempted undermining of then-ongoing court cases, and its undermining of child welfare protections.

I’m trying to find an example of a federal bill which would have advanced broad religious exemptions to all existing civil rights law, something like what Indiana’s SB 101 did. I’ve seen federal bills attempting to expand RFRA to vaccines and vaccine mandates during the height of the pandemic, but not yet something that would expand federal RFRA into a sledgehammer against all other federal civil rights law.

That’s the problem, IMO, with the Fairness for All Act being framed as a federal analogue to Utah SB 296. It specifically targets SOGI for exemptions, like bills filed during the pandemic by Ron Estes or Marco Rubio targeted vaccines, when the GOP could have gone whole-hog and targeted all civil rights law like Indiana SB 101 did. Meanwhile, Utah SB 296 only protected against discrimination in housing and employment, said nothing about SOGI in public accommodations, and was built into Utah’s extremely-broad religious exemptions for state civil rights law (even on race and color).

SCOTUS, these days, seems interested in carving out such exemptions on SOGI. The question is how far are they willing to wreck the Civil Rights Act(s) and Americans with Disabilities Act in the process.

Australian Opposition Leader gives the business to right-wing Christian lobby

Amazing speech. And its not just because he directly supports marriage equality in his speech. Or the fact that he said this in front of the right-wing, anti-gay Australian Christian Lobby. Or the fact that he quotes MLK and JFK. Or that he directly addresses income inequality and cuts in foreign aid. YES.

via Bill Shorten speech to the Australian Christian Lobby 2014 Conference – YouTube.

A 74-year-old Navy veteran who challenged Idaho’s marriage equality ban so she could be buried with her late wife in Idaho’s state-run veterans cemetery will have her wishes respected after Idaho state officials agreed to allow the couple to be interred together.

via Lesbian Veteran Will be Buried with Her Late Wife in Idaho Cemetery – National Center for Lesbian Rights.

“They will say we are not here”: Choices, From Uganda to Arkansas

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David Kato’s murder in January 2011 was a brutal footnote in the ongoing attempt to fully criminalize homosexuality in countries which are heavy in Abrahamic religion and light in liberal arts education. U.S. President Barack Obama’s statement of support for same-sex marriage in May 2012 was a touchstone in the history of LGBT people’s relationship with the U.S. electorate.

Two events in LGBT history involving two men of color of renown in two different political climates, in two years.

But I think that they, both Kato and Obama, are examples of what can happen when someone decides not to hide, but to stay, come out and fight.

Some time before his murder, Kato told filmmakers Malika Zouhali-Worrall and Katherine Fairfax Wright this:

“So if I run away, who will defend the others?”

And defend he did, even to his last breath, even as the threat of the upcoming Anti-Homosexuality Law continued to enshadow so many LGBT people in Uganda. It has gotten worse since his death, with the bill now law and more Ugandans seeking asylum in neighboring Kenya or elsewhere.

By contrast, Obama was one of countless beneficiaries of those in the United States who did not run away from their home communities, but stayed and fought for better conditions. By the time he stated his support for marriage equality for same-sex couples, tens of thousands of couples had already gotten married and challenged other states’ prohibitions on their marriages. Several more jurisdictions – state, county, city – had placed non-discrimination laws into their books. But none of these laws would have been instituted had the LGBT residents of these jurisdictions had ran away or focused on their vacations in more LGBT-friendly destinations rather than sought change in their own neighborhoods.

California would not have overthrown Proposition 8 had safer conditions had not been fought for in the 1960s and 1970s by the likes of Harry Hay, Harvey Milk and Jose Sarria. New York would not have gained marriage equality in 2011 had the Stonewall riots not happened against gross police brutality. No anti-discrimination laws would have been sought to the present without a bunch of activists getting them put into law in Ann Arbor and Lansing, Michigan in 1972.

People stuck it out and fought for their posterities when their own sexualities and gender identities were proscribed under state law, when they were subjected to police abuse, when there was nothing to protect them from violence or discrimination.

And now, you have marriage equality in freakin’ Arkansas! South of the Mason-Dixon Line!

So if someone stuck it out here in the Southeast, if someone waited for all these years somewhere in a region which tends to be the last to do anything that is politically inclusive and progressive until after every other region has written such legislation into law, then why can’t I?

My friend Edric from Macon, who runs PFLAG Macon and MaconOUT, tells me often about how so many LGBT people in Middle Georgia would rather indulge in Atlanta Pride every year rather than have a pride festival in Macon or Middle Georgia. But is there nothing in Middle Georgia that is positive for LGBT people?

Nothing at all?

This is why I’m torn right now. I will put myself more into website design, make some money, pay for my expenses, and spend the rest on LGBT-related or UU-related work. But when I have the opportunity to leave for a greener pasture, will I leave? Or will I stay and fight?

Politically, I want to stay, whether it is in Columbus or in Macon, but I want to stay and help the LGBT community here in Georgia.

I want to help build a better, more inclusive community for HIV+ people in the community, LGBT people, women, people of color, organized labor, secular atheist, etc. – in Middle and West Georgia.

By the day, I revisit my interest in going to places like California, with its enticing tech sector, but right now, it’s only half a place I’d want to live in and half a place to visit. The people there are leaps and bounds ahead of where we are here in Georgia, but their experience of equality is only one experience by people who already have a lot more going for themselves.

I think these two regions of Georgia, if we pulled hard and long enough, can go much further. I think this place can be much more inclusive. We can have non-discrimination ordinances, and domestic partnership registries, and more pride/diversity events, and LGBT people being elected to office, and less homeless or destitute LGBT adults and young people on our streets.

I hope to help with that, just as I’ve already helped as President of a Gay-Straight Alliance in college. I plan to stay and fight, whether in Columbus or in Fort Benning, until more people are awakened to the possibilities and can fight for themselves.

David Kato stated “If we keep hiding, they will say we are not here”. That can accurately describe the present situation in Middle and West Georgia.

Edric, let’s not hide. Let’s stay and fight. For Middle Georgia and West Georgia.

My weapon of choice will be this blog.

This weekend took 64 from Hendersonville to Cleveland TN on way back to Macon. There were lots and lots of signs on peoples lawns for only man-woman marriage in Carolina. Problem with voting on issues like that, it is the majority telling the minority what their rights are, and how they can/cannot live within those “gifted” rights. The marriage issue includes a lot of emancipation from family needs, the ability of two people to give power over their bodies and assets to each other in both life and death. Hetereos dont talk about this side of the marriage issue but gays do have to discuss these legal issues even though they dont like to. The legal issues are the most important parts of the marriage issue.