Sunday Drive: Massachusetts

My truckbuddy Frank and his hubby Leon have been enjoying a sentimental journey back to their old stamping grounds in Provincetown on Cape Cod - which put me in mind of this sentimental favorite from the Bee Gees in 2001. While you listen, go check out Frank's great pics of their sojourn on Reluctant Rebel.

Note:  the song ends at about 2:30; the rest is just chatter.

Marriage News Watch, 11/18/13

I would post Matt Baume's regular marriage news roundup from AFER here - but I've been trying to open YouTube for thirty minutes now, and I keep getting an error message and a lot of gobbledygook, even after rebooting my machine. Is it just me, or has the end of the world started and nobody told me?

Meanwhile, rejoice that today is the 10th anniversary of the Goodridge decision in Massachusetts, which ordered the first same-sex marriage laws in the United States - and led us to where we are now, with 16 states and a third of the population living in marriage-equality jurisdictions.

Or if that doesn't get a rise out of you, maybe this will - provided as a public service by your Head Trucker:

Update, 5:40 p.m.: YT finally came back to life, so here's Matt.



Should I take down the butt pic now?


Update, 11/20/13:  Governor Pat Quinn signed the Illinois same-sex marriage bill into law today, making Illinois the sixteenth state to allow such unions. Marriages will begin when the law goes into effect next June 1.

The Right to be Ordinary

Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, writing in the Washington Post:

Nine years ago Friday, same-sex marriages started happening in Massachusetts, and the time since then has proved wonderfully unremarkable. The sky has not fallen. The earth has not opened to swallow us up. Thousands of good people, contributing members of our society, have made free decisions about whom to marry. Most have been joyful and lasting. Some have failed. Ho-hum. And even as this principle of government treating people equally spreads to 11 more states and the District of Columbia, even as mean-spirited politicians stoke discord over marriage equality in election years, people just keep on being people, choosing their life partners by the same old mysteries, regardless of sexual orientation. Gays and lesbians, like blacks and whites a generation ago, want nothing more than to be ordinary.

As our nation’s highest court considers two cases addressing same-sex marriage — one challenging the ban on equal marriage in California and the second challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — I hope the justices consider the Massachusetts experience. If our constitutional democracy doesn’t mean that people come before their government as equals, then democracy itself is up for grabs. And the impact of affirming that principle, by striking down the California ban and DOMA, is to let a large part of our population keep their personal decisions private.

Our court’s 2003 decision in Good­ridge v. Department of Public Healthwas clear-eyed about that. The majority opinion, written by then-Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, remains an urgent call to justice. It also offers a timeless and eloquent description of marriage that transcends sexual orientation.

“Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family,” Marshall wrote. “Because it fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition.”

When the “self-definition” people seek is to be ordinary, government ought to step back and let them be.

Manhunt in Boston

Photo of the two men the FBI says planted the bombs that killed three and
maimed or wounded dozens at the Boston Marathon on Monday.
The black-hatted Suspect #1 is now dead, and white-hatted Suspect #2
is at large, the subject of an intense search in the Boston area.

Friday, 5:30 a.m. - The wheels of justice are turning swiftly in Boston. Overnight, two law enforcement officers have been shot, one fatally, and one of the prime suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings is dead, with the other being tracked by a massive manhunt in the suburbs of the city.

Authorites have ordered residents in those areas to stay indoors, businesses have likewise been ordered not to open, and the entire Boston transit system has been shut down across all of Boston - something completely unprecedented. I'm sure the news is all over cable TV, but for folks like your Head Trucker, who doesn't have cable (by choice) and for my overseas truckbuddies, here are a couple of good sources for news, frequently updated, which I've been following all night as the story has progressed:

NBC news videos

The Guardian's live blog (A sign of the times - a British newspaper has some of the most up-to-date info on an American crime scene)

Boston.com, the online presence of the Boston Globe, also updates its main story from time to time, but overnight not as quickly as the other two.

I hope they catch Suspect #2 shortly, and no police officers or innocent bystanders get hurt.


Update, 6:45 a.m., Texas time - The two suspects are said to be brothers originally from the Chechnya region of Russia, but have lived in the Boston area with their family since 2002. WTF??


Update, 6:00 p.m. - After sleeping all day, woke up to find the suspect is still at large - how, with so many thousands of cops and troops combing the area? The whole of Boston has been locked down all day until finally about the time I woke up, the Governor said people could go out and about again. I can't second-guess the cops but I wonder if shutting down an entire metropolitan area was really necessary for one 19-year-old on the run - even with a gun and a bomb.

But just now, there's been another volley of gunfire in Watertown, so I'm watching the live NBC report as cops and paramedics swarm on a location there. Hope they have the little bastard and can bring an end to all this fear and worry.

This week's New Yorker cover by Eric Drooker is well done:

6:30 p.m. - NBC reports suspect has been found in a boat, apparently in someone's back yard. Helicopter view confirms he is moving, not dead. Cops waiting around for something, not sure what. This is too much like a Hollywood movie - I'm sure somebody in California is writing a new screenplay right now, you know they will make a million billion on the film when they get it made. Calling Ben Affleck, Matt Damon.

