Georgia Supreme Court reinstates gay marriage amendment

The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously voted Thursday to reinstate the state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage approved by voters in 2004, saying “we adopt as the amendment’s objective, reserving marriage and its attendant benefits to unions of man and woman.”

Writing for the seven-judge high court, Justice Robert Benham rejected the argument that the amendment violates the state Constitution’s single-subject rule by outlawing both marriage and civil unions.

“It is apparent that the prohibition against recognizing same-sex unions as entitled to the benefits of marriage is not ‘dissimilar and discordant’ to the objective of reserving the status of marriage and its attendant benefits exclusively to unions of man and woman,” Benham wrote. <IMG>

The ruling halts a looming special session of the General Assembly, that Gov. Sonny Perdue promised to call if the state’s high court did not reverse Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance Russell’s ruling by Aug. 7.

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Link: http://www.sovo.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=7926


I'm sure Sonny is just happy as a pig in mud right now. Although he can no longer use this as a ballot tool to get the nutjobs out to vote for him in November, I see this as a resounding victory for the right-wing religious zealots and their agenda of marginalizing those that are different.

As a gay man and as a citizen of Georgia, I don't have the words to tell you all how devastated I am by this decision and how hopeless I feel at this moment. This decision wasn't totally unexpected, but I'm just stunned by the finality of it all and that there are absolutely no routes for appeal for their decision. Game over. They won.

I have to get the hell out of here. :cry:

To hell with Sonny and to hell with our courts.

As a gay parent this stuff makes me ill too.

But remember, although this battle may have been won the "war" is far from over!

You can leave the state, but the problem remains, so you might as well stay and save on moving expenses. It is no better up north - NY just ruled the same way, and did you hear about the lawsuits pending in MI? Against universities providing domestic partner benefits? Insane.

Don't be discouraged. You know, things had to get *really* ugly for black people before anything improved...

Some would say that the visible, undeniable violence against and hatred of blacks (e.g., children blown up, people beat by police on national TV) had to be shoved in people's faces before white people realized that their personal attitudes were contributing to these awful events.

This is one of the principles behind non-violent protest - the oppressed force the oppressor to show how ugly and horrible they are.

We're riding the same roller-coaster, but we know how it ends. Some people *will* get hurt along the way (unfortunately it will be us, that is the point we are at... we'll go broke when our partner gets sick and can't work and we can't insure them), but in the long run justice prevails. The young ones won't have to cover the same ground we are covering now.

Hang in there!!! At least we have the internet and don't have to feel as isolated as we would otherwise.

Peace,
Danni

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

I don't want any more Matthew Shepards, either. If I thought letting some homophobe kill me would actually further the cause, I'd consider offering myself up as a martyr -- but, frankly, I know it won't work.

Besides, it's already ugly out there, and no one cares -- not about the gay-bashings, not about the murders (I think it was in Dallas, a few years ago, that the cops paid about as much attention to the serial killings of gay men as they would to the serial killings of prostitutes), the unbelievably frequent murders of TGs... My God, if pretty, young, straight white girls were the targets of unceasing violence the way gay people are, there'd be nothing else on Fux News all day long.

But it's right out there in the news nearly every day, and yet it means nothing to the majority of Americans. They even make movies about it. (Do you think Bubba TIVO'd the Gwen Araujo TV-movie this month? I doubt it.)

What's the answer? Riot? I'm out -- that kind of direct action is against my core beliefs. And, besides, even if every LGBTQI man, woman, child, and all our allies took to the streets at once, there wouldn't be enough of us to make a difference.

As for the civil rights movement, black people had the distinct advantage of the irrefutable argument that they were born black. And here we are, still back at square one, trying to make people understand we were born gay, too.

Sorry for the downer reply, but yeah, I am very discouraged. Being poor sucks when you live next door to John D. Rockefeller, and you can hear the parties every night, but you know you'll never be invited.

Btw, welcome to DU.

Hey there, thanks for the welcome & honest post

I can understand what you are saying, and I am NOT saying that we should sit back and let anyone slaughter us.

