Tag: same-sex marriage

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Anti-Same-Sex Marriage Couple Renege On Divorcing On Passage Of Marriage Equality

I’ve posted in the past about a married couple of haters in Australia who “threatened” to divorce should marriage equality come to the land “down under.”

Back in June 2015, Nick and Sarah Jensen of Canberra swore to divorce in protest if the government legalized same-sex marriage.

It will come as no surprise the threat was an empty one as Parliament has resoundingly approved marriage equality.

From The Daily Mail:

And after Parliament finally passed the law to cheers on Thursday afternoon, Mr Jensen announced his position in a statement to Daily Mail Australia. “My previous public comments regarding civil divorce never envisaged me separating from my wife, but rather our marriage from the State,” he wrote.

“The legislation currently makes it untenable for us to do this under the law. The point we were highlighting and that still stands however is the fact that a redefinition of marriage changes the agreement under which we were originally married. We will be making no further comment.”

Here’s Nick Jansen’s statement from 2015:

“My wife and I just celebrated our 10-year anniversary. But later this year, we may be getting a divorce. The decision to divorce is not one we’ve taken lightly. And certainly, it’s not one that many will readily understand. And that’s because it’s not a traditional divorce. Our view is that marriage is a fundamental order of creation. Part of God’s human history. Marriage is the union of a man and a woman before a community in the sight of God. And marriage of any couple is important to God regardless of whether that couple recognises God’s involvement or authority in it.” 

(h/t JoeMyGod) 

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Australia Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Australia’s House of Representatives has legalized same-sex marriage by a wide margin.

Only four MPs voted no to make marriage equality the law of the land.

The Senate had already approved the legislation last week by a vote of 43-12.

After the Governor-General gives the legislation official approval in a formality known as “Royal Assent,” marriage equality will become the law of the land. Australia will become the 25th country to recognize same-sex couples’ right to marry.

Congratulations, Australia!

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Austria’s High Court Rules In Favor Of Marriage Equality

After seven years of affording same-sex couples “registered partnerships,” Austria’s Constitutional Court has ruled that by 2019 full marriage equality must be available to same-sex couples.

Via Deutsche Welle:

Same-sex couples in Austria have been able to enter only into “registered partnerships” since 2010, with nearly the same rights of married couples. But the court ruled that “the distinction between marriage and registered partnership … cannot be upheld in this day and age without discriminating against same-sex couples.”

“The resulting discriminatory effect is seen in the fact that through the different title of the family status, people living in same-sex partnerships have to disclose their sexual orientation even in situations in which it is not, and must not be, relevant and … are highly likely to be discriminated against,” the court said in its ruling.

It said that restrictions on same-sex marriage would be lifted at the end of 2018 unless the government did so itself earlier. The ruling will remove the words “two people of different sex” from the law on marriage. It will keep civil partnerships as an option and will open them up to straight couples.

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Australian Lawmaker Proposes To His Partner During Same-Sex Marriage Debate In Parliament

It was an emotional moment when Tim Wilson, a member of Australia’s House of Representatives, addressed fellow lawmakers about the impending vote to legalize same-sex marriage.

“In my first speech I defined our bond by the ring that sits on both of our left hands, and they are the answer to a question we cannot ask,” Wilson said as his partner of seven years, Ryan Bolger, watched from the public gallery.

“There’s only one thing left to do: Ryan Patrick Bolger, will you marry me?” Wilson continued.

Bolger, a primary school teacher, smiled broadly and immediately answered, “yes.”

And the crowd goes wild.

After the legislation sailed through the Senate last week, the House is expected to vote later this week.

Watch the marriage proposal below.

(source)

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SCOTUS Will Let Stand Texas Ruling Denying Same-Sex Couples Equal Spousal Benefits

This is very bad.

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will let stand a ruling by the Texas Supreme Court that said the right to a marriage license did not entitle same-sex couples to spousal benefits under employee insurance plans.

From The Texas Tribune:

The high court on Monday announced it would not take up the case — which centers on Houston’s policy to provide spouses of gay and lesbian employees the same government-subsidized marriage benefits it provides to opposite-sex spouses — just months after the city of Houston filed its appeal, arguing the state court’s June decision “disregarded” precedent.

In that decision, the Texas Supreme Court threw out a lower court ruling that said spouses of gay and lesbian public employees are entitled to government-subsidized marriage benefits, and it unanimously ordered a trial court to reconsider the case. The ruling found that there’s still room for state courts to explore “the reach and ramifications” of marriage-related issues that resulted from the legalization of same-sex marriage.

That’s despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015 and noted that now-defunct marriage laws were unequal in how they denied same-sex couples the benefits afforded to opposite-sex couples.

In its decision, the Texas Supreme Court noted that Obergefell requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages just as they do opposite-sex marriages but did not hold that “states must provide the same publicly funded benefits to all married persons.”

That does not mean Houston can “constitutionally deny benefits to its employees’ same-sex spouses,” the court added, but the issue must now be resolved “in light of Obergefell.”

Following the Obergefell ruling, public employers in Texas, including state agencies and public universities, quickly extended marriage benefits to spouses of gay and lesbian employees.

“Equal recognition of same-sex marriage requires more than a marriage license; it requires equal access to the constellation of benefits that the state has linked to marriage,” Houston attorneys wrote in their brief to the court.

