Subject: Same-Sex Marriage

• From our lesbian flower girl

  On Wednesday, March 1, 2006, in Annapolis, at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify. At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?" Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You

  March 17, 2006

• We're Getting Gay Married!

  It was about 10:45 this morning when I flipped on KFWB after getting out of my Santa Ana Saturn dealership—the TV wasn't on in their waiting room, but it would've been interesting to see the reaction of the elderly woman with the scrunched-up face engrossed in her Orange County Register when she heard the news that the California Supreme Court decided 4-3 to overturn the state ban on gay marriage, which had been in place since moronic voters approved Proposition 22 in 2000. Naturally, the f

  May 15, 2008

• Save Straight Marriages, Quash Queer Ones

  The funniest of articles appeared earlier this week in the Orange County Register: Christian churches are uniting to save marriage. At Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton, about 100 pastors gathered under the guise of the Orange County Marriage Education Initiative, which its website declares is "a non-profit organization dedicated solely to strengthening marriages and reducing the divorce rate within Orange County." On and on, these folks told reporter Serena Maria Daniels how important marr

  May 23, 2008

• Gay Marriage Portends Increase in Urine Sex, OC Reverend Reveals!

  Usually I like to pretend Wiley Drake is really on to something when I blog about his crazy shit, but this email, which sat in my junk folder and remains there (I cut and pasted from it) is outrageously ridiculous enough to print verbatim: What Legal Same Sex Marriages Bring into society........... Oral Sex with the ingesting of semen and anal contamination bringing about hepatitis A, gonorrhea, HIV, and hepatitis B Rectal Sex brings a mixing bowl for saliva and its germs and/or an artific

  June 18, 2008

• The OC Blade: Gay marriage? What's that?

  So how did the Blade, the self-proclaimed "connection to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendred community" for Orange County and Long Beach, cover Tuesday's gay marriage extravaganza? Ummmm.... Well, judging by the Blade's web site, it appears that the mucky-mucks at the Laguna Beach-based mag haven't yet heard that the California state supreme court voted last month to legally recognize same-sex marriage -- only the most ground-breaking, Earth-shaking moment in the history of the gay-ri

  June 19, 2008

• This Week in The OC Weekly

  In this week's issue: Daffodil J. Altan follows Alfonso Guerrero and Manuel Chavez on their wedding day in "Eat Drink and Be Gay Married: After 27 years together, one couple finally has its big, fat, Mexican, recovering-drug-addict, HIV-positive, ex-transgender gay wedding" Rich Kane offers some from the scene perspective on the gay weddings in "We’re Here, We’re Queer, We’re Registered at Crate & Barrel: Notes from a gayer-than-usual Tuesday at the old courthouse in Santa Ana" R. Scot

  June 20, 2008

• Calvary Chapel's Pendejo Pastor

  *Note: This was once a much-longer post but was lost because my PC is goofy...here's what I remember: My prediction: few groups will unleash the anti-gay hounds more viciously in the battle over same-sex marriage in California than the Calvary Chapel fellowship. Founder Chuck Smith is already out there in his loud Hawaiian shirts; now, it's David Rosales' turn. Rosales (pictured) is the head pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Valley, a congregation in Hell with more than 8,000 members. Yesterday,

  June 23, 2008

• Rev. Schuller Spins Orange Coast Magazine

  Like Rich, we're excited to see the "new" Orange Coast, and wish it the best even though it's now technically a competitor. I've yet to see the issue that Rich dissected but did catch the one before, one that already had hints of the literary journalism and well-written analysis readers can expect under newish editor Marty Smith. One article stuck out in particular: Matthew Heller's contention that Orange County Christian pastors try not to mix politics with their faith. "If the GOP has realize

  June 30, 2008

• No on Prop 8 public service announcement

  Weekly contributing writer Dave Barton and his friend Greg Adkins directed and edited this moving No on Prop 8 clip, currently making the rounds of YouTube and even the Daily Kos. The lines being read are from 1 Corinthians. And of course you already knew that Proposition 8 is the November religious-fundie ballot measure that seeks to ban re-ban gay marriage in California...

  September 29, 2008

• Gay Marriage Foes Find Latino Mouthpieces in OC

  Where should a conspicuously anti-family, anti-civil rights, anti-gay marriage political “coalition” go when it's looking for Latinos to sound alarms and corral other Latinos to vote for their anti-gay marriage proposition in November? None other than Orange County, of course, where hatred doesn't merely extend to those who are Mexican among us. The defenders of Prop 8., known as ProtectMarriage.com, pulled their first gay-marriage-bashing Latino out for show on Saturday, a day after the

  October 16, 2008

• But What About the Same-Sex Marriage Officiants?

