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This will probably be the most touching thing you'll view all day.

via Digital Journal

New Zealand has become the 13th nation and the first in the Asia-Pacific region to legalize same-sex marriage after parliament voted to amend the nation's marriage act on Wednesday.

The New Zealand Herald reports that the public gallery erupted in jubilation after the legislature's 77-44 vote was announced. Lawmakers then embraced and exchanged congratulations as the gallery, and some MPs, sang a waiata, the New Zealand love song "Pokarekare Ana." Hundreds of LGBT advocates also celebrated outside parliament after the historic vote.

While same-sex civil unions have been legal in New Zealand since 2005, the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill updates a 1955 law in order to "ensure that all people, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity will have the opportunity to marry if they so choose."

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A child in North Carolina spent part of his Easter Sunday morning protesting outside a Winston-Salem church that has vowed not to host any wedding ceremonies until same sex marriage is legalized.

Kelly Carpenter, the pastor of Green Street United Methodist Church, said last month that no weddings were being scheduled because his congregation was becoming more diverse and the heterosexual members wanted same sex couples to “share a sense of the love that they have found.”

Anti-LGBT activist Brian Cranford, who says that the "Lord has called Me specifically into evangelism Street ministry," on Sunday posted a YouTube video of an unidentified child standing outside Green Street Church and yelling at the congregation as they exited after Easter services.

"You have your chance to repent, to stop your sinning, to quit affirming the gay people!" the kid shouts in the eight-minute video clip. "The Bible talks about the homosexuals, they're worthy of death!"

"And you people approve of that! And that's why you're going to hell! You can turn from your sin. You can turn to Jesus or go to hell!"

(h/t: Good As You)

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If you've got HBO and did not get a chance to watch their documentary, The Loving Story this week, it reairs in May. In the wake of the two hearings by the Supreme Court on gay marriage, the film serves as a stark reminder for how we're likely to be viewed by future generations for the rhetoric and animosity we're seeing to same-sex couples being allowed to be married today.

Here's more on the documentary from Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones: "The Loving Story": How an Interracial Couple Changed a Nation:

The most striking thing about Mildred and Richard Loving is that they never wanted to be known. They didn't want to change history or face down racism. They just wanted to come home to Virginia to be near their families. The Lovings weren't radicals. They were just two people in love—one of them a taciturn white guy described by one of their lawyers as a "redneck," the other a sweet, soft-spoken young woman of black and American Indian ancestry.

When the The Loving Story makes its national debut on HBO on Valentine's Day, it will be the first time many Americans have met this couple. They are the namesake of the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case that struck down the anti-miscegenation laws still on the books in 16 states some 13 years after school segregation was deemed unconstitutional. These laws constituted one of the last formal vestiges of the Jim Crow era, and this film shows for the first time what it took to bring them down.

Even as they changed America, the Lovings were never a household name. After getting married in Washington, DC, in June 1958, they simply returned to their home in Central Point, Virginia. Mildred was unaware, she said, of her state's "Racial Integrity Act," a 1924 law forbidding interracial marriage—although she later added that she thought her husband knew about it but didn't figure they'd be persecuted.

Just over a month after the Lovings' homecoming, police raided their place at 2 a.m., arrested the couple, and threw them in jail. Leon Bazile, a judge for the Caroline County Circuit Court, convicted them on felony charges. "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay, and red, and he placed them on separate continents," the judge wrote. "The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." Read on...

Mediaite had something interesting posted on the same topic, which is a quiz to see if readers can tell the difference between actual anti-interracial and anti-gay marriage quotes. As they noted:

Whether it’s condemning homosexuality as “unnatural” and “immoral,” or comparing gay relationships to “armed robbery” and “marrying your dog,” or simply “thumping the Bible” as the primary means to argument, many of the opponents of same-sex marriage sound an awful lot like those who so vocally opposed miscegenation, the marriage between races.

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The Daily Show's Jon Stewart had a field day with the opponents of gay marriage at this week's Supreme Court hearings on the Defense of Marriage Act, starting with Paul Clement, the lawyer hired by House Republicans, who was called out by Justice Elena Kagan when he attempted to make the claim that the law wasn't based on bigotry.

After playing some of the back and forth between Clement and Kagan, Stewart gave the audience a reminder of just what the House Republicans sounded like back in 1996, before playing the audio of Kagan reading from the actual House report which said "Congress decided to reflect and honor of collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality." As Stewart noted, "with moral arguments no longer available to opponents of same-sex marriage, what's left for the conservatives to argue?"