This is particularly disconcerting as SCOTUS prepares to hear the case of Colorado baker Jack Phillips tomorrow who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.

All eyes will be on that ruling.

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Australia: Senate Approves Marriage Equality Bill 43-12

Just two weeks after Australia’s “vote by mail” survey showed 61.6% of Aussies approve of same-sex marriage, the nation’s Senate has approved a bill that would make marriage equality a reality by a wide margin of 43 “Yes” votes to only 12 “No” votes.

The issue now moves to the House of Representatives where it is expected to pass easily.

Watch below the moment when the Senate votes were announced last night.

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Australia: Conservative Amendments To Marriage Equality Bill Voted Down In Wide Margins

As Australia’s Senate debates marriage equality legislation, with hopes of passing by Christmas, same-sex marriage opponents are seeing their amendments meant to water down the bill voted down in rapid succession.

Via Buzzfeed:

The amendments would have added far-reaching exemptions into the bill, including the right for all celebrants to refuse to solemnise gay weddings on religious or conscientious grounds and legal protections for people who don’t believe in same-sex marriage or think gay relationships are wrong.

Their decisive defeat is a considerable victory for the “yes” campaign and LGBTI advocates, who feared opponents of same-sex marriage would try and insert clauses into the bill that would roll back anti-discrimination law.

The first amendment debated by the Senate would have effectively allowed civil celebrants to refuse to marry same-sex couples based on their religious or conscientious beliefs. It was defeated 42-24.

The second would have legislated widespread legal freedom of speech protections for people who hold various beliefs, including those against same-sex marriage but also against same-sex parenting and relationships, as well as an anti-detriment clause and a legislated parental right to pull children out of classes that mention the relevant beliefs. It went down 44-20 after a few hours of debate.

A further amendment relating to defence force chaplains was also defeated, as were amendments in relation to registered charities and religious organisations, with similar margins.

After the five amendments from the conservative bloc were defeated, the Senate also voted down two amendments from Brandis and resources minister Matthew Canavan.

The first, defeated 36-27, would have inserted a line about religious freedom taken from the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights into the bill, and the second, defeated 38-25, would have extended a right to civil celebrants to refuse to solemnise gay weddings.

BuzzFeed News understands that supporters of the legislation are confident that very few, if any, amendments will get up and the Smith bill will pass the Senate largely unamended.

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Chile To Begin Debate On Marriage Equality

Chile’s government will begin debate today on whether to change existing marriage laws to include same-sex couples.

On August 28 President Michelle Bachelet introduced legislation that would define marriage as ‘a solemn contract by which two people, of the same or different sex, unite themselves, and for life, in order to live together, to procreate and to help each other.’

Chile’s Senate Constitution Committee has called on LGBT advocacy groups to step up and make their case for marriage equality.

Since 2015, Chile has extended limited legal recognition of same-sex couples via civil unions.

Bachelet also supports efforts to strengthen hate crime and anti-discrimination law against the LGBTQ community as well as legislation that would allow transgender Chileans to legally change their names without requiring sex reassignment surgery – although the bill on transgender protections has stalled due to a lack of political will.

But time is of the essence as Bachelet will step down in March 2018, and one of the two leading candidates to replace Bachelet does not support marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Currently, only Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay have legalized same-sex marriage in South America.

On Saturday, over 100,000 marched in support of marriage equality in Santiago, Chile.

Watch below.

(source)

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Romanian Same-Sex Marriage Case Could Affect Several European Union Countries

Within the European Union, 13 countries currently recognize same-sex marriage, 9 additional nations offer civil unions or a similar legal status but 6 countries have no legal recognition of same-sex couples.

That could change soon as the European Union’s highest court is looking at a case brought by a Romanian man’s desire to live in his home country with his husband of 7 years.

One of the fundamental principles of the EU is to provide the citizens of the bloc’s member states and their family members the right to move and freely reside across the region, subject to certain conditions.

But when Adrian Coman and his American husband, Claibourn Robert Hamilton, sought to move to Coman’s home country of Romania, the authorities there refused to recognize their relationship in regards to legal residency for Hamilton.

Should the court rule in their favor, it could effectively force Romania and the other five non-marriage-equality nations residency and working rights as long as one member of the couple is a citizen of a European Union country.

In a country of 20 million Romanians, 3 million signed a 2016 petition calling for the constitutional definition of marriage to be defined as between “one man, one woman.” A referendum on the issue could be held as soon as next year.

So this decision by the high court will be especially timely.

Stay tuned.

(source)

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News Round-Up: November 17, 2017

Some news items you might have missed:

• InstaHunk of the Day: Sean Andrew Sanders

• A Navy pilot drew a big penis in the sky and everyone is talking about it.

• If you ever get down about a mistake or misstep you’ve made lately, remind yourself that at least you’re not this guy:

• Congrats to Allison Ikley-Freeman, an openly lesbian married woman who was just elected to Oklahoma state senate in a district that Donald Trump won in last year’s presidential election.

• Remember this Australian couple who said they would divorce if marriage equality came to Australia? No word yet on whether they intend on following through on that…

• “I love my body/I love my skin/I am a goddess/I am a queen,” sings Jessie J on her latest single, “Queen.” The self-empowerment-themed mid-tempo is from her upcoming album R.O.S.E. (Realizations, Obsessions, Sex and Empowerment). Listen below.