Select items:
- N.H. legislature creates a panel and moves a step closer to civil unions.
- S.C. legislature ratifies amendment to ban gay marriage, and Lindsey Graham-R, the Senator with arguably the gayest name in the Congress (yuk, yuk .. I know, I shouldn't stereotype), has yet another arrow in his dubious quiver about why his nativist views are better than "Northern liberals". [Graham voted FOR the federal marriage amendment in the last session].
- Sweeden proposes expanding rights of its gay civil unions (hat tip S. Miller).
- Westchester County exec order holds up in court this week. [this is the link to follow for interesting story/review].
Of these, I might judge the proposal in Sweeden to be quite significant (and the Westchester one as evidence that there is more than federalism at work, now). It's a note to marriage maximalists irreductionists, who either lack the discipline to walk a line or lack the foresight to anticipate a political strategy's evolution. There is more than one way to skin a cat, especially when "manifest justice" is on your side (and, no, I wouldn't consider a torrent of amendments a way to skin the cat).
It is also a note to those who came close to threatening heterosexuals, by suggesting that anything less than gay marriage was a threat to all marriage. The paucity of such views is not in their "correctness" or "validity", but in their failure to anticipate the level of animosity and pushback. When you have people like the Rev. Albert Mohler's of the world, who are prepared for eugenics to prevent homosexual existence, such threats are not ... er, instructive (at least in the way intended).
A letter from AS's reader on the NH issue.
State of the States on Partnership Nondiscrimination
