Marriage equality gains still more momentum

[thatcrazycajun]

From a WashingtonPost.com story here: Vermont today became the fourth state of the Union where homosexual couples can legally marry—and the first to do so by legislative act rather than judicial fiat. By overwhelming vote in the state House and a narrow one-vote margin in the Senate, Green Mountain State solons spanked their Republican governor in his attempt to veto the bill. (Given that this is the state that gave us both Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and former Independent Senator Jim Jeffords, I can't be too surprised.) Also today, the Washington, DC City Council voted to recognize same-gender marriages licensed in other states, joining New York in that...for at least as long as it takes GOP Congressional members facing tough re-election races next year to decide they can use this issue to gain some base support. A link off the same page takes you to that story.

New Jersey, Maine and New Hampshire are also considering legalization, and Jersey's Democrat governor Jon Corzine is on record saying he'll sign a bill for it. Joining Iowa's stunning move last week to ratify the rights of same-sex couples to equal treatment under the law, it almost makes up for the horror that was Proposition 8's passage in California last fall...almost. (And that atrocity may yet be undone; justices there are set to hear arguments on the ACLU's challenge suit very shortly.) It may even be possible that the gains we're seeing now were galvanized in part by advocates' reaction to the enactment of "Prop Hate."

The religious bluenoses and the social conservatives opposing marriage equality are looking more every day like the hopeless, hapless retards they are, fighting a desperate rear-guard action against the inevitable, if slow, advance of justice and progress and mulishly remaining on the wrong side of history. And I for one couldn't be happier to see them wail and whine.

Comments

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

Hey now!

Don't insult retarded people by lumping them in with extreme right-wing conservatives!

[janeg.livejournal.com]

Maybe some day the USA will get even more like Canada and have socialized medicine.

Of course, we have our own idiots - there is a court case pending with a family doctor in Western Canada who refused (depending on who you believe) to have lesbian patients. Apparently, he didn't know anything about them so he couldn't treat them. I guess he thinks its the anatomy that differs. A physical check-up might have taught him something.

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

Actually, Matt, in the state senate, the veto was overridden by the exact number of votes needed to override it. The vote was 100-49. Had there been one vote less on the "override" side, it wouldn't have been overridden.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Michael. The entry has been corrected accordingly.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

And I think you have the houses reversed.

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

I sit corrected.