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By Sheldon S. Wolin
$19.77
$15.64
$18
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By Ellen Goodman — Warren Jeffs, a polygamist prophet, is on trial for aiding in the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl he married off to her cousin. It’s a sad story featuring an abhorrent man, but something about the case just doesn’t feel right to Ellen Goodman.
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AP Photo / Charlie Niebergall
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Just hours after Iowa’s ban on same-sex marriages was lifted by Polk County Judge Robert Hanson, the judge agreed to stay his ruling upon a request from the Polk County attorney, who will file an appeal. However, one lucky couple was able to seal the deal before the stay was granted.
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By Ellen Goodman — Massachusetts is once again leading the nation against the forces of tyranny. The state that radically approved same-sex unions to the apparent horror of the rest of the country now finds itself increasingly in the mainstream of public opinion.
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The comedian sounds off on why the controversy surrounding gay marriage strikes her as ridiculous.
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washingtonpost.com
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Fewer than a quarter of American households contain a married couple with children, down from half in 1960. While the numbers are lower across the board, the nuclear family appears to have become a luxury, with wealthier people far more likely to marry before having children.
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Read around the cliches about single women and cats etc. and find in this NYT story an interesting window into how shifting social values and socioeconomic stratification contribute to a marriage “happiness gap” for many Americans without college educations.
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badgerherald.com
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The city of Madison, Wis., will allow public officeholders to protest the state’s gay marriage ban when they’re sworn in this April, adding this caveat to their oaths: “I pledge to work to eliminate this section from the constitution ... and work to prevent any discriminatory impacts from its application.”
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Both houses of New Jersey’s Legislature have approved the creation of civil unions, granting the protections of marriage to gay couples as required by a recent court ruling. The governor has said he will sign the bill, making New Jersey the third state to adopt civil unions.
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gaypasg.org
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A panel of Conservative rabbis has approved a relatively gay-friendly interpretation of Jewish law, paving the way for ordinations of gays and same-sex commitment ceremonies.
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AP Photo / Ambrose Peters, Sunday Times
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Two game rangers in South Africa have become the continent’s first legally married same-sex couple. South Africa’s constitution was the first in the world to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.
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From Molly Moore / The Washington Post
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Marriage rates in France are about 45 percent below U.S. levels. Whence the trend? Theories: This (French) generation’s nearly universal rejection of religion, and a massive migration to more independent-friendly urban areas.
Despite warnings from religious conservatives, society hasn’t crumbled in tandem with marriage rates.
Also, out-of-wedlock births are up in the U.S.—and not only to teens, but to mothers choosing to put off marriage.
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South Africa’s National Assembly approved new legislation recognizing gay marriages. So now America is lagging behind the former apartheid state in civil rights.
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globalgayz.com
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In the face of heated opposition, Mexico City’s Assembly passed legislation allowing gays the rights and privileges of civil unions. Mayor Alejandro Encinas is expected to endorse the law, which will also offer protection to heterosexual couples.
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365gay.com
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Republicans across the country have seized the threat of gay marriage in a desperate attempt to hold on to Congress. Now that the “security” issue no longer offers the boost it once did, the GOP is counting on homophobia to drive voter turnout.
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Hurrah for the Garden State, whose state Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples are entitled to “the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes.”
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By Jabari Asim — Who would have thought Snoop Dogg would end up serving as a role model for old-school romance?
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flickr/Coffee Monster
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In the 2004 election, anti-gay ballot measures effectively drew conservatives to the ballot box, but the appeal of banning gay marriage is wearing off, polls suggest.
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Want to see unbridled hate masquerading as a defense of “values”? Watch Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo) call the prevention of gay marriage “the most important issue we face today.” (More important than global warming, terrorism, etc.)
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By Ellen Goodman — Washington state’s Supreme Court says it limited marriage to heterosexual couples in order to encourage procreation. OK, so what about straight couples that can’t or don’t want to have kids? Are they banned from marriage, too?
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Lewis Black was back on the Daily Show on Wednesday satirizing the debate over gay marriage. After playing a clip of Congressman Phil Gingrey, in which the lawmaker said, In my opinion, marriage isnt just any kind of love. Its a love that can bear children, Black quipped, Hey Congressman, take my word for it. A one-night stand with no love, a Quaalude and three beers can also bear children.
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Bigots are delighting at this blow against tolerance. Massachusetts is now the only state still extending full marriage benefits to homosexual couples.
On an intellectual level, it’s interesting to read the logical flights of fancy that judges have to make in their opinions to codify this kind of hatred into law.