7:45 p.m. - NBC reports wounded, bloody suspect has been taken alive, no police hurt, medic called for, cheers going up on the sidewalks of Watertown. A peaceful end to this terrible week, thanks be to God. Now the doctors can mend him, the cops can interrogate him, the courts can try him. And then, I sincerely hope, the hangman will swing him high.

8:45 p.m. - Governor Duval, Mayor Menino, police chiefs, FBI head agent, U. S. Attorney, others give news conference. Suspect is in serious condition at Massachusetts General, the huge regional hospital Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston. Ecstatic crowds applauded and cheered police, firefighters, troops, paramedics, etc., as they left the area following the suspect's capture. I'm sure all my fellow Americans feel relieved and proud too. Way to go, Boston!

For the historical record, Rachel sums up the happenings of the last two days:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Adam Gopnik reflects on this week's events in the New Yorker:

Surprises surely await us as we go on, but an intuitive scenario—in which an older brother who had struggled with the promise and disillusion of American life and turned to extremist Islam for comfort, dominated and seduced a younger brother not born or made for violence—seemed plausible. But all of our experience suggests that it is not “fundamentalism” alone but an aching tension between modernity and a false picture of a purer fundamentalist past that makes terrorists. And it was an American story, too, in what could only be called a hysterical and insular overreaction that allowed it to become the sole national narrative. I happened to be in London on 7/7—a far more deadly and frightening terrorist attack—and by 7 P.M. on that horrible day, with the terrorists still at large (they were dead already, but no one knew that) the red double-decker buses were rolling and the traffic was turning and life, though hardly normal, was determinedly going on. The decision to shut down Boston, though doubtless made in good faith and from honest anxiety, seemed like an undue surrender to the power of the terrorist act—as did, indeed, the readiness to turn over the entire attention of the nation to a violent, scary, tragic, lurid but, in the larger scheme of things, ultimately small threat to the public peace. The toxic combination of round-the-clock cable television—does anyone now recall the killer of Gianni Versace, who claimed exactly the same kind of attention then as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did today?—and an already exaggerated sense of the risk of terrorism turned a horrible story of maiming and death and cruelty into a national epic of fear. What terrorists want is to terrify people; Americans always oblige.

Saturday, 7:20 p.m. - Massachusetts State Police have released this amazing (to a non-techie like your Head Trucker) photo of the boat that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was hiding in, taken by a heat-imaging camera in a police helicopter.  Unfuckingbelievable.

 

 

Horror in Boston

 

Two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon today; three bystanders, including an 8-year-old boy, were killed and over a hundred others wounded, some losing a limb or suffering severe burns.



Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis gave details at a press conference:



President Obama spoke at a press conference in the White House, vowing that the perpetrators will be found and brought to justice:



I hope they catch the cowardly bastards quickly - and it would be very pleasing to see them hanged in Copley Square.

Read continuing local coverage at Boston.com.


Update: Rachel Maddow reports from Boston this evening:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wedding Recap: Barney and Jim

From the Daily Dish:  Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) reflects on his recent wedding to Jim Ready.

Barney Frank Marries Jim Ready

When:  Earlier tonight in Newton, Massachusetts, making Barney the first sitting Congressman to marry a spouse of the same sex. How: Governor Patrick Duval officiated, and numerous other Democratic political leaders were among the congregation. New York Times story here. Your Head Trucker's reaction: Sweet.

P.S. - That Barney sure knows how to pick 'em, don't he?

Episcopal Bishop OK's Same-Sex Marriages

From Episcopal Life:

Clergy in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts may now solemnize same-gender marriages.

Bishop M. Thomas Shaw SSJE said in a Nov. 29 statement that he and bishops suffragan Roy Cederholm and Gayle Harris based their decision on the terms of the "generous pastoral response" allowed to the church by Resolution C056 passed by the church's General Convention last July.

The resolution said that bishops, "particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church." The state of Massachusetts, whose eastern counties comprise the diocese, allows same-gender marriage.

"Your bishops understand this to mean for us here in the Diocese of Massachusetts that the clergy of this diocese may, at their discretion, solemnize marriages for all eligible couples, beginning Advent I [November 29]," Shaw wrote, referring to the start of the new church year that day.

Solemnization under Massachusetts law, he added, includes hearing the declaration of consent, pronouncing the marriage and signing the marriage certificate.

The Massachusetts diocesan convention in November had expressed the hope that Shaw would permit clergy to sign marriage licenses and pronounce marriages "for any couple that is legally eligible for marriage in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

"Christian marriage is a sacramental rite that has evolved in the church, along with confirmation, ordination, penance, and the anointing of the sick, and while it is not necessary for all, it must be open to all as a means of grace and sustenance to our Christian hope," he wrote.