  It's time for everyone to stop, take a breath and think about the people who will really be screwed should Prop. 8 pass. These are, of course, the wedding officiators who perform same-sex marriages and have now gone public with their "fervent opposition" to the California voter initiative that would outlaw gay marriages. “Love does not discriminate; therefore, we perform wedding ceremonies for both gay and straight couples, seeing no difference in the love that these couple share,” states t

  October 20, 2008

• We Respond To Register Letters

  December 18, 2003

• Darn It, There are Still Some Single Gay People

  March 11, 2004

• Martin Millard Not Just a Racialist, But a Homophobe

  The man who fancies himself the savior of Costa Mesa had this concluding couplet in his rambling reasoning to support Proposition 8: "On the other hand, it could be argued that if it is true that, as many gays now assert, homosexuality is genetic, then allowing gay marriage (and the normalization of homosexuality in society) will tend to have the effect of keeping gays from faking being straight and marrying people of the opposite sex and reproducing. Then, since they aren't reproducing the "ga

  October 28, 2008

• The Prince and His Bridegroom

  *Update: Garden Grove Unified is stricter with the book than earlier reported. See after the jump. The proposition that was once about the state constitution and a ban on same-sex marriage has been whittled down to an argument over schools, sex education and, most entertainingly, a little children's book by a Dutch author called “King & King.” In the story, a prince falls in love with another prince and they wed happily ever after. A few weeks ago, after a teacher and her princess bride wer

  October 31, 2008

• Prop 8: No Way in Hell Is This Over

  I spent my Election Night trying to find non-existent parking outside Hamburger Mary's in Long Beach. The celebration inside sure looked like fun, though, but I don't think I would have stuck around past midnight to watch all the tears turn from Obama joy to Prop 8 despair. Failing that, I instead drove up Cherry to another gay bar, Pistons, the local leather/bear hangout, to check out the scene - which really wasn't much, just a handful of guys shooting pool. I left when a couple of inebriates

  November 5, 2008

• God Punks Rick Warren!

  Saddleback Church head Rick Warren was on Hannity & Colmes last night giving non-answers to whether he supports domestic partnerships instead of gay marriage and continuing his ahistorical analysis of marriage through history. But I could only pay so much attention to the Purpose-Driven Man before I was blinded with tears of laughter. Warren was doing a live-remote, probably from somewhere in Orange County, and whoever was the genius who picked a background for Warren chose a shot of San Francis

  November 12, 2008

• Because You're Ugly: Urban Outfitters Pulls Tees in Support of Gay Marriage

  Repeat offender Urban Outfitters has made headlines once again: the leading retailer has taken T-shirts supporting gay marriage off its California shelves this week. The printed Tees, a staple for the popular chain, simply read "I Support Same Sex Marriage." When questioned, a buyer for Urban Outfitters stated that they had received "too much bad press"--though not even a single blog entry had made its way onto the internet, according to the shirt's designer, Tara Litman and New York magazine.

  December 10, 2008

• Still More Fun From the Prop. 8 Imbroglio . . .

  If it is even possible, there will be a greater concentration of gay and lesbian people in San Francisco on March 5, when the California Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the challenge of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. On the flipside, the day could also see a huge spike in intolerant religious zealot homophobic nutbars. Paaaartay! With the backing of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown will ask the Supremes to invalidate Prop. 8 on grounds that cer

  February 3, 2009

• Chapman Law School Dean Needs to Read Navel Gazing!

  EastmanI appeared on KOCE-TV Channel 50's Inside OC with Rick Reiff a couple of weeks ago to debate Chapman Law School Dean John Eastman on Proposition 8 and other topics on which we mostly agreed. Eastman is one of the legal minds behind the Yes on 8 arguments that will be argued tomorrow before the California Supreme Court. Obviously we don't agree on gay marriage, but that's fine. What's not fine, however, is Eastman's insistence that same-sex marriages have never occurred in California. It's

  March 4, 2009

• Protect the Children, Sign Church's Petition to Ban Mormon Marriage

  When California's gay marriage legal debate gets tough, the tough get weirder: Universal Free Church has now launched a national petition drive to ban Mormon marriage.Mary Cristos, leader of the new, St. Louis-based "Free" religious denomination, says the UFC believes in "religious freedom and religious free speech for everyone, but religious fascism for no one." The church is all about personal freedom in one's own private life, with its lone Commandment stipulating, "At age 18 every UFC member

  March 27, 2009

• Iowa Gay Marriage Ruling Means Everything or Nothing

  The Iowa Supreme Court's overturning of the law banning same-sex marriage in that state either bolsters the arguments of those pushing for gay marriage in California or has nothing to do with the issue here. It depends on who you ask.National Center for Lesbian Rights legal director Shannon Minter:"The fact that two state supreme courts--including now a court in the heartland of our country--have now followed the California Supreme Court's holding on that issue underscores very powerfully that t

  April 3, 2009

• Talking to a Beauty Queen (No, Not That One) About Gay Marriage

  June 4, 2009

• [Trendzilla] They Oughta be Band

  January 8, 2009

• [Election 2008] Three Weddings and a Moose

  October 23, 2008

• Eat, Drink and Be Gay Married! After 27 Years, One Couple Finally Has Its Big, Fat, Mexican Wedding

