BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage

Subject: RE: BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage
From: gnu
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 01:18 PM

Twits...

CP

GENESEO, N.Y. - Opponents to New York's gay marriage law filed the first lawsuit challenging the measure, an anticipated salvo that came one day after weddings were celebrated around the state.

A representative of New Yorkers for constitutional Freedoms and a rabbi said in a lawsuit filed Monday in state court that New York's Senate violated its own procedures and the state's open meetings law when it approved the bill on June 24.

The lawsuit claims that the Senate prevented lawmakers who opposed the bill from speaking and that the Senate didn't follow procedures that require a bill to go through appropriate committees before a full Senate vote.

Opponents of the gay marriage law had promised lawsuits.

"We should have an open and deliberative process," the Rev. Jason McGuire, executive director of New Yorkers for constitutional Freedoms, told The Associated Press. "If truly the legislation can stand on its own merits then it should be able to withstand being deliberated publicly."

Spokesmen for Senate Republicans and the state's attorney general declined to comment.

Hundreds of gay couples got married starting just past midnight Sunday as New York became the sixth and largest state to legalize same-sex weddings. Ceremonies were held around the state, mostly in New York City where the day's celebration was tempered by a protest in which thousands of opponents marched to the United Nations.

On Monday, a mass wedding in Niagara Falls saw 46 same-sex couples exchange vows.

The bill was adopted the night of June 24, the last day of the legislative session after days of closed-door negotiations involving Gov. Andrew Cuomo and key lawmakers. The lawsuit claims that Cuomo improperly waived the three-day waiting period between a bill's introduction and a vote. Such waivers are common in Albany for negotiated bills.

The debate on the night of the vote on June 24 was severely restricted in a manner unprecedented in recent years.

The Senate's Republican majority allowed unlimited time for supporters of the bill to speak, including Democratic Sen. Thomas Duane who sponsored it and Republican Sen. Stephen Saland who provided the pivotal vote. But Lieutenant Gov. Robert Duffy, presiding of the Senate, repeatedly cut off Democratic Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr., a minister who led the opposition to the bill. Diaz sought to persuade his colleagues to vote "no."

The lawsuit also claims that promises of campaign contributions were made to Republican senators who voted for the bill.

Financial filings with the state Board of Elections July 15 showed Cuomo and the four Republican senators who voted for gay marriage received large campaign donations from groups and individuals who pushed for the legalization of gay marriage.

Subject: RE: BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage
From: saulgoldie
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 10:27 AM

Following up on my earlier post (great minds think alike!):

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-25-2011/runaway-pride


Saul

Subject: RE: BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage
From: akenaton
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 01:13 PM

Thankfully unavailable in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage
From: gnu
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 01:26 PM

ake...

Subject: RE: BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage
From: akenaton
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 04:43 PM

Huh!!??

Subject: RE: BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 10:31 AM

Meanwhile back in Utah gay-bashing and discrimination abounds. I hope they catch the bastards who did this.

Subject: RE: BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 05:21 PM

And in Ohio, a man phoned the police, last night, when he found poison pellets sprinkled in his yard. He has a tame raccoon. This is his description of the event:

THE POLICE DIDN'T CARE! THEY WERE FIRST CURIOUS TO SEE "THE RACCOON" AND DURING THEM LOOKING AT MY BOY THEY SPOKE ABOUT "THE TIMES THEY HAVE KILLED RACCOONS" ON TOP OF THAT THEY INSINUATED THAT I AM A PROSTITUTE!!! A QUOTE/QUESTION FROM THEM..." GAYS ARE ALWAYS SELLING THEIR ASS " AND - NOW THIS IS GOOD!... "WHY DO THE GAYS LIKE TO MOLEST KIDS?" YES FOLKS! THIS IS WHAT I DEAL WITH...

We are not yet living in the best of all possible worlds. He is fortunate, indeed, that these "police" did not grab and shoot his raccoon.

Subject: RE: BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 06:22 PM

I guess I have to say that personally, I don't like the idea of gay marriage - or of gay sex, for that matter. I don't like abortion, either. I think it is the taking of a life, although I acknowledge that many people have valid reasons for disagreeing with me. Those are my opinions. I am squeamish to dead set against both of these things.

But I feel compelled to acknowledge that gay people have gay sexual relationships for reasons that are very valid to them, and that women have abortions for reasons that are very valid to them. Although I may disagree with them, what right to I have to interfere with their rights to make choices for their own lives.

I don't like gay marriage and I don't like abortion, so don't expect me to strongly support either of these things. I certainly can respect a person's right to choose these things - so those who support abortion and gay marriage are well-advised to respect my point of view. It is to their advantage to count me as an ally.

On the other hand, those who oppose gay marriage and abortion might find advantage in considering me an ally, also.

I think that too often, we humans tend to reject others that we do not consider to be ideologically pure. If they don't see things exactly the way we do, we find it very difficult to find any value in them or in their point of view. If we hold too rigidly to our own perspective, we find it impossible to form alliances and compromises. We spend our lives being "right," but never getting anything accomplished because we can never find a majority of people who share our exact point of view.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage
From: Smokey.
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 06:47 PM

I can't see what difference it makes, so long as it doesn't frighten the horses. I know a couple of women who just got hitched and I wish them nothing but the best.

Sorry though, I feel compelled to confess that my first irreverent thought on reading the thread title was the notion of fairy cakes at the reception. Perhaps I'll grow up one day..

Subject: RE: BS: New York state legalizing gay marriage
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 07:05 PM

Now, I am a gentle, peaceful soul, but—

When I heard of the torture and murder of Matthew Shepard by a trio of homophobes a few years back (tortured and pistol-whipped a young college student for nothing more than his being gay, and left him tied to a fence on a country road. Days later, he was found still hanging from the fence, and taken to a hospital where he died from severe brain injuries received during the beating), I was roused to a kind of anger that I never want to feel. I want to kill—brutally—the kind of people who do such things.

I don't like that feeling. But I had the same feeling when I just read of what was done to Dane Hall.

The kind of people who perpetrate this kind of animal brutality on another human being—no matter what they consider the reasons—deserve to be banished from all human contact. They have proven that they, themselves, are not fully human. In fact, calling this sort of thing "animal brutality" is not correct. Animals may kill for food or to protect themselves, but not out of this kind of brutality.

I wonder if Dane Hall—or the authorities in Utah—are aware of The Matthew Shepard Act.

Don Firth