Noting that the Book of Common Prayer's rite of "The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage" may not be used for marriages of same-gender couples because it includes gender-specific language as do the church's canons (Canon I.1.18 and 19), the Massachusetts bishops asked clergy to use other liturgies. They recommended those included in "Pastoral Resources for Province I Episcopal Clergy Ministering to Same-Gender Couples."  [Presumably including such trial liturgies as those developed in 2004 by the Diocese of Vermont.]

Shaw said clergy must also follow all of the canonical requirements for marriage and re-marriage. The bishop said "any member of the clergy may decline to solemnize any marriage," as is currently the case for opposite-gender couples.

The Diocese of Massachusetts includes 190 churches and about 77,000 members; Boston is the see.
 
This is great news - if you live in Massachusetts.  I'm living in a seceded diocese here in Texas, effectively cut off from all the sacraments; all these gay-affirming developments seem very far away here, almost imaginary.  But I'm glad for my brothers and sisters in New England and elsewhere who are living the dream of equality.

As Maine Goes, So Goes the Nation?

Iowa, Vermont, Connecticut, Massacusetts . . . New England, New Jersey, New York? I don't know if it's got anything to do with global warming, but seems like attitudes are thawing rapidly, day by day now. This just in from Boston EDGE:

This morning, April 30, the Maine Senate voted 20-15 in favor of LD 1020, a marriage equality bill. It now moves to the House of Representatives. The Senate defeated an amendment to the bill that proposed putting the question of marriage equality for same-sex couples before voters.

According to most polls, the Maine electorate is about evenly divided on the issue.

Maine currently provides same-sex couples with access to limited rights and benefits through a domestic partner registry. But, as did Vermont’s Legislature, which pioneered civil unions, this was considered a half-measure, which didn’t provide all of the rights and responsibilities of full marriage equality. Similarly, New Jersey, which has civil unions, is considering full marriage equality, which will probably come up sometimes this year. And neighboring Connecticut, faced with the same situation, became the third state (after Massachusetts and Iowa) to grant full marriage equality. . . .

When and if Maine grants marriage equality, the only two remaining states will be New Hampshire, where marriage equality made a giant step yesterday with passage in its legislature; and Rhode Island, where marriage equality is expected to be taken up by legislature sometime this year.

And it seems like Maine's Governor Balducci may be coming around to the side of equality, as witness his conversation with a constituent reported yesterday on Pam's House Blend.

And in New York, which since last year recognizes as valid marriages those of same-sex couples who get hitched out of state, Governor Paterson is pushing the legislature to pass an equal-marriage bill too.

In Massachusetts, which was the first state to allow same-sex marriages beginning just five years ago, the terrors of divine wrath and social destruction the Christianists warned would befall the Bay State have simply failed to appear, as this this excellent video makes clear:

So progress keeps on trucking, at least up there in the blue states. (I am like, so jealous.) One fine day, all this politicking and palaver will seem very dull and dry, a boring footnote in the history books to put some future generation of schoolkids to sleep. But right now, it's a very exciting period to be living through as legislative victories roll in, day by day.

And about damn time.

What the Bible Really Says about Marriage

This is an old article from 2003 in the Boston Phoenix, but worth saving and using next time your Bible-thumping friends or neighbors start foaming about "marriage has always been the same for thousands of years." Be sure to cite the chapters and verses, then sit back and watch their heads implode.

Since the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled last week that same-sex couples should be allowed to wed, many commentators have reiterated their belief that gay and lesbian couples should be excluded from marriage for religious reasons. But why stop there? If marriages recognized by the Commonwealth must be based on biblical principles, then it’s clear more changes to the law are needed. Below are seven suggested amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution that would bring Bay State family law in line with the Bible.

• Because Jacob and David each had more than one wife, marriage in Massachusetts shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women of his choosing (II Sam. 3:2-5; Gen.29:17-28).

• A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is found not to be a virgin, "they shall take her to the door of her father’s house and her fellow citizens shall stone her to death" (Deut. 22:13-21). (Here, Governor Romney’s resurrection of the death penalty will come in handy.)

• As Rehoboam, David, and Solomon all possessed concubines, a married man in Massachusetts shall also have the right to keep concubines in addition to his wife or wives (I Kings 11:3; II Sam. 5:13; II Chron. 11:21).

• When Moses said, "Every one of you must put to death those of his people who have committed themselves to the Baal of Peor," he was forbidding the marriage of a believer to a nonbeliever (Gen. 24:3; Neh. 10:30).

• Christ said, "What God has united, man must not divide." Therefore, neither the Constitution nor any state law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shall permit divorce (Deut. 22:19; Mark 10:9-12).

• If a married man dies childless, the widow must not marry a stranger outside of the family. Instead, the dead man’s brother must marry the widow. If the brother refuses to marry the widow or refuses to give her children, the law shall fine him one sandal, and he will be forced to go about wearing one sandal for the rest of his days, and he shall be called the Unshod One of Massachusetts (Deut. 25:5-10; Gen. 38:6-10).

• If there are no acceptable men to be found in the town, a woman shall ply her father with wine and have sex with him in order to produce progeny to carry on the family name (Gen. 19:31-36).