Utah's Gay Marriage Ban struck down

[Silhouette]

When people lie about something as serious as pedophilia, I'm certainly going to hold that person to account - including you.

You will also notice that you are dead wrong about me "defending" Milk or anyone else.


So, please try to move your nonsense a little closer to the truth.

You say that as if no one here can find, buy, check out and read Harvey Milk's biography by Randy Shilts to discover who is the gay icon and what he stood for. I heartily encourage anyone reading here to look into Harvey Milk's sexual legacy to see whether or not his being forced to be celebrated by children as a 'gay hero' is appropriate or not.

Go for it! Read up. You definitely don't want to just take anyone's word for it pro or con off just this website. The name of the book of Milk's biography is "The Mayor of Castro Street; The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" by Randy Shilts. A note about the author Shilts. He was a long time friend of Milk's, a highly respected journalist, gay himself and who died of AIDS not too much longer after he wrote Milk's biography. Just in case you think the book is a smear on Milk. It's not. It's just the way it was. And the way it was is something every parent should look into before they approve of their kid celebrating this "gay hero" or not...

 

[WillReadmore]

When people lie about something as serious as pedophilia, I'm certainly going to hold that person to account - including you.

You will also notice that you are dead wrong about me "defending" Milk or anyone else.


So, please try to move your nonsense a little closer to the truth.

You say that as if no one here can find, buy, check out and read Harvey Milk's biography by Randy Shilts to discover who is the gay icon and what he stood for. I heartily encourage anyone reading here to look into Harvey Milk's sexual legacy to see whether or not his being forced to be celebrated by children as a 'gay hero' is appropriate or not.

Go for it! Read up. You definitely don't want to just take anyone's word for it pro or con off just this website. The name of the book of Milk's biography is "The Mayor of Castro Street; The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" by Randy Shilts. A note about the author Shilts. He was a long time friend of Milk's, a highly respected journalist, gay himself and who died of AIDS not too much longer after he wrote Milk's biography. Just in case you think the book is a smear on Milk. It's not. It's just the way it was. And the way it was is something every parent should look into before they approve of their kid celebrating this "gay hero" or not...

You made an accusation of pedophilia.

And, you have yet to back it up.

That deserves an acknowledgement from you.

Were you just unaware of the definition of pedophilia? Or what?

 

[Silhouette]

You made an accusation of pedophilia.

And, you have yet to back it up.

That deserves an acknowledgement from you.

Were you just unaware of the definition of pedophilia? Or what?

So naming Milk's biography isn't enough? You want quotes from Harvey Milk's biography?

OK:

"...sixteen-year-old McKinley was looking for some kind of father figure...At 33, Milk was launching a new life, though he could hardly have imagined the unlikely direction toward which his new lover would pull him." (pages 30-31)

"It would be to boyish-looking men in their late teens and early 20's that Milk would be attracted for the rest of his life." (page 24)

"Harvey always had a penchant for young waifs with substance abuse problems." (page 180)

"Harvey confided one night that at twenty-four, Doug was the oldest man Harvey had ever started an affair with." (page 237)..

“…sixteen-year-old old McKinley was
looking for some kind of father figure…within a few weeks, McKinley moved
into Harvey Milk’s Upper West Side apartment…and settled into a middleclass
domestic marriage..

Coldly agreed with a former lover’s suicide threat
“…the phone rang. As soon as Harvey heard the voice, he rolled his eyes
impatiently at Jim. ‘It’s Jack McKinley,’ he said. He paused and listened
further. ‘He says he’s going to kill himself.’…‘Tell him not to make a mess,’
Harvey deadpanned. Jack hung up.” (Source: Randy Shilts, The Mayor of
Castro Street, p. 126)

And as you must surely already know, Jack McKinley, one of Milk's used kleenex's, jumped to his death at age 33 on Milk's birthday. Age 33 was the age Harvey Milk hooked up with the 16 year old minor Jack McKinley in New York when doing so was illegal: sodomy of a minor child. Good enough for you or would you like me to share more quotes from Milk's biography? Like his penchant for anonymous promiscious public sex acts in parks and bath houses?

Here's the CA law:

SB 572, Leno. Harvey Milk Day: official designation.
SECTION 1.
The Legislature hereby finds and declares the following:
(a) Harvey Bernard Milk was born on May 22, 1930, in Woodmere, New York. He was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in a major city of the United States. He was assassinated in 1978 at San Francisco’s City Hall by a political rival. Perhaps more than any other modern figure, Harvey Milk’s life and political career embody the rise of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) civil rights movement in California, across the nation, and throughout the world....
...http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=200920100SB572

...

