Pennsylvania Marriage Ban Overturned

Reuters reports:

A federal judge on Tuesday struck down Pennsylvania's ban on same-sex marriage, the latest in a series of court decisions across the country confirming gay couples' rights to wed. Finding Pennsylvania's 1996 Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, District Court Judge John Jones III wrote: "By virtue of this ruling, same-sex couples who seek to marry in Pennsylvania may do so, and already married same-sex couples will be recognized as such in the Commonwealth."

The ruling makes Pennsylvania the 19th U.S. state where gay marriage is allowed, a movement that has gained momentum since the Supreme Court ruled last June that legally married same-sex couples are eligible for federal benefits.

Most recent court rulings allowing gay marriage have included a stay pending appeal, but Jones' ruling does not. There is, however, a mandatory three-day waiting period for all weddings in Pennsylvania.

In the ruling, the judge noted that the issue of gay marriage "is a divisive one."

"Some of our citizens are made deeply uncomfortable by the notion of same-sex marriage," he wrote. "However, that same sex marriage causes discomfort in some does not make its prohibition constitutional. Nor can past tradition trump the bedrock constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection."

He compared Pennsylvania's ban on same-sex marriage to the school segregation laws overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision.

"We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history," he wrote.

Full transcript of the ruling is here, and the accompanying order here.


Tweet of the Day, via Joe.My.God.:

Update, 5/21/14:  Pennyslvania Governor Tom Corbett announced today that he will not appeal the court's ruling.  Since nobody else has standing to appeal, it seems marriage equality is there to stay in the Keystone State.

VOTE, DAMN IT!

This guy is going to vote tomorrow - why aren't you?


You really want the assholes to be in charge of your life?  Get your ass up off the couch and VOTE, fucker. 

David Mixner:

No one has been more gravely disappointed and, at times livid, with the practically non-existent record of President Obama on LGBT equal rights. Over and over again I have held this administration's feet to the fire in an effort to force them to move forward in our struggle for freedom. As we all know by now, those pleas often have fallen on deaf ears. Our disappointment, anger and frustration is totally justified.

What is not justified is to allow those emotions to intrude on our ability to be intelligent voters this election day. We cannot and should not shoot ourselves in the collective foot because of the administration's actions.

Why is it important to vote? Let's get right down to it: If the House and Senate fall into Republican Tea Party hands on November 2nd, the LGBT community will be facing the most hostile United States Congress in our history. The election of these bonafide Teabagging wing-nuts could cause chaos, fear and intimidation in our political process. Their ascendancy to power would validate some truly dark and despicable forces operating in American politics. If we think it is hard to achieve equal rights now just try and do it in a Tea Party dominated Congress.

Mike Signorile:

In recent weeks I've heard some of you call in and say you're not voting, sitting this one out because you're unhappy with the White House or Congress. Others have said they'll vote for a lesser candidate, pretty much giving their vote to a Republican in a close election. But I have said on the show for quite a while now, no matter how angry you are at President Obama or disappointed with the Democratic leadership -- and I've been one of the biggest critics around -- it is imperative that you get out and vote for the Democrats and against the tea party-backed Republicans.

The Republican Party would like nothing better than to see the discontent in the Democratic base help them install truly the most extreme lot of candidates we have seen in many years. We've exposed the tea party as nothing more than a reconfiguration of all the religious zealots, moral crusaders, racists and bigots who've been around for years. Do not attempt to punish the President or the Democrats by punishing yourself. This country has been in a very precarious state for a long time, in which the political winds can usher in something radical and extreme very quickly. Bad economic times are always an opportunity for those who seek to do that. We have demanded and will demand full accountability by the Democrats and President -- who is not on the ballot until 2012 -- but don't do it by giving power to your enemies. As David Mixner says . . . vote as if your life depends on it, because it does.

Keith Olbermann kicks ass and names names:

The [objective is] to elect a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get: backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the 1930's, or backward to hanging union organizers, or backward to the trusts and the robber barons. Result? The Tea Party. Vote backward, vote Tea Party.

And if you are somehow indifferent to what is planned for next Tuesday, it is nothing short of an attempted use of democracy to end this democracy. To buy America wholesale and pave over the freedoms and the care we take of one another, which have combined to make us the envy of the world. You do not think your freedom is at stake next Tuesday?

Think again.  And if you city boys don't know how to use a gun, you'd fucking well better VOTE tomorrow, goddammit.



You do know what he means, don't you?



Capitol Hill or Closet Hill?

Washington, D.C., is gayer than San Francisco? Oh Mary, don't ask.

A CNN discussion of the new documentary Outrage, with filmmaker Kirby Dick, Charles Moran of Log Cabin Republicans, and radio talk show host Michaelangelo Signorile:

Separated at Birth?

Even though Mike Signorile is an in-your-face New Yawker and I'm a slow-talking Southerner, I sometimes think we must be spiritual twins; he often seems to take the words right out of my mouth, as in this post-Election-Day pep talk from his radio show.

I foresee, now that the holidays are upon us, all this Prop 8 energy is going to dissipate - there are all those fabulous parties to plan and attend, of course, and then everybody's jetting off back home or on vacation, of course . . . and then oooh, the weather's much too cold to be doing street activities, you know . . . so it will be rather like spring semester back in college. A slow, sobering-up start; a now-what-were-we-doing hazy recollection of the fall enthusiasms; then finally a little progress as springtime warmth and color return to the earth. Oooh, but then there's spring break, you know, and exams, and job interviews, and oooh my sister's getting married, or my boyfriend's got a new job, or we planned this great vacation and the tickets are already bought . . . . Been there, heard that.

So it remains to be seen whether this recent burst of activism will really bear any substantial fruit in the new year. Seems to me a leaderless, unfocused mass movement is unlikely to sustain itself, despite all the rah-rah talk about Stonewall 2.0. I do hope I'm wrong. But we need to remember what Mike says here about having to work for our civil rights; nobody's going to hand them to us, easily and effortlessly.