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Sunday, May 16, 2004

Marriage Continues to Evolve

[via PlanetOut] The U.S. Supreme Court turned down without comment a last-minute bid to block Massachusetts from giving marriage licenses to same-sex couples next week.

Conservative groups requested the emergency stay after being rejected earlier in the day by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They were appealing a lower court decision made a day earlier.

Massachusetts will begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Monday. County clerks are preparing for an onslaught of eager couples.

This week Provincetown said it will not deny marriage licenses to out-of-state couples, defying a directive from Gov. Mitt Romney.

On Friday, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sent Romney a copy of his March 3 opinion, which suggests that New York law would honor same-sex marriages that are legally performed elsewhere, such as in Canada.

"Attorney General Spitzer, in reiterating his March 3rd opinion, was not willing to let Gov. Romney hide behind New York law in order to discriminate against our families," said Ross Levi, an attorney with the Empire State Pride Agenda, New York's largest GLBT rights group.

Definitely it is a pleasure to observe the flummoxed frustration of social conservatives who are beginning to realize that widespread homophobic hate is no longer a tool they can count on quite so confidently as they once did to divide otherwise reasonable people from one another.

My partner Eric and I are content for now to be "domestic partners" (here in California this status actually amounts to something), and have no immediate plans to marry even when we legally can. But definitely we are thrilled at the spectacle of happy couples enjoying the recognition and social support they desire and deserve. It's nice to think that legalizing gay marriage is a stepping stone along a road that will eventuate in a richer recognition and support and legal protection of the diversity of modes of human affiliation and responsibility as they actually play out in the world -- diverse partnership arrangements, group marriages, flexible-parenting contracts, and so on.

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