Be Excellent To Each Other

It's incredible, isn't it?

The last time NC amended its state constitution marriage clause, it was to ban interracial marriage.



(https://twitter.com/#!/thinkprogress/st ... 16/photo/1)

Oh, how times have changed.



(https://twitter.com/#!/ScottNevins/stat ... 01/photo/1)

Still, at least gay marriage is still legal in hippy left-wing places like Californ--- HEY WAIT A MINUTE.

Oh, is that what happened? Sigh. Danielle hated Indiana, the entire state is almost wall-to-wall nutbars.

Surely the last time would be to unban mixed race marriages? Or are they still illegal there?

Or was it struck in some national thingy?

I doubt ThinkProgress is wrong, so probably this, I'd imagine.

In the 1960s, the Supreme Court struck down the Virginia ban on inter-racial marriage (Lovings v Virginia), ruling such laws unconstitutional. Watched a really moving documentary on it whilst I was in the US the other month.

Heh. Apparently it is legal for first cousins to be married in NC, but not homosexuals.

"Article XIII describes the two ways the constitution may be amended: by popular convention or through legislation. Legislation is the most common way to amend the constitution. The last time the constitution was amended by convention was in 1875."

"Convention" in this context means "put to the public via referendum". I presume the national action over racial equality provoked a legislative change to the NC constitution, as I don't think that federal law can directly overturn state constitutions (can it...?)

Aha: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-misce ... ted_States



This confirms that NC's law was overturned as part of Loving v. Virginia, the case Kern referred to. 14 other states were affected by that too.

If it conflicts with the federal constitution, yes. The 14th Amendment prevents the states from restricting the rights and protections of citizens (amongst other things). Sadly, its gutting during the Jim Crow era, such as Plessy v Fergusson which upheld segregation, is quite depressing.

Even if it takes a long time for the actual law to be repealed, its unconstitutionality means that it is unenforceable.

Holy crap... am I reading that right? 40-odd percent of voters wanted mixed-race marriage to be illegal in Alabama as recently as 2000?

Those people are fucked in the head.

I was going around a museum in Holly Springs, Mississippi, run by an elderly lady from a seriously old money family (on hearing we were heading to Natchez, Mississippi, she said that she'd bought a small house for her daughter there - small, because it only came with three servants). The grand house was filled with various artifacts local people had donated. In a small stairwell was a full Klan outfit. The elderly lady explained that 'some people don't like us having it, but I know the person who donated it and he was a very good man', adding, whilst my friend and I were starting to find a way to back out, 'you have to remember that the Klan were a good thing at first...'

There's a dog kennels round here called Knights K9 Care, and they have a massive sign with KKK on it. I don't know if they are idiots, racists or both.

They're taking it back, um, dog.

Hmmm. It might mean 100% of voters voted for it, in an election with 62% turnout. It's ambiguously worded. Googling now...

What's the wording on the constitutional change? Have they banned same-sex marriage, or marriage between homosexuals. Not that either is acceptable, but the difference could prove interesting.

It's very broadly worded. Constitutional lawyers are concerned of knock-on affects, apparently. "Domestic legal union" doesn't have a legal defintion at present, so there'll be years of court fights ahead to build up the case law.

Golly...

Cripes.

But, I'm an optimist about the South. I think there's a big generational shift going on, and such attitudes are on the wane. I got the impression when I was over that there's a lot more willingness to discuss and be open about the past. For example, at Ole Miss, in Oxford, there's now a monument to James Meredith, the black student in the 1960s whose attempt to enroll at the university caused a riot and he had to be protected by soldiers as he went about his studies. Although the monument was only put up within the last decade, it was, to me, a sign that the South is trying to come to terms with its history. Similarly, museums, interpretative boards, and other tourist attractions are now not afraid to include references and descriptions of slavery or the civil rights period amongst their displays. True, some don't like this (a park ranger was telling me about people who come up to him angry that the park service discuss slavery at a civil war battlefield!) but I reckon those are the minority attitudes.

My last morning in Tennessee was spent at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, which is in the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was shot. Not only is it well worth a visit, and its displays on the history of the civil rights movement fascinating and moving, but it was deeply refreshing to see a such a mix of people from all over the US, and both black and white, visiting the place.

Your choice of exclamation made me smile.

The stat, less so.

The view from North Carolina. I live in Durham, which is the heart of the Triangle area of NC, pretty much, and also happens to be essentially the centre of the Triangle's gay community. You haven't been able to see a pro-Amendment sign for miles around, which was reflected in the vote last night - urban areas of NC rejected the amendment, rural counties were heavily for it.

The hope, I believe, is that the amendment is so wide-ranging that it may breach federal law, so expect a few lawsuits to be flung in the near future. The really annoying thing? NC already had a law prohibiting SSM - this was seemingly just done out of spite. But we're not giving up - hopefully NC will go blue again this November and Obama can 'evolve' his thinking during a second term...

