By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The inertia against state prohibition of gay marriage continues to rise. United States District Court Judge Barbara Crabb declared Wisconsin’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.
In 2006 Wisconsin voters amended the state constitution outlawing gay marriage in any form. The ACLU filed the lawsuit in February on behalf of eight couples who believe their constitutional rights to due process were violated consequently depriving them of protections married couples enjoy due to their gender.
Court clerks in Madison and Milwaukee immediately afterward opened their doors to register marriage licenses to gay couples beginning at 5:00 PM on the sixth, just over an hour after the court issued its ruling. Many couples welcomed this opportunity immediately, due in part to a belief among some that this might be a limited window of opportunity before a possible halt to the marriages during an appeals process.
Judge Crabb stated in her decision:
This case is not about whether marriages between same-sex couples are consistent or inconsistent with the teachings of a particular religion, whether such marriages are moral or immoral or whether they are something that should be encouraged or discouraged. It is not even about whether the plaintiffs in this case are as capable as opposite-sex couples of maintaining a committed and loving relationship or raising a family together.
Quite simply, this case is about liberty and equality, the two cornerstones of the rights protected by the United States Constitution.
Wisconsin Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen sought an emergency order in federal court to block the weddings, saying the ruling did not necessarily provide a clear path to gay weddings to begin. Van Hollen said confusion and uncertainty had resulted from the judge’s decision and the status quo must be preserved.
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By Darren Smith
Source: Fox News
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
He or she still looks like he’s twenty five. Amazing.
Sooner or later, Google will find all new spam methods.
20 percent of customers have the potential to spend five times as much as they do currently A relatively small amount of marketing effort creates
the majority of output. The only tab of your concern is Public Templates, and
no actions are necessary as it is already on the screen.
Somewhere a herd is rejoicing tonight.
Minor typo, looked right before I sent it;
“I biology, there has long been a recognition of the independent assortment of genotypic and phenotypic traits.”
was intended to read,
“In biology, there has long been a recognition of the independent assortment of genotypic and phenotypic traits.:
RE: davidm2575, June 8, 2014 at 5:56 pm
J Brian Harris – these days, thanks to the gay agenda, a wife might be biologically a male or female. Can you define your sex and the sex of your wife? Was your wife born biologically female and you biologically male?
Your avatar shows a bearded face that looks like a man. Is that you today? I’m confused because it sounds like you were saying that you were born biologically male and are now living as a female, but your avatar suggests you are living as a male. I hope you can clarify about your gender for us.
***** *****
David,
Fair questions, in my view; I shall make an effort to provide comparably fair responses.
The best evidence available to me is that I was conceived, as a zygote, with one X and one Y chromsome and my wife was conceived, as a zygote, with two X chromosomes.
Neither of us appears to be XXY or XYY, however, such people are conceived, some of whom live well into adulthood.
If two X chromosomes make someone chromosome-sex female and one X and one Y chromosome makes someone chromosome-sex male, what is the chromosome-sex of a person who happens to be XXY?
If two X chromosomes make someone chromosome-sex female and one X and one Y chromosome make someone chromosome-sex male, what of a living human person who is “chimeric” in the sense of about half of the person’s cells being of XX and the other half being of XY chromosomes; such people do pop out at birth from time to time, and may live decently long lives.
If chromosome-sex actually were purely binary, then the question of which sex a person is might be scientifically meaningful.
Perhaps a true story about an incident in my life, quite a few years ago, may be useful…
In the early 1990s, while I lived in the Chicago, Illinois, area, I was a dues-paid member of “The Chicago Gender Society,” a group of people who I found to be profoundly decent, who were able to make sense of the book by the late Kim Elizabeth Stuart, “The Uninvited Dilemma: A Question of Gender,” Metamorphous Press, first edition 1983, second edition 1991, out of their personal life experiences. I have both editions, along with the research data supplement.
The Chicago Gender Society membership was mainly made of TV-TS folks, with some TV folks being XX-chromosome type whose transvestite orentation was dressing as male.
Anyway, I tend to dress in inexpensive clothes, and never had the money available for a second wardrobe. So, for financial reasons, I dress as though I am rather ordinarily “male.” However, in my mnd, clothes do not make the man and do not make the worman.
I biology, there has long been a recognition of the independent assortment of genotypic and phenotypic traits.
So, at that Chicago Gender Society meeting, one of my friends asked me why I did not “cross-dress.”
My reply, not meant as humor, per se, was, “What makes you think I am not cross-dressed now?”
In the fall of 2011, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (formerly known as the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association) changed their Standards of Care to include genders other than the binary pair of male exclusive-or femaie.
In the summer of 1986, having recognized that I was at exceptionally high probable risk of dying soon from cancer, I arranged to get two surgical procedures done to reduce my probable cancer risk. They are described in my doctoral dissertation, which, as I have already mentioned, is easily found on the University of Illinois at Chicago web site. One was a bilateral orchiectomy, because I had recognized very strong evidence that testosterone was likely to be a very potent carcinogen for me. The other was a total colectomy with an ileo-rectal anastomosis. The result of those two cancer-risk-reduction surgeries seems to be my being alive and thriving at the age of 75; having been born when and where U.S. government actuarial tables suggest to me that my life expectancy at birth may have been only 68 years.
Some time after my bilateral orchiectomy, in consulting with an endocrinologist at the University of Chicago Hospital, I was prescribed estrogen/progesterone hormones, and took them until I was in my late 50s, when they were stopped because continuing them longer may have begun to increase my cancer risk from them.
So, in terms of hormones, I transitioned from male to female and became, hormonally, a post-menopausal female. For all the years I had normal-range testosterone, my experience with testosterone was its being as though somewhat toxic, giving me somewhat of a bothersome “mental fog.” That “fog” vanished with the orchiectomy, and my sense of mental function only improved while I was taking estrogen and progesterone. It seems to me that my brain hormone receptors expect female hormones, not testosterone.
What sex I am, what gender I am, simply is not a simple question.
Whatever labels may apply to me or be mistakenly applied to me, the one label that I find is always accurate is, “I am a valid human person.”
I sometimes go swimming at the local YMCA, as a person who has successfully delayed or prevented dying from cancer. Accordingly, I use a “man’s” swimming suit, and I have observed people who seem to not be transgendered XY chromosome type who have notably more gynecomastia than I have. Some men have notable gynecomastia, others do not, it is all part of normal human biological diversity.
By not changing my legal gender identity, while leaving my inner gender identity truthful, I do not need to find more expensive swimming suits when I swim at the YMCA.
I am much saddened when I come across people who believe, or seem to believe, that I “should have” died from surgically-preventable, and, almost certainly, surgically-prevented cancer instead of living a life that is true to myself so that I can be true to other people.
I cannot be taught to be, or to feel, ashamed of the life I am actually able to live.