The battle over gay rights will move to New Jersey and the federal government, advocates said, after Tuesday's narrow rejection of same-sex marriage by Maine voters in a hard-fought contest.
The Democrat-controlled legislature in New Jersey, which currently recognizes same-sex couples in civil unions, is under pressure to pass a bill authorizing gay marriage before Gov. Jon Corzine ends his term in mid-January.
Mr. Corzine, a Democrat unseated in Tuesday's election, said he would sign such a bill. His successor, Republican Chris Christie, opposes same-sex marriages.
"New Jersey is at the very top of our list, and it's going to happen in the next few weeks if it happens at all," said Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriages. "They're doing it in a lame duck, because it's as far away from an election as possible."
Gay-marriage advocates have resisted "civil union" licenses, saying the separate term is demeaning and the status isn't honored by many employers.
Some gay-rights advocates said, their priorities have shifted away from the ballot box and toward nonmarital issues.
Thursday, a U.S. Senate committee held a hearing on a bill that would prevent businesses from discriminating against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or "gender-related" mannerisms. Thomas Perez, an assistant attorney general, called the bill, known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, "a top legislative priority for the Obama administration."
"That's really an essential protection that we need on the national level," said Leslie Gabel-Brett, the director of education and public affairs for Lambda Legal, a gay-rights group. About 20 states currently grant such protection to gays.
Ms. Gabel-Brett said her group's priorities also focused on ending the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward homosexuals, and on repealing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a male-female couple for federal purposes, such as filing taxes.
Neither gay-rights activists nor their opposition said they expected imminent attempts to repeal same-sex marriage in the four states that currently grant it -- Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut and Vermont -- or in New Hampshire, which will begin granting such marriages in January.
Ms. Gallagher said her organization remained committed to attempts to repeal same-sex marriage in New Hampshire and Iowa by electing new legislatures to repeal the laws. Unlike in Maine, residents of those states can't repeal laws or amend their constitutions without action by the state legislature.
The defeat for same-sex marriage in Maine, by a 53%-47% vote, was a tough loss for advocates of same-sex marriage. It marked the 31st time a plebiscite of state voters has rejected same-sex marriage in the U.S. Activists had hoped it would gain momentum for their movement.
Meanwhile, efforts to provide marriage-like rights to same-sex couples have continued to advance. Tuesday, Washington state voters approved an expanded "domestic partnership" registry giving same-sex couples the same rights as marriage. Wednesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court let stand a decision upholding that state's new domestic-partnership status for same-sex couples.
"Every civil-rights movement has setbacks," Ms. Gabel-Brett said. "It's tempting to feel like the public debate is going in the wrong direction, but that's really not the case. We now have five states where same-sex couples can marry. Six years ago, we had none."
Source: Wall Street Journal | Write to Keith J. Winstein at keith.winstein@wsj.com
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Q: "Can government validate what nature does not?"
The priority of ideas and behavior is what this disagreement is all about. The rule of the mind - or its submission to carnal, unnatural priorities, appetites, choices, and behavior - and their unhealthy consequences.
Nature, itself, invalidates homosexual actions for there is neither mechanistic justification nor optional validation by consent under the laws of nature. [Often referred to by some as "a Darwinian dead-end."] To state otherwise is to give a perverse and simpleton voice to glands - not to powers of reason and its implicit tools of criteria and standards; tools which equip the human family with the ability to measure and anticipate consequences and thereby avoid some choices and choose others conducive to the healthy results of survival and progression.
The rule of the glands prioritizes such appetites at the expense of the kingdom of the mind and its inevitable recession as evidenced in every society of history past.
Should a branch of government attempt to validate what nature itself does not? Does "government criteria" equip us with the wisdom of vision for future generations? Lacking standards and their enablement, can we recognize - with foresight - the regression of our environment as thinking/choicemaking beings? Nature and History say, "No." Instead, we will become throw-back creatures of an insatiable, grunting, lascivious, and unnatural conduct.
Can anyone doubt that homosexuals, even in defining themselves primarily by their sexual appetite, reveal an unbalanced obsession with the carnal rather than the mental? Such desires can and do distort perception and judgment; principles and standards have minor or non- meaning for a those whose decisions are dominated by physical appetites triggered by glandular secretions -- not ideas.
In homosexuality, civilization rightly sees the threat of an anti-standards, anti-mind, anti-survival perversion of human nature. Seen against the background of history and nature, terms like "deviant,' "perverse," "weird," and "aberrant," are not epithets, then, but appropriate descriptions of homosexual behavior. Calling a homosexual "gay" is, in fact, an inhumane act, for it substitutes a platitude for the first requirement of healing such psychological cripples: objective recognition of their condition.
Additionally, many of today's psychiatrists have unscientifically finalized and capitulated to an illness they have ignorantly misunderstood; mis-applying a public confession of inadequacy and accomodation for sound diagnosis, treatment, relief and cure. Recall that "True science knows No Final Answers - only on-going questions."
Human experience is a kingdom of the mind and standards are its tools of measure and foresight. The public has the right and the obligation to set those standards and and to reject the abnormal and aberrant in the interest of posterity. On the larger loom of history, the struggle we are engaged in is but one more between the thoughtfully rational and civilized and the carnal barbarian. Nature is speaking with its constant and authoritative voice. Our temporary elected representatives would do well to pay attention.
We will, as citizens, teachers, and parents, continue to be attentive to that voice and maintain our transcendent support to 'the man of the mind' -- and of the spirit.
We will thoughtfully oppose all federal and California State Assembly and Senate Bills -- and Candidates -- which/who attempt to validate homosexual behavior as natural. We seek your thoughtful agreement.
vincit veritas
Mr. & Mrs. James Baxter
California
semper fidelis