Cue the idiocy of Justice Scalia, who made this ridiculous claim:

JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Cooper, let me — let me give you one — one concrete thing. I don’t know why you don’t mention some concrete things. If you redefine marriage to include same-sex couples, you must — you must permit adoption by same-sex couples, and there’s – there’s considerable disagreement among — among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a — in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not. Some States do not — do not permit adoption by same-sex couples for that reason.

As Stewart rightfully noted in the segment, no, there's not.

And then there was Justica Alito's equally ridiculous remark that the issue of gay marriage is "newer than cellphones or the Internet."

STEWART: No, we want you to step in and render a decision based on whether it's right, fair and just under the Constitution, having nothing to do with its "newness" and what you think might happen. Which by the way, what do you think might happen? That they'll discover letting two ladies get married is going to rip open a hole in the ozone layer? And I've got news for you. Gay marriage will definitely cause less national harm than cell phones or the Internet.

But here's the thing that we're pretty sure you don't have to do. You don't have to beta test rights. Black people have only been here fifty years. I mean, let's see how the Netherlands does with them before we lift some barriers.

Stewart did have one hope that the justices might be moved by one thing though, and that's the "mother f**king injustice" of Edith Windsor, the plaintiff in the case, being forced to pay estate taxes and their concern "about the heartbreak, that is double taxation."

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Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday concluded that permitting same sex marriage would effectively legalize pedophilia.

In a clip posted by Media Matters, Limbaugh expanded on a caller's argument against the Supreme Court coming down on the side of LGBT rights.

"She was talking about contracts, folks, just so you understand," the radio host explained. "Everybody can contract with a member of the opposite sex to marry them. But her point was that if same sex fits the bill of the contract then everything fits the bill."

Limbaugh then took that logic one step further.

"And at some point, who's to say that you cannot have sex with a child?" he asked.

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Evan Wolfson, the founder of the one of the country's top same sex marriage advocacy groups, on Sunday assured Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that "the gay people are not going to use up all the marriage licenses" if the Supreme Court strikes down marriage discrimination.

CBS host Bob Schieffer asked a Face the Nation panel if it would make more sense to drop the same sex marriage bans and allow churches to decide if they wanted to include gay and lesbian couples.

"And then various churches could define what they thought marriage was," Schieffer explained. "And gay people, other people could choose the church that fit their particular beliefs."

"If you want to talk about rights, let's talk about those rights that have been lost in the wake of same sex marriage," Perkins argued. "And religious freedom has been among them. You've got Catholic charities no longer doing adoptions, not providing vital services right here in this city as a result of same sex marriage in D.C. You've got parental rights that have been lost, parents no longer being able to determine what their children are taught, whose moral values they are taught in school. We have small businessmen losing their rights because they won't participate in same sex ceremonies. So you talk about rights, let's talk about rights."

Continue reading »

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In a heated confrontation on Sunday, lesbian Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen shot down Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed after he argued that the primary purpose of marriage was procreation.

During a NBC panel discussion about the Supreme Court's decision to consider the federal government's Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Reed suggested that current polls in favor of same sex marriage did not matter because 31 state elections had backed "traditional marriage," while only three had affirmed marriage equality.

"The issue before the country is, do we have a compelling interest in strengthening and supporting the durable, enduring and uniquely complementary and procreative union of a man and a woman?" the conservative activist asked. "And by the way, the reason why is it's better for children, and all the social science shows that."

NBC host David Gregory pointed out that the American Academy of Pediatrics has said that marriage was in the best interest of children living with same sex parents.

"Ralph raises a point that we cannot ignore," Rosen observed. "Which is the rationale that the opposition is putting before the Supreme Court, the only difference between a gay couple and a married straight couple that gets benefits from the federal government is that one has accidental procreation. I think that would be a surprise to a lot of infertile heterosexual couples."

"Well, that's not really a fair characterization," Reed insisted.

"Of course it is," Rosen shot back. "That's the point you just made, which is the point of marriage is procreation. That's not the point of marriage. The point of marriage is love and commitment."

"What I said is the verdict of social science is overwhelming and irrefutable," Reed said, refusing to look at at Rosen, who is a same sex parent. "And that is without regard to straight or gay -- in other words, this applies to one-parent households, it applies to foster homes, it applies to the whole panoply. They have looked at them all, that the enduring, loving, intact biological mother and father is best for children and it's not even a close call. And the only issue before the court is there a social good to that and does the government have a legitimate issue in protecting and strengthening. That's the only issue."

