Marriage Tsunami Rolls On

In the last two days, the rolling tide of marriage equality has washed over four more states: Nevada, West Virginia, Idaho, and North Carolina. Just amazing. Here's a sweet clip of the first two men married late yesterday in Raleigh, North Carolina, both of them sheriff's deputies:



Oh my. I have lived to see this day. Your Head Trucker remembers a time when the officers of the law, instead of kissing your sweet lips, would have been kicking your gay ass all over town.

At the moment there are 29 states plus DC with marriage equality - and counting  That covers about three-fifths of the U. S. population.  Here is another ugly but up-to-date map, this time from Freedom to Marry:

Click to enlarge.

Why Marriage Matters

A nervous but determined 18-year-old Riley Roberts testifies about his two-mom family before a committee of the Nevada Senate on May 9th of this year:



A resolution proposing a constitutional amendment allowing same-sex marriage in the state was later passed by both houses of the Legislature. It must be repassed by them in 2015, and if so, a ballot measure will be presented to voters in 2016.

French Parliament Approves Marriage Equality

Socialist deputies applaud in the National Assembly today
following passage of the same-sex marriage bill.

Antigay demonstrator hurls a missile at police during a protest
following the vote in Parliament.

The French National Assembly approved the final passage of a same-sex marriage bill today by a vote of 331-225, along party lines, making France the 14th nation in the world to approve marriage equality nationwide. President Francois Hollande's Socialist Party swept into power last year with a promise to enact the law, which recent polls have shown is favored by by 55%-63% of the population.

However, rightwing activists, with the support of France's Catholic hierarchy and American antigay groups like NOM, have made an issue of the adoption rights which marriage would allow to gay couples, equating it to "the murder of children," along with the familiar rhetoric about "traditional family values." In recent months, they have led massive, sometimes violent demonstrations against the law in the streets of Paris.   After tonight's vote, protesters decrying "Socialist dictatorship" once again clashed with police. Gay haters are also circulating messages of "Death to Gays" and "Homosexuals Must Be Killed" on Twitter. The conservative UMP party, which has used the marriage law to regain some support among voters, now plans to appeal the law to France's Constitutional Court, which has the power to disallow the law before it comes into effect (unlike the American Supreme Court), but analysts say there is little likelihood of that occurring, and same-sex couples may be able to marry starting in June. Since 1999, France has offered civil unions, called PACS, to both gay and straight couples; straights made up more than 95% of couples getting "PACS-ed" in 2010. However, the PACS provides significantly fewer rights than marriage, and does not allow gay couples to adopt.

In other marriage news, same-sex marriage bills advanced in the Delaware House and the Rhode Island Senate, and the Nevada Senate approved the first step in removing that state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Also, Nevada state senator Kelvin Atkinson (D-North Las Vegas), came out publicly, saying:

I know this is the first time many of you have heard me say that I am a black, gay male. . . . If this hurts your marriage, then your marriage was in trouble in the first place.

Why Marriage Matters

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports:

On the wall of their Henderson home, Brittney Leon and Terri-Ann Simonelli proudly display their certificate of domestic partnership. Under a 2009 state law, the document gives them all the rights of married couples. Or so they thought.

When Leon, 26, checked into Spring Valley Hospital on July 20 with complications in her pregnancy, she assumed that her partner Simonelli, 41, could make any necessary medical decisions if she suffered unforeseen problems. But that's not what happened, they said. An admissions officer told them the hospital policy required gay partners to secure power of attorney before making any medical decisions for each other.

They protested, even offering to go home and return with their domestic partnership document. But they said the admissions officer told them that didn't matter - Simonelli would need a power of attorney. Considering Leon's condition, Simonelli wasn't in a position to argue or spend hours running to a law office. But the admission officer's words left them devastated in a moment that they already were under extreme stress.

Leon ended up losing her baby.

"I am usually a big fighter. But I was so emotionally upset. It was a very bad day for us," said Simonelli, a hotel parking valet and website designer. "We went there thinking we had the state's backing, and then we were told we were wrong. It didn't matter that we were registered domestic partners. It should matter."

A woman who identified herself as public relations representative at Spring Valley Hospital told a Review-Journal reporter in a phone interview that the hospital policy requires gay couples have power of attorney in order to make medical decisions for each other. When asked if she was aware of Nevada's domestic partnership law, she accused the reporter of bias and hung up the telephone.

That law states: "Domestic partners have the same rights, protections and benefits, and are subject to the same responsibilities, obligations and duties under law, whether derived from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law or any other provisions or sources of law, as are granted to and imposed upon spouses."

Gay marriage is prohibited in Nevada by constitutional amendment, so domestic partners are not considered legally married. But they have the same rights under law as married couples. The only difference is that employers do not have to provide health care benefits to gay couples, even if they are provided to married, heterosexual couples.

During hearings on the domestic partners bill, proposed by state Sen. David Parks, D-Las Vegas, numerous gay couples testified that the law was needed in part because they had been denied the right to make medical decisions for their partners, or to stay with them in the hospital.

There is no specific penalty for businesses that discriminate against domestic partners. They can file complaints with Nevada Equal Rights Commission, which investigates and tries to reach an agreement with the business to follow the law.

As I have written here in the Blue Truck any number of times, you are not a full citizen until you can marry. Historically, children, slaves, the insane, and prisoners were all prohibited from marrying. You are not grown up, you are not fully competent, you are not free - until you can marry.

Not crappy little domestic partnerships that aren't worth the paper they're printed on - not Jim Crow civil unions to keep you "separate but equal," which is never the case - nothing but full, complete, identical civil marriage will ever protect you, or be respected by the rest of the population.