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

You made an accusation of pedophilia.

And, you have yet to back it up.

That deserves an acknowledgement from you.

Were you just unaware of the definition of pedophilia? Or what?

You want quotes from Harvey Milk's biography?

So you’re advocating that Utah enter Harvey Milk’s biography into evidence in support of the State’s desire to deny same-sex couples their equal protection rights, correct?

 

[BDBoop]

Mazel Tov!!!

Right After The Utah Marriage Equality Ruling, A Guy Live-Tweeted Getting Married

 

[Iceman]

LOL, marriage is officially a joke. Let the homosexuals have it I say. If they need a license to validate themselves, so be it.

 

[Star]

Mazel Tov!!!

Right After The Utah Marriage Equality Ruling, A Guy Live-Tweeted Getting Married

LOL - If the bigots are going to try use idiotic pedophilia arguments against marriage equality -- they're gonna need lots-o-chuc may man.
.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Activist judges. They need to go. Sane presidents need to appoint sane judges.

how is this activism? was loving v. virginia activism?

tuffy libertarian! you go, boy!! You are correct about Loving, for sure.

Heller was activism, and I sure did not hear the far right denouncing it.

What is the **** are you talking about
There is a second amendment right heller up held it garage as it is.
There is no amendment right for faggots marrying.
What next brother and sister bitching because they can't marry each other?

 

[JakeStarkey]

I know what consent means. Initially, removing age of consent laws was part of the agenda of the homosexual lobby. They supported legalizing pedophilia.

Age of consent laws have only gone up in the United States. And, no, gays in a majority do no support lowering age of consent laws. Keep up the homophobic hyperbole though...it only helps the marriage equality side.

Just because they weren't effective at removing such laws and dropped these positions as they gained more mainstream traction, doesn't mean they didn't hold those views initially. As late as the 70s, pedophile rights and homosexual rights were one in the same politically.

Only in the minds of the perverted far right reactionaries.

 

[WinterBorn]

You made an accusation of pedophilia.

And, you have yet to back it up.

That deserves an acknowledgement from you.

Were you just unaware of the definition of pedophilia? Or what?

You want quotes from Harvey Milk's biography?

So you’re advocating that Utah enter Harvey Milk’s biography into evidence in support of the State’s desire to deny same-sex couples their equal protection rights, correct?

Apparently they will try anything. lol

 

[JakeStarkey]

Judge Shelby would throw out Sil's nonsense in a heartbeat.

He will deny the request today from the State for a delay.

Since the 10th denied an emergency request yesterday from the state, same sex marriage licenses will continued to be issued and marriages performed.

When the 10th denies the inevitable appeal from Shelby's ruling, the anti-fair marriage folks are afraid to send another appeal to SCOTUS. If it refuses to hear it, the battle is over regarding legality of the issue.

 

[Seawytch]

Apparently they will try anything. lol

They've pretty much tried everything...and have been systematically dismantled.

Claim: Same-Sex Couples Are Not Qualified To Marry Because They Cannot Procreate
Conservatives have long arbitrarily asserted that a limitation to man-woman unions is inherent in the very definition of “marriage,” suggesting that “same-sex marriage” is thus an oxymoron. Utah state officials offered their own variation of this claim, arguing that same-sex couples were not “qualified” to marry because they can not naturally reproduce with each other. Shelby observed that there are plenty of opposite-sex couples who cannot have children or choose not to, while at the same time there are over 3,000 same-sex couples already raising children in Utah. The state’s double standard played out humorously during oral arguments earlier this month, with Philip S. Lott representing Utah (transcript is abridged here):

THE COURT: Is it the state’s position that it would be constitutional, if the state chose to do so, to enact a regulation or law requiring that individuals who wish to marry submit to fertilization testing to prove that they’re capable of procreation? Is that constitutional? Because marriage — you’re relying on procreation as an essential characteristic of that union or that right? [...]

LOTT: I don’t believe it would be constitutional, also because there is Supreme Court precedent saying that the right to not procreate is a fundamental right. So the state would not do that and would not be able to do that. [...]

THE COURT: Before we leave that last hypothetical, let me pose it a different way and see if the answer is any different. Could the state of Utah constitutionally restrict marriage — deny marriage licenses say to post-menopausal women?