"We're going to dispute on the science," Rosen replied.

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I'm not sure how much more "polarized" the debate over gay marriage could possibly be than it is already, but that was the concern expressed by New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks on this Sunday's Meet the Press when asked if it matters that so many states have laws in place either restricting or banning gay marriage.

I wonder if Brooks thinks that interracial marriage ought to be put back up for a vote because that debate was "polarizing" for the country as well? Conservatives always seem to be terribly concerned about judicial "overreach" when it comes to civil rights or the rights of ordinary citizens, but don't have a problem when they "overreach" and give corporations and the wealthy the right to buy our elections. That's just fine.

GREGORY: David Brooks, the country is divided and there are forty one states that either ban it or treat gay marriage as something different than traditional marriage. Does that matter?

BROOKS: Yeah, but I think the trend, I'm with Hilary, the trend is pretty amazing. Listen, we've had five thousand years in western civilization, has there ever been a society that's given complete equality to gays and lesbians until ours and currently western Europe? No. This is a big, historic moment and the movement I think is just overwhelming and gradual and almost irreversible. Now why is it happening? One, because a lot of brave gay and lesbian people had the courage to come out and people got to see them. Second, because it became about marriage. It became about order. It became about having committed, long term relationships, which people conservative and liberal believe in.

And so those two things have moved, I think, the debate, tectonically. To me the only fear now is the court. If the court overreaches and tries to impose a solution from the top and that sort of freezes and polarizes the debate.

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The president of a conservative organization which opposes rights for LGBT people on Sunday rejected the notion that public opinion now supports marriage equality because "the polls are skewed."

Speaking to American Values President Gary Bauer, Fox News host Chris Wallace wondered if conservatives should oppose the federal government interfering in states' rights by refusing to recognize the legal marriages of LGBT Americans.

"I don't think so," Bauer insisted. "A lot of people are changing their mind because there's been a full-court blitz by the popular culture, by elites, by all kinds of folks to intimidate and to cower people and to no longer defend marriage as being between a man and a woman."

"Quite frankly, the argument that the public is overwhelmingly in favor of same sex marriage is ludicrous," he continued. "If it was so obvious that the American public wants to try a radical social experiment that results in children in those households definitely -- definitely not having a mother and a father, that's what makes marriage a special institution. It guarantees that children have mothers and fathers. If the opinion of the American public was so overwhelming, the gay rights movement and their allies like Nicole [Wallace] would not be asking the Supreme Court to say to the America people, 'You have no say on this issue.'"

Wallace pointed out that a recent Washington Post poll found that 58 percent of Americans agreed that same sex marriage should be legal, and 70 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 39 supported equal marriage rights.

"Do you worry that this only puts the Republican Party further out of touch?" Wallace pressed Bauer.

"No, I'm not worried about it because the polls are skewed," the former Family Research Council president replied. "Just this last November, four states -- four liberal states -- voted on this issue. My side lost those votes, but my side had 45, 46 percent of the vote in all four of those liberal states. In fact, those marriage amendments that would keep marriage for a man and woman outran Mitt Romney in those four liberal states by an average of five points."

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We at C&L have posted a few negatives against Starbucks, their CEO, and some of their more unsavory business practices over the years. But credit where credit is due. Howard Schultz was having none of NOM's foolishness at their shareholder's meeting.

via KPLU, for NPR. Video by the Puget Sound Business Journal.

The CEO of Starbucks defended his support of same-sex marriage at the company’s annual meeting in Seattle. Starbucks came out in favor last year of Washington’s referendum legalizing same-sex marriage. Opponents of that measure vowed to make Starbuck’s pay, and the National Organization for Marriage launched a boycott of Starbucks.

At the company’s annual meeting Wednesday, shareholder Tom Strobhar suggested that the boycott had indeed bled the company of value.

“In the first fill quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and our earrings — shall we say politely — were a bit disappointing,” he said.

CEO Howard Schultz shot back that the decision to back gay marriage was not about the bottom line, but about respecting diversity. He said the company had delivered a healthy return last year, boycott or no.

“If you feel, respectfully, that you can get a higher return than the 38 percent you got last year, it’s a free country. You can sell your shares of Starbucks and buy shares in another company. Thank you very much,” he said, to loud applause from the audience.