EDIT: well, I look stupid: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/05/0 ... arriage-2/

That is good news, although he himself has probably no personal power to do anything about it other than provide inspiration for those wanting change.

Fascinating move by Obama. Politically savvy? Naive? Brave? Calculating? I really can't tell.

Sir Humphrey would term it 'courageous'.

But, thinking about it, most of those voters against gay marriage probably weren't going to vote for him anyway, and the remainder probably support him on other issues.

This is where I got "calculating" from.

I'm most likely being naive, but maybe he just thinks its the right thing to say as it is what he believes?

Could a gay black man marry a gay black woman? It'd still be a gay marriage.

He's been against it up until now, mind. Plus I don't think anyone who gets to be the President of the USA is capable of not weighing the pros and cons of something like this.

Yes. The bans always worded to be against "same sex" marriage. Interestingly, this creates loopholes for pre-op homosexual transsexuals.

Could a hermaphrodite marry another hermaphrodite?

Could a schizophrenic marry another one of his personalities?

I'm very bored.

Should've played Forza.

Personally, I'm truly amazed (and not in a good way) that there are people living and breathing today - in their thousands, nay millions, citizens of the most advanced, richest Nation on Earth - that still hold that gay people should not be able to engage in the social contract of marriage, like now, in 2012 - not 1783 - on the grounds of their private sexual preferences? (Let alone "mixed race" marriages... for fuck's sake)

'Bigotry' doesn't even begin to cover it. There's far too much irrational and groundless hatred in this world for my liking.

I hoped a few years back that it would die out with the generation before me, but now I think it is two generations after me that it will happen. Hope it'll happen. Really, really, hope it'll happen.

It will be around as long as the Abrahamic religions hold any sway.

I genuinely cannot understand the mentality that leads people to have so much hate against couples who are in love.

But they like bums. It's just not right.

Cos they're like saving souls and shit, man.

Pfft. No harm done.

There's next to nothing about homosexuality in the actual Bible, though. I think religion is merely the excuse for how these people feel anyway, not the seed of the hatred.

Indeed Doc, and there's an awful lot in there about love for your fellow human being, tolerance, empathy, peace and goodwill.

This is all about petty, macho bullshit, pure prejudice/hatred, tribalism and ultimately, I believe, insecurity, in many cases. Very human traits, sadly.

Does so! Man lying down with other man. Right next to the bit that says a man with only one ball can't approach the altar of god. Funny how they're always so Old testament but claim to be Christians.

Love is merely a concept invented by greeting card companies to help keep them out of administration. (Subs, please check)

A good friend of ours from the US, TJ, is a minister (umm, I think, I'm not sure of his denomination so that might not be the right word). He's absolutely scathing about right-wing fundamentalist Christian attitudes towards gay marriage and socialised health care and so forth. The cognitive dissonance some of these people sustain is astounding.

My favourite is those elderly Republican voters who are absolutely against government-funded healthcare, but would go ape if any politician cut their Medicare (government funded healthcare for the elderly)

There's a great news clip from a political rally with a pro-Obamacare supporter being heckled by some of the elderly types you mention. The words "socialist" and "Nazi" are used in the heckling. The supporter turns out to be a Jew who's parents died in a concentration camp. He... expresses his annoyance, quite vigorously.

The US is very backward in this respect, the film “I Love you Phillip Morris” with Jim Carry and Ewan McGregor did very badly over there as it had a Gay story line.

The didn't even show it in some states.

Once the penny dropped re Freddie Mercury’s big moustache, Queens popularity dipped in the US in the mid 1980’s.

It’s not that long ago that they had to be legally forced to teach Darwin’s theory’s in schools as a pose to all that shit about the world only being 5000 years old.

Even Jesus wasn't immune. As he famously said, "Get thee behind me, Satan".

Let's get rid, then. One doesn't need it for the good stuff, and it serves to legitimise the bad and give it a platform that we are culturally conditioned to be tolerant of.

Oh, the ironing.

Let's not forget the gay marriage situation going on here. Still not legal, and although David Cameron was voicing support for it recently there is some talk that he might drop it to appease his back benchers who think they have to be more conservative to offset the libs. They say it wasn't mentioned yesterday because they are going to be getting peoples views first. I wish they would just grow a pair and legislate. I'd love to get married, it's getting ridiculous how hormonal I get at wedding scenes in tv and film lately.

Yeah, it's bloody stupid. As someone said on Twitter yesterday: "Gay people should be able to get married. This is Great Britian in 2012, not North Carolina in 2012."

The UK's same-as-marriage-legally same-sex civil partnerships are miles and miles ahead of most the US, at least.

I'm a secularist. I don't care if your religion requires marriages to be performed at a certain time, in a particular manner, only to be conducted by a priest or only involve people of the opposite sex or whatever. The kind of marriage we are talking about is a legal, secular institution, recognised by the state, not a church. So religion has nothing to do with what contracts the state should or shouldn't recognise.

Amusing to think that in a country with an established church we're more relaxed about the boundaries between man and god then in one where an official religion is constitutionally forbidden