LOTT: I think the answer again is that the state’s interest in fostering procreation within certain parameters is not intended to exclude other relationships that potentially are going to involve raising a child. If you have a post-menopausal woman, she may not herself be able to have a child, but that doesn’t mean that she’s not going to have a grandchild that she may be in a position to need to raise or a niece or a nephew, and so the state’s interest is still present.

THE COURT: So is it something different than an individual’s actual ability to procreate? That’s not the fundamental characteristic? It’s the likelihood that the person may find themselves in the position of raising a child?

LOTT: Yes.

THE COURT: Okay. How are same-sex couples different in that respect?

LOTT: Well, a gay or lesbian person obviously can reproduce, but it’s not going to occur within a same-sex marriage. [...] The simple answer to that is that procreation is the difference. A same-sex couple is not going to produce children.

THE COURT: Okay, so post-menopausal women in the state of Utah do not have a constitutional right to marry, as an example, or people who by virtue of surgical operations or genetics or whatever reason — if they can’t procreate, there’s not a fundamental right to marry. That’s the state’s view about the defining difference between the fundamental right that the plaintiffs are seeking here and those that are recognized by the Supreme Court?

LOTT: No.

How A Federal Judge In Utah Adeptly Dismantled All Of The Arguments Against Marriage Equality

 

[Seawytch]

Claim: Same-Sex Marriage Is A “New Right”

Riffing on the claim that “marriage” only means — and has only ever meant — a man and a woman, Utah also argued that same-sex marriage is a “new right,” not the same “fundamental right” to marry that courts have previously affirmed. Comparing this case to Loving v. Virginia, which addressed the question of interracial marriage, Shelby noted that the right to marry includes the right to choose who to marry. Same-sex couples, he concluded, are seeking “the same right that is currently enjoyed by heterosexual individuals: the right to make a public commitment to form an exclusive relationship and create a family with a partner with whom the person shares an intimate and sustaining emotional bond.” Given that straight people are as unlikely to exercise the right to marry someone of the same-sex as gay people are to marry someone of the opposite-sex, both are “therefore simply manifestations of one right — the right to marry — applied to people with different sexual identities.”
Shelby couched this conclusion in his observation that much has been learned about homosexuality and the experience of people with same-sex orientations, which must be properly contextualized:

While it was assumed until recently that a person could only share an intimate emotional bond and develop a family with a person of the opposite sex, the realization that this assumption is false does not change the underlying right. It merely changes the result when the court applies that right to the facts before it. Applying that right to these Plaintiffs, the court finds that the Constitution protects their right to marry a person of the same sex to the same degree that the Constitution protects the right of heterosexual individuals to marry a person of the opposite sex.​

In other words, there is no such thing as “gay marriage” or “straight marriage”; there is only marriage.

Claim: Prohibiting Same-Sex Marriage Does Not Discriminate On The Basis Of Sex

In addition to arguing that the marriage amendment discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, the plaintiffs also made the case that it discriminates on the basis of sex, because it prohibits a man from marrying another man but not from marrying a woman. The state replied that it does not discriminate as such because both sexes are equally prohibited from marrying the same-sex. Judge Shelby was not convinced by this claim, because the exact same argument failed when used in Loving to defend a ban on interracial marriage:

In Loving, Virginia argued that its anti-miscegenation laws did not discriminate based on race because the prohibition against mixed-race marriage applied equally to both white and black citizens. The Court found that “the fact of equal application does not immunize the statute from the very heavy burden of justification which the Fourteenth Amendment has traditionally required of state statutes drawn according to race.” Applying the same logic, the court finds that the fact of equal application to both men and women does not immunize Utah’s Amendment 3 from the heightened burden of justification that the Fourteenth Amendment requires of state laws drawn according to sex.​

Because the amendment fails even on rational basis review, Shelby did not actually apply this consideration; he was simply making the point that he could have.

How A Federal Judge In Utah Adeptly Dismantled All Of The Arguments Against Marriage Equality

 

[WillReadmore]

...Bill Text - SB-572 Harvey Milk Day: official designation.

...

Stop dodging the question.

You accused Milk of pedophilia.

So far, you've got zip. Are you now admitting you were wrong?

Pedophilia is a crime, so it's perfectly reasonable to figure this out.

Do you have something? Or, are you ready to admit you made a false accusation?

 

[Seawytch]

Stop dodging the question.

You accused Milk of pedophilia.