  June 19, 2008

• [Summer Guide] My Big Fat Gay Wedding

  June 12, 2008

• Letters

  March 4, 2004

• Transitive Verbs and Gay Marriage

  August 24, 2006

• Best of OC 2004: Part 4

  October 21, 2004

• Burning Bush: The Issue

  A year in Dubya-dumping by his conservative critics . . . and Howard Stern

  October 7, 2004

• Burning Bush

  September 23, 2004

• Just Another Wedding Expo

  Gay and lesbian event trudges on, politics be damned

  July 22, 2004

• Bushs Big No. 2

  July 22, 2004

• Diary of a Mad County

  May 27, 2004

• Letters

  February 26, 2004

• In Defense of Gay Marriage

  February 12, 2004

• Hey, You!

  July 24, 2003

• Pop Your Go Pills, Then Read

  January 30, 2003

• Hate Sells

  January 11, 2001

• Cesar Salud

  February 17, 2000

• Chuck DeVore Tweets on the Issues!

  May 21, 2009

• Gloria Allred To Say Things Next Week. Also, Fate Of Gays To Be Decided.

  This morning, media-master attorney Gloria Allred sent out a press release that scooped my RSS reader to the news that the California Supreme Court would be announcing its decision on the challenge to Proposition 8 next Tuesday. As if you need a refresher, Allred's the lawyer whose dipped her toes into OC-related cases like Octomom and Donna Jou, and she also was somehow involved in OJ Simpson, Paula Jones and Borat. I somehow had missed the unsurprising fact that she also represented the two ga

  May 22, 2009

• Prop. 8 Upheld, But Previous Gay Marriages Remain Valid

  The California Supreme Court has announced its ruling on the challenge to the state's gay marriage ban: The voter-approved ban shall remain in place, but the 18,000 gay couples who were married before it took effect will not have their marriages invalidated. The decision was made by a 6-1 majority of the justices.More coverage to come. There's a protest planned for tonight in Santa Ana at the Old Orange County Courthouse (Sycamore and Civic Center), 6 p.m.

  May 26, 2009

• First Latino Gay Couple To Wed in OC Last Year Says Court Sent Mixed Message

  Happier times: Alfonso and Manuel on the eve of their wedding last year. Today's state Supreme Court ruling on Prop. 8, which upholds a ban on same-sex marriage, was bittersweet (but mostly bitter) news for Alfonso Guerrero and Manuel "Bibys" Chavez, the loving duo we profiled last year, and the first Latino couple to legally marry in the county on the morning of June 17, 2008.They and 18,000 other couples will get to stay married (a move the couple sees as progress for the overall cause, despit

  May 26, 2009

• Move Over, OC, Placer County's Now Bastion of Conservatism

  Thomas Shaller of FiveThirtyEight--a website that takes its name from the 535 electoral college votes as it crunches polling data and other numbers--makes a compelling case that Placer County in Northern California is the new Orange County when it comes to bastions of conservatism.While Orange County is credited with giving root to Barry Goldwater's turning-point presidential campaign of 1964 and proceeding to deliver strong Republican majorities for four decades, "[n]o such political treatments

  June 19, 2009

• Groups on Either Side of Prop. 8 Blast 2012 Same-Sex Marriage Initiative

  Equality California's decision to hold off on pursuing a same-sex marriage voter initiative at least until 2012 is not being cheered by groups on either side of the Prop. 8 debate.Reports the San Francisco Chronicle:But the organization's decision appears to collide with other progressive groups fighting for marriage equality. The 700,000-member Courage Campaign said Tuesday it is "pushing ahead to file a ballot measure" in 2010, when state voters will decide their next governor, and its officia

  August 12, 2009

• Despite Obnoxious Protesters, OC Gay Marriage Rally Inspires Crowd

  Photo by Christopher VictorioRich Cook leads Men Alive at gay marriage rallyWhile famed conductor Rich Cook directed his singing group Men Alive in the harmonious, sweet sounds of "Marry Us," an overly-tanned and hairy, fat, middle-aged bald man wearing shorts and a tank top held a handmade poster ("No parking in rear any time; Penal Code: Lev 18:22") and screamed into a bullhorn:--"You will not turn Orange County into Rainbow County!"--"Get with the program, Sodomites!"--"Idiots! Why won't you

  May 26, 2009

• Actually, Here's The Important Prop. 8 Decision Event To Attend

  Thanks to Paul Cook-Giles for pointing out that I missed the real OC-connected news with regards to the upcoming California Supreme Court decision on a challenge to Proposition 8. While Gloria Allred's press conference is cool and all, you might be better served by going to OC Equality Coalition's "Day of Decision" event at the Old Orange Courthouse in Santa Ana at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. Cook-Giles writes: Depending on what the court decides, we will either PROTEST or CELEBRATE. We will PROTEST if

  May 24, 2009

• Proposition 8 Is Keeping Same-Sex Couples From Marrying, But It Has United OC's Gay Community

  November 19, 2009