A brief political roundup for election week:
Yesterday, Texas voters approved a measure placing an amendment in the Texas Bill of Rights defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman. It is unclear whether the language of the amendment would also ban other legal ties between same-sex partners, a similar conundrum to that facing Michigan’s court system. PlanetOut notes, however, that as more states (19 so far) ban same-sex marriage, the harder it will be for the right to claim this should be federally mandated. Interesting from a legal perspective, but it doesn’t really make me feel any better. As someone who’s lived in five states, has relatives in at least seven, and loves to travel, I don’t want my marriage to switch on and off like a water faucet.
Voters in Maine, on the other hand, chose to keep a GLBT-inclusive non-discrimination law. I’m having a bowl of chowder to celebrate.
Finally, in California today, lawyers for 12 same-sex couples filed a brief arguing that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. While the result is still pending, this at least reminds us that the fight continues.
[...] I’d like to believe that the U. S. as a whole is more intelligent than Texas as a whole, which just added a same-sex marriage ban to its Bill of “Rights.” Hopefully there are enough people who realize that the purpose of the Constitution is not to restrict the rights of any group of citizens. Still, it never hurts to write to your Congresspeople and urge them not to vote for the amendment. by D @ 3:22 pm. Filed under Politics [link] [...]