And hey - you guys milling around over there at the back of the bar, muttering shit about how you don't see a need for all that: if you don't want to marry, then don't. Just say no. You can't handle the responsibility, you don't feel the love - then you shouldn't marry. Ever. It's not for tricking around, if that's all you want out of life.

But for the rest of us - it makes all the difference in the world.

America's First Legal Gigolo

Golly.  I was thinking they'd pick, um, a different type of guy.  But hey, pictures aren't everything.  Them good ol' Alabama boys can show you a real good time, some of 'em.  I tell you what.  Although he says he's offering his services strictly to the ladies.

Here's the first interview with "Markus," which you really ought to read.  Sullivan files his story under "poseur alert."  And after reading all about Markus's Freudian interpretation of his new job, I can see why.

But I also feel sorry for him.  Here's a redneck boy from a broken home, whose mental reach exceeds his grasp, who has never really succeeded at anything in life; who in fact, has been set up to fail. 

I can understand that.  And smile with pity and sympathy, not derision - bless his heart.  Good luck to him.

Newsbites

The good, the bad, and the WTF:

D.C. Council Passes Equal Marriage Law:  By 11 to 2.  Now, unless the mayor or Congress scuttle it, gays could start marrying in the nation's capital as early as March; and not only D.C. residents, but couples from anywhere in the country.  Of course, their marriage will disappear the moment they leave the District, unless they live in one of the states that recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages.  But still, a tiny bit of good news to offset the recent disappointments in Maine and New York.  Black Christianists in D.C. are still fuming, though:  "God's war has just started," one church leader said, vowing to continue efforts to torpedo the new law.

Another African Antigay Bill:  The parliament of Rwanda, a next-door neighbor of Uganda, is now considering a bill to criminalize homosex or the encouraging of it, with a penalty of five to ten years in prison.  Bloggers are pointing fingers at - you guessed it - Rick Warren, whose Saddleback Church has had operations in both countries.  I'm not saying he's behind this bill, just reporting what Pink News says.

Teen Kidnapped and Raped in West Texas:  Last Sunday, a 19-year-old man was kidnapped by two older men outside a bar in Terlingua, near the Texas-Mexico border, repeatedly sexually assaulted, and his car set on fire.  He managed to escape from the private residence where he was being held by running three miles across the desert to a highway.  The suspects have been arrested and charged, but the Brewster County sheriff isn't replying to inquiries from the Dallas Voice.  Equality Texas director Randall Terrell says that although all the facts aren't yet known, "it sounds like Matthew Shepard all over again."

Roosters in the Hen House:  The famed Shady Lady brothel out in Nevada (the only state where prositution is legal) plans to add men to its roster.  Owner Bobbi Davis, who's already received four applications for the job, says they don't have to be muscle men but should be in good shape, and able to perform once or twice a day:  "Some guys can. Some guys can't."  Dan Savage says a legal, regulated market for male prostitutes would be a good thing; and your Head Trucker agrees. 

Hey, it's honest work:  you can't get a better example of a "service industry" than that, now can you, fellas?  And no middleman.  Unless you pay extra.

Oral Roberts Dead at 91:  Finally. The multimillionaire grandaddy of the "prosperity gospel" movement, who famously threatened in 1987 that "God could call Oral Roberts home by March" if his followers didn't cough up enough dough ($8 million) to fund his medical center in Tulsa. They did, and he lived, but became the butt of a thousand comedians' jokes. Your Head Trucker remembers watching his big tent-revival show as a little kid, and the people coming down front to be touched and "healed" by him - right there on TV - and then how he would pray for the viewers' needs - "You, yes, you! Just put your hands on the television set and pray with me . . . " he would say. I'm not making this up.

Bonus:  Honk to Joe.My.God. for posting this revelation of the really, really nasty mind of Oral Roberts - who spent a lot of time, obviously, pondering all the many parts of the body where you can or can't place the male organ:  "Not in the ear, not in the nose, not in the navel . . . ."

Nevada Gets Domestic Partnership Law

Map of same-sex unions in the United States from Wikipedia

That makes one-third of the states who now provide some form of recognition, weak or strong, to same-sex couples. The New York Times reports:

The Nevada Legislature voted into law a domestic partnership registry for same-sex and unmarried straight couples on Sunday evening, with the Assembly mustering the two-thirds vote required to override a veto by Gov. Jim Gibbons, a Republican.

The move makes Nevada the 17th state to recognize the relationships of gay men and lesbians, creating the registry with the secretary of state by which couples receive legal protections associated with marriage.

The State Senate voted to override the veto on Saturday.

The Nevada law does not require businesses to provide health benefits to the domestic partners of their employees.

“The significance here is it literally equates domestic partner with spouse under Nevada state law,” said Michael Ginsburg of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.

“You have the full force of the law behind you now,” Mr. Ginsburg said. “When you’re in the hospital, forced to make decisions for your partner, all you have to say is, ‘This is my spouse,’ and that carries tremendous weight.”

Proponents were able to persuade two members of both the Senate and the Assembly to switch sides since earlier votes. Many were pressured by executives for the casino industry, who feared a boycott by gay travelers.

Opponents, including the governor, argued that the law was unnecessary because gay couples could create legal contracts to provide most of the rights they would receive through the registry. They also pointed out that Nevada voters approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage earlier this decade.

Yet State Senator David R. Parks, a Las Vegas Democrat and the only openly gay elected official in Nevada, obtained legal opinions from legislative lawyers stating that the domestic partnership registry was not the equivalent of marriage.

Correction: The NYT reporter must have miscounted; I'm only seeing 15 states, plus the District of Columbia. We need two more states to get to a third of the Union; and 45 more states to get nationwide marriage equality, plus the repeal of DOMA at the federal level.