Pugno: The Gay, Jim Crow

[Procrustes Stretched]

Andy Pugno, is the face of: Sound The Alarm! The Gays Are Coming! anti14th amendment rights, for gay marriages

"Actually putting witnesses on the stand has never been done before in any lawsuit claiming a right to same-sex marriage," said Proposition 8 campaign attorney Andy Pugno. /QUOTE]

...

What is it with people like Andy? Does he not see history staring him in the face? Somewhere down the road his grandkids will have to change their last name, or face the same type of humiliation of people with the last name of, crow.

The train has left the station on gay marriage as a right. Just as the train had left the station on racial equality...

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages.

The people who are fighting gay marriages are fighting a losing war. They may win a few battles or even most of the battles as the segregationists like Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott did, but look... a product of a biracial marriage not only attended Harvard, he became President of the united States.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Virginia's New Jim Crow

By Jonathan Rauch
Sunday, June 13, 2004; Page B07

On July 1 Virginia takes a big step backward, into the shadow of Jim Crow.

I do not write those words lightly or rhetorically. Although I'm an advocate of same-sex marriage, I have taken care not to throw around motive-impugning words such as bigotry, hate or homophobia. I have worked hard to avoid facile comparisons between the struggle for gay marriage and the struggle for civil rights for African Americans; the similarities are real, but so are the differences.

Above all, I have been careful to distinguish between animus against gay people and opposition to same-sex marriage. No doubt the two often conjoin. But millions of Americans bear no ill will toward their gay and lesbian fellow citizens, yet still draw back from changing the boundaries of society's most fundamental institution. The ban on gay marriage in 49 states (Massachusetts, of course, being the newly minted exception) may well be unfair and unwise, as I believe it to be. Yet people of good conscience can maintain that although all individuals are equal, all couples are not.

If I seem to be splitting hairs, that is because Virginia -- where my partner and I make our home -- is not splitting hairs. It has instead taken a baseball bat to civic equality, thanks to the so-called Marriage Affirmation Act.

The act -- really an amendment to an earlier law -- was passed in April, over Gov. Mark R. Warner's objections, and it takes effect July 1. It says, "A civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges and obligations of marriage is prohibited." It goes on to add that any such union, contract or arrangement entered into in any other state, "and any contractual rights created thereby," are "void and unenforceable in Virginia."

When gay marriage came up, Virginia was among the first states to preemptively ban it, in 1997. Moreover, Virginia is the only state to forbid even private companies, unless self-insured, from extending health insurance benefits to unmarried couples. That provision affects cohabiting straights but works a far greater hardship on gay couples, who cannot marry.

-Will Andy Pugno go down in history as the 21st century's Jim Crow?