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The New York Court of Appeals stated last week that it upheld a gay marriage ban because gay couples make more stable parental units than heterosexual couples—and thus the latter need the benefits of marriage to assist them. The reasoning behind this is wild, but it’s also insidious. Check it out.
Update: Nebraska just reinstated its gay marriage ban.
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From CBS
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“Jesus never said one word about homosexuality, never said one word about civil marriage or abortion,” said a prominent religious left leader in an article about religious progressives trying to regain the political ground they lost after the MLK Jr. era. (h/t: Huff Po)
The mixing of religion and politics is a bad idea regardless of the ideological slant. But until Sam Harris wins that argument… (more)
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More than a million worshipers in Spain showed up to hear the pope deliver a homily in which he made a veiled attack on Spain’s liberal legal attitude toward gay marriage and divorce. Conspicuously not in attendance: the Spanish prime minister. It’s apparently the first time in history that a Spanish leader has missed such an address.
Que bueno. Memo to Pope Benedict XVI: Keep on dressing up hate speech as The Good News and you’ll continue to be marginalized by more-enlightened world leaders.
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From Emilio Naranjo / EPA/ Time Mag
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And he’s using it to make statements like this to an audience in Spain, where same-sex marriages were legalized last year: “The family is a unique institution in God’s plan, and the church cannot fail to proclaim and promote its fundamental importance.?
God, what a guy: powerful enough to create a universe but still needs the help of a former Hitler Youth to stigmatize homosexuals.
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Salon’s Sara Miles writes an excellent personal essay on the N.Y. gay marriage ruling—explaining that the gay marriage ban hurts the children it claims to protect. (Ad wall)
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Just when it appeared that there might be a glimmer of hope in the darkness…New York and Georgia go and remind us that when it comes to gay marriage, the USA is still in the Dark Ages.
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From deskpicture.com
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The political satirist reports on the president’s discovery of what could be the greatest wedge issue of the 2006 midterm elections.
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Stephen Colbert highlights a clip of an editor from the Wall Street Journal saying that in the wake of a woman in India supposedly marrying a snake, gay-marriage supporters in America should now be required to guarantee that animal marriage is not around the corner.
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Maybe it was towering piles of evidence attesting to the fact that virginity pledges don’t work, but whatever it was, Congress declined to add more funds to abstinence-until-marriage programs. (Via Salon.)
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From real-e-works.com
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In the wake of the marriage ban’s failure in the Senate, conservative Christian leaders are discussing an unprecedented—although apparently legal—maneuver to amend the Constitution without congressional approval.
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In a newly released report, the Vatican described same-sex marriages as an “eclipse of God,” and said that feminism “reinforced the individualistic image of man and woman” and in doing so was “surpassing the family.”
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From NBC4
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The leader of the Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., lent his support to same-sex civil unions, but not same-sex marriage.
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By Norman Solomon — Members of the media have been too easy on the Republican push to ban gay marriage. Yes, it may be all about politics, but does that mean society shouldn’t react harshly to the attempt to codify discrimination in our Constitution?
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The Senate voted down a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, but Republicans will keep the issue alive in the House with another vote. Two Democrats, Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson and West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, voted in favor of the ban.
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It’s not enough to just worry…. What’s important is to worry about the right things. And that’s where the Republicans come charging to your aid. With just a bit of GOP education, your anxieties will be perfectly on target.
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Top: Mike Luckovich / Middle: Dwayne Powell / Bottom: Mr. Fish
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President Bush renewed his call for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Detractors called the move transparently political—in light of the fact that the proposed amendment stands virtually no chance of passing either house of Congress.
Full-sized cartoons: top, middle, bottom
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Yet more evidence that the abstinence-until-marriage crowd is deluding itself into believing that virginity pledges have any real value. (Above, virginity pledgers and their fathers at a so-called purity ball.)
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Newsweek anonymously quotes a friend of the president’s as saying, “I think it was purely political. I don’t think he gives a s—t about” gay marriage.
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By Joe Conason — “Of all possible explanations for the mainstream media’s preoccupation with the Clinton marriage, the most innocuous is nostalgia for a better time, when we were able to worry less about war, corruption, catastrophe and incompetence, and more about sex.”
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Twenty years ago this week Newsweek speculated that a “40-year-old single woman was ‘more likely to be killed by a terrorist’ than to ever marry.” In this week’s cover story, they retract the hackneyed thesis and reexamine the marriage statistics. (h/t: Broadsheet)
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From edgeboston.com
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Landing another left on the right, as the Daily News put it, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg vowed that the city will perform gay marriages, if permitted, and came out strongly against a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriages.
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Immigration: Time to Choose Sides
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