Today's Mighty Oak

Wherein I talk about the state of marriage equality



See, the title is a little bit of a pun, since I’m going to be talking about Pennsylvania.  Oh, I amuse myself.

So, Pa. is the only state in the northeast that doesn’t recognize same-sex couples (all New England and Mid-Atlantic states have marriage equality, except New Jersey which has civil unions, and they’re moving towards marriage).  And on top of that, Pa. has no employment protection for LGBT workers, meaning outside of areas (such as Allegheny county or places like State College), employers are able to fire workers for no other reason than that they’re gay.

So if we are successful in obtaining marriage equality, we’ll also be the only state to have done so without a state-wide ENDA.  Of course we’re ass-backwards.

Our Governor is kind of the laughing stock of the country.  One of his staff previously compared same-sex marriages to the marriages of 12 year olds, he has now said a better analogy is that of incest.  And he has the fucking nerve to laugh:

And if you couldn’t hear the drum beating before, now we have explicit calls from Brian Sims to vote him out of office:

Our job isn’t just to be frustrated with the homophobia coming from the Governor’s Mansion, it’s to do everything we can to ensure that his chapter in Pennsylvania’s political history is as sad and short as his record on schools, economic development and civil rights.

But this is also the state that has said spousal benefits for same-sex couples is just like throwing money at cats and dogs.  There is also a line of thinking (that I lost the link to, of course Nope, found the link), that he specifically used that reference to further demonize and demoralize LGBT citizens in very pointed way; either way, he’s an asshole.

But marriage equality is being fought on four different fronts:

  1. ACLU lawsuit, the first in the country brought after the DOMA/Prop 8 decisions.
  2. Montgomery County and the Montgomery County Clerk have filed appeals to keep issuing same-sex marriage licenses.  These may be the same appeal, or they may be separate, I’m not sure, I’ve seen them reported on both ways.
  3. Twenty one couples who were issued marriage licenses in Montgomery County are now suing the state for recognition.
  4. Marriage equality bill introduced in the House.

I don’t remember any other state moving forward on so many fronts, but I also don’t follow other states as closely as Pa.

Also, a bill has also been introduced to stop the torture of “ex-gay therapy” on minors:

Almost four decades of science and medicine that says if you are LGBTQ, just like me, that there is nothing wrong with you, that you are not broken, you don’t need to be fixed and you don’t need to have a diagnosis, and that being LGBT, like so many other characteristics in your life, some days will be a blessing and some days will be a burden, but is not something that needs to be fixed or can be fixed and that you are just fine the way you are.

So we’re moving forward, in any way (and many ways) possible, it’s a lot of fighting, but when you have to fight for your rights, you do what you must, I suppose.  And who knows how long this will take and how messy it will get, but I’ll keep you updated.

All my best,

Mike

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Social Links

Archives

How I’m Resisting

What I’m fighting for

What I’m running from

What I’m reading

What I’m drinking

What we’re writing

What I’m running