Solidarity
by Jon on Nov.13, 2008, under Babble, Politics
In my inbox from the local chapter of Americans United:
Nashville Protest this Saturday at 12:30. Bring a sign.
Nationwide Protest Against Bans on Gay Marriage
In the recent election, Florida, Arizona, and California passed a ban on gay marriage, and Arkansas banned adoptions by gay couples. In response, there will be nationwide protests. The Nashville protest is Saturday November 15th at 12:30 pm. The location will be One Public Square, adjacent to the Metro Courthouse (where James Robertson Parkway, 3rd Avenue North and the Main Street bridge are.). Your presence and sign will be welcome. Please take a moment to review this website for details about the nationwide protest: www.jointheimpact.com.If you have not viewed Keith Olberman’s comments on Proposition 8, you should spend six minutes and see it. Caution – you may need some time to compose yourself after viewing. It is very moving.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ChanTFSmqao
Some of you will wish to join in the protest. If you wish to contact the local grassroots organizers, check the web site. Signs can promote church-state separation, equal rights, or say such things as “marriage equality,” “no second-class citizens,” “the sin is homophobia,” etc.
Update: more info via Sharon Cobb
November 16th, 2008 on 12:59 am
FWIW, the Boston Tea Party has a proposal addressing this issue on the table as we speak. It has also been edited/rewritten a bit from the original form, so that it not only challenges the 3-state homophobia of the recent elections, but questions the whole issue of government involvement in affairs of the heart (while affirming that as long as the State IS a player in these matters, any effort to proscribe marriage from ANY consensual partnership is anti-liberty and very wrong!) … Of course, it is now plodding through passage, with some more concerned with verbiage details than with making a firm and timely stand. Sigh!
November 16th, 2008 on 9:32 am
>questions the whole issue of government involvement in affairs of the heart
One thing I hope you all will keep in mind as I think it’s a glaring error in the way many libertarians approach the issue: marriage from a legal perspective does not seem to me to be outside the purview of government, and is in fact impossible to separate from government, because it is, by definition, a declaration of one’s relationship *to* the government — it is a declaration that the government, when dealing with one person in the partnership, must deal with both (or more…) as a single entity.
One could I suppose make a hyper-purist argument that the government should never do even that, and should always regard every individual independently regardless of their declarations, but I don’t know what the purpose is, I don’t know what that gains us except to create more work for lawyers as couples try and define their legal relationships to one another point by contract point.
The only other way to “get government out of marriage” is to make that legal declaration *always* called a civil union, even for heteros.
But at that point, whether one calls it marriage or civil union is just a semantics game. And I guess I’m ok with that, if that’s the bone we have to throw the Christianists, but part of me wants to oppose even that precisely because it *is* so stupid to be hung up on semantics.
March 13th, 2009 on 10:08 am
Very useful post. where can i find more articles about this issue?