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- Gay community reflects on anniversary of Milk’s death
- Is the struggle for marriage rights a civil rights issue?
- Catholic bishops call Mass. ruling ‘national tragedy’
- Federal Marriage Amendment introduced in Senate
- Mass. law could prevent out-of-state couples from marrying
- School punishes 7-year-old for talking about lesbian mother
- National News Briefs
- World News Briefs
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commentary
Quote UnQuote
Published Thursday, 04-Dec-2003 in issue 832
“I hate it when taxi drivers ask me what I’ve been doing for the last few years. I’m not retro, I’m current. I’m still making music. We’ve got loads of stuff in the pipeline. We’re writing new material all the time and it feels great.”
“In this case, we are confronted with an entire, sizeable class of parents raising children who have absolutely no access to civil marriage and its protections because they are forbidden from procuring a marriage license. It cannot be rational under our laws, and indeed it is not permitted, to penalize children by depriving them of State benefits because the State disapproves of their parents’ sexual orientation.”
“The plaintiffs seek only to be married, not to undermine the institution of civil marriage. They do not want marriage abolished. They do not attack the binary nature of marriage, the consanguinity provisions, or any of the other gate-keeping provisions of the marriage licensing law. Recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of the same sex will not diminish the validity or dignity of opposite-sex marriage, any more than recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of a different race devalues the marriage of a person who marries someone of her own race. If anything, extending civil marriage to same-sex couples reinforces the importance of marriage to individuals and communities. That same-sex couples are willing to embrace marriage’s solemn obligations of exclusivity, mutual support, and commitment to one another is a testament to the enduring place of marriage in our laws and in the human spirit.”
“The [D]epartment [of Public Health] has had more than ample opportunity to articulate a constitutionally adequate justification for limiting civil marriage to opposite-sex unions. It has failed to do so. The department has offered purported justifications for the civil marriage restriction that are starkly at odds with the comprehensive network of vigorous, gender-neutral laws promoting stable families and the best interests of children. It has failed to identify any relevant characteristic that would justify shutting the door to civil marriage to a person who wishes to marry someone of the same sex.”
“We are no more evolved than we were in the Dark Ages, politically or spiritually. So there’s nothing to say, and no one has an alternative, no other plans have been given a chance to work.... I just feel I live in a country where, and even I’m guilty of this — I’m like, ‘As long as I can shop, everything’s fine.’“
“The weirdest thing is just the intensity of feeling which some people seem to have about famous people — which I have to, I still kind of stumble over the word, acknowledging that I’ve become ... whatever.”
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