Here is the undeniable fact: we are living through "really ugly" right now. Period. I don't want it, you don't want it, but it is happening. Remember when the otherside bar was bombed? All these states adding these laws? All those men who died in the 80s and 90s of AIDS? You named a few of the many, many murders... then there are the crosses burned on lawns... you know. Ugly.

All I'm trying to say is that yes, this stuff is horrible, but no, it is not the final word. You and I are still here fighting. I have a friend who says "the arc of time is long but bends toward justice" -- I have to believe this.

In your words I can hear myself of a few years ago. What happened was that I became so discouraged and so beaten down that I came to a place where I was in so much pain that I could either kill myself or change the way I saw the world. I decided I could do more for the cause if I were alive, so I made a choice to live, but I had to revise how I interpreted all the horror around me.

Pollyanna world view aside, I disagree with a few of your statements. First, I disagree with your statement that if we all took to the street at once it wouldn't make a difference. Pride parade mean anything to you? I suggest you read "The Band Played On" -- we've come a LONNNNNGGGG way since the 80's.

Second, I would argue there is less difference between the civil rights movement of the 60's and the gay rights movement today than you suggest. Sure, you are born black, that argument helps. But it wasn't logic that moved civil rights forward, it was action.

Finally, don't go martyr yourself, but people actually do care and the results of violence against the innocent does change people.

Matthew Shepard is a good example. I do think his death helped my mother understand what her hate was doing. I sent her a very graphic article about him and his death, and asked her to please stop mailing me religious wack-job articles about gays. It worked.

Peace,
Danni

Thank you for your post, Danni! In all honesty, I have no intentions of leaving Atlanta, at least not in the foreseeable future. There are way too many wonderful things that this city has to offer, this city that I have grown to love, to let the right-wingers and their politics and bigotry scare me away.

It's just that this news on Thursday hit me like a ton of bricks and I was extremely sad, angry, and frustrated when I made my OP. Sure, it would be really easy for me to run away to a more liberal state and hide, but that wouldn't do a bit of good to further our cause. Staying here and helping to bring about change in my backyard is more important and more noble, and this is where I am needed. Now that I have had time to process my emotions on this issue, I can see that clearly now.

Another replier to my OP noted that at least now this wedge issue is gone and it won't be on the ballots again this November, which is very true. This can only be bad news for Sonny, who I hope gets a major boot in the ass after the election, regardless of who the Democratic nominee ends up being. Even though this Supreme Court decision marks a setback in the pursuit of equality of gay Georgians, I believe the setback is only temporary. The pendulum swings both ways and it's only a matter of time before it swings back in the direction of decency and fairness. It is our job to make sure that swing comes about more quickly.

Thank you again for your uplifting and positive post. You definitely helped me to put this in perspective.

And welcome to DU!!! :hi:

In my experience, the Georgia Supreme Court has proven itself to be, by far, the most liberal branch of the Georgia Government. With this ruling, unanimous as it was, I suspect the Supremes merely chose to take away from Republicans their wedge issue. They're hoping for a strong Democratic showing in November, and it wouldn't have helped to give the Repukes the gay-bashing issue they so wanted this year. They chose to pass.

You should also be aware that the Georgia Chamber of Commerce (the business lobby in the state) is specifically targeting 4 of the more liberal Georgia Supremes for elimination this fall. The Supremes have good reason to protect themselves from a strong Repuke turnout. I don't like the ruling, but it will take more than one ruling from the Georgia Supreme Court to secure the rights of gays in this state and in this country. That victory will have to wait for another day.

-Laelth

Thanks for the new perspective on this -- makes a whole lotta sense.

But I'm glad that the Georgia Supremes ruled the way they did...for now. If it were put up to a November vote, both gay marriage *and* civil unions would've been defeated, and all of the gay-hating Repub-loving rednecks would've turned up at the polls, as Laelth pointed out. It was damned if they did, and *really* damned if they didn't. Damn shame, and as a straight man enjoying the unearned privileges of heterosexuality, my heart goes out to my fellow GLBTQI Georgians that denying them, yet again, the right to marry was the best worst option in 2006.

You have us licked for now on this one, evofundies, but we shall return.