So far, you've got zip. Are you now admitting you were wrong?

Pedophilia is a crime, so it's perfectly reasonable to figure this out.

Do you have something? Or, are you ready to admit you made a false accusation?

Milk, when he was 30, began dating a 16 year old. It was not pedophilia, but statutory rape because CA's age of consent was 18, not 16 like most states. They dated for five years.

 

[kaz]

Ask the justices who decided Loving v Virginia. They (the Lovings) could have married within their race as law dictated, but they wanted it applied differently to them. Damn what the public thought!!!

Winston Churchill: I can explain it to you. I cannot comprehend it for you.

Oh, I comprehend just fine. Damn activist judges forced an unwilling public to accept interracial marriage, right? See, perfect comprehension.

Again with the emotional appeal. Unfortunately there is no logic to it. I also don't care about government marriage. But judges following the Constitution are not "activist." Being gay does not change who you can marry. Being black in Virginia did change who you could marry. They are required as a point of law to follow the Constitution.

The 14th amendment does not grant equal access to privileges. It says you can use the water fountain everyone else can, it does not say that if you don't like water you're entitled to a beverage of your choosing. There is no basis for a judge to decree gay marriage.

There are those who can though, the legislature. Get off your lazy ass and convince people.

I also like the irony that you are the one who constantly argues that simple majority is ample justification for government to pummel the rich and pillage American business. Hey, majority vote. But when you don't get your way with the majority, you just go ask for a dictatorship to declare it for you. All hypocrisy in this comes from you and goes right back to you.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Kaz, the emotional appeal is that of the far right, which will be rejected by Judge Shelby.

The law does not action of emotion, only on the facts and the statutes and case law.

Guess which way will the ruling go.

 

[WillReadmore]

Because the amendment fails even on rational basis review, Shelby did not actually apply this consideration; he was simply making the point that he could have.

How A Federal Judge In Utah Adeptly Dismantled All Of The Arguments Against Marriage Equality

Yes.

I wonder how they would answer questions concerning the fact that a lesbian couple has, on average, a procreation advantage on hetero couples?

All such a couple needs is access to a fertility clinic - the use of which is considered well within norms today.

 

[Seawytch]

Winston Churchill: I can explain it to you. I cannot comprehend it for you.

Oh, I comprehend just fine. Damn activist judges forced an unwilling public to accept interracial marriage, right? See, perfect comprehension.

Again with the emotional appeal. Unfortunately there is no logic to it. I also don't care about government marriage. But judges following the Constitution are not "activist." Being gay does not change who you can marry. Being black in Virginia did change who you could marry. They are required as a point of law to follow the Constitution.

The 14th amendment does not grant equal access to privileges. It says you can use the water fountain everyone else can, it does not say that if you don't like water you're entitled to a beverage of your choosing. There is no basis for a judge to decree gay marriage.

There are those who can though, the legislature. Get off your lazy ass and convince people.

I also like the irony that you are the one who constantly argues that simple majority is ample justification for government to pummel the rich and pillage American business. Hey, majority vote. But when you don't get your way with the majority, you just go ask for a dictatorship to declare it for you. All hypocrisy in this comes from you and goes right back to you.

Civil rights should never be put to a majority vote. The concept is ludicrous on its face.

Here's what the judge said:

In Loving, Virginia argued that its anti-miscegenation laws did not discriminate based on race because the prohibition against mixed-race marriage applied equally to both white and black citizens. The Court found that “the fact of equal application does not immunize the statute from the very heavy burden of justification which the Fourteenth Amendment has traditionally required of state statutes drawn according to race.” Applying the same logic, the court finds that the fact of equal application to both men and women does not immunize Utah’s Amendment 3 from the heightened burden of justification that the Fourteenth Amendment requires of state laws drawn according to sex.

So no...just like those lazy interracial couples, I'm confident in the system of government set up to protect my rights. I'll let it work the way it is supposed to, thanks.

 

[Seawytch]

Because the amendment fails even on rational basis review, Shelby did not actually apply this consideration; he was simply making the point that he could have.

How A Federal Judge In Utah Adeptly Dismantled All Of The Arguments Against Marriage Equality

Yes.

I wonder how they would answer questions concerning the fact that a lesbian couple has, on average, a procreation advantage on hetero couples?

All such a couple needs is access to a fertility clinic - the use of which is considered well within norms today.

Hell, we don't even need the clinic. At home with a turkey baster (or sterilize syringe) works just great (as I can attest)