<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Gay Marriage Editorials</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><description>Gay Marriage Editorials</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[Outing Mr. Schrock]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54690-2004Sep1.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54690-2004Sep1.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[REP. EDWARD L. Schrock's unexpected announcement that he will not seek a third congressional term represents the second time this summer that a politician has stepped down amid discussions of secret homosexuality. First it was New Jersey's Democratic governor, James E. McGreevey. Now comes Mr. Schrock, a Virginia Republican and gay-rights opponent, who has dropped his bid for reelection because of allegations that, he said, would "not allow my campaign to focus on the real issues facing our nation and region." Those allegations, to which Mr. Schrock offered no substantive response, appear to be claims recently posted on a Washington-based Web site that he "made a habit of rendezvousing with gay men via . . . an interactive telephone service on which men place ads and respond to those ads to meet each other."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cruel and Predictable]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37207-2004Aug26.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37207-2004Aug26.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  LIKE MANY marriages, the union of Lisa Miller-Jenkins and Janet Miller-Jenkins didn't work out. And like many children involved in divorce proceedings, their daughter, Isabella, born to Lisa two years ago through artificial insemination,  was caught in a nasty custody dispute. But Isabella also has been caught in the nasty politics of gay marriage in Virginia.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Freedom for Everyone']]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30283-2004Aug24.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30283-2004Aug24.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  GOOD FOR Vice President Cheney. At a campaign breakfast in Iowa yesterday, Mr. Cheney was asked about his position on gay marriage. Noting that "Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with," Mr. Cheney said, "My general view is freedom means freedom for everyone. . . . People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to." The question of whether that relationship should be given the status of marriage, Mr. Cheney, said, is "a matter for the states to decide."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Until Courts Do Us Part]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3900-2004Aug15.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3900-2004Aug15.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THAT CALIFORNIA'S Supreme Court annulled the thousands of gay marriages performed in San Francisco this year comes as no surprise. The decision by that city's mayor, Gavin Newsom, to order city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in violation of state statute was an exercise in civil disobedience. The court voted 5 to 2 that marriages authorized by the city cannot stand even while the courts consider the merits of the legal claim that same-sex couples have a right to marry. The court was unanimous on the mayor's authority: The question is "whether a local executive official, charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing a statute, has the authority to disregard the terms of the statute . . . based solely upon the official's opinion that the governing statute is unconstitutional. . . . [A] local executive official does <em>not</em> possess such authority."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Muzzling the Courts?]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A483-2004Jul20.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A483-2004Jul20.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   FOLLOWING THE Senate's burial last week of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, foes of same-sex marriage are back with another radical proposal. This time they are pushing a bill that would prevent federal courts from hearing challenges to a federal law that limits gay marriage. The bill, scheduled for a vote tomorrow,  is an attack on the basic function of the courts in American society. Making this attack all the more ominous is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's stated intention to promote similar bills to bar court challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance and, potentially, on other social issues. This is as wrong as wrong can be. The House should not strip courts of their authority in order to protect bad policy -- or even good policy -- from constitutional scrutiny.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Kill This Amendment]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48233-2004Jul13.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48233-2004Jul13.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  CONSIDERING THE volume of work Congress has yet to do before members leave town, the Senate's insistence on considering a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is telling. Congress has failed to pass a budget resolution or any appropriations bills and remains deadlocked on such important public policy issues as corporate taxation and class-action reform. Yet today, the Senate will take up a cloture vote on the   Federal Marriage Amendment. Everyone knows that, in the Senate, the proposed amendment is well short of  the votes needed to send it on to the states; even making it to a vote on the merits is highly unlikely. The reason the Senate is moving forward is politics of a particularly crass and ugly sort: Gay marriage has become a national electoral issue. And Republicans believe it is one that can help President Bush, who has come out in favor of the amendment, and make life difficult for Sen. John F. Kerry (D), who not only opposes it but also hails from the very state -- Massachusetts -- whose highest court provoked the current showdown with a decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Precisely because of the weight conservatives have put on this issue, today's vote, despite its preordained outcome, has become  deeply important. It requires senators to take a public stand on a question of deep principle: Are they willing to warp the entire American constitutional structure to prevent people who love one another from marrying?]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[No 'New Jim Crow' in Virginia]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24784-2004Jul2.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24784-2004Jul2.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   If Virginia can't pass a law that limits marriage to a man and a woman and rejects all counterfeits ["Virginia's New Jim Crow," op-ed, June 13], then the legislature cannot   reject the claims of bisexuals who say they can love and be committed to both a male and a female.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Uncivil Disunion]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11267-2004May8.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11267-2004May8.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  IN THE GATHERING debate over gay marriage, some state legislatures have moved to ban it, others to create civil unions or domestic partnerships. Then there's the Virginia General Assembly, which last month -- brushing aside proposed amendments from Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) -- passed with veto-proof majorities a jaw-dropping bill that bans not only civil unions but any "partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage." And it declares "void in all respects" and "unenforceable" in the commonwealth any such arrangement made in another state.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Free For All]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28366-2004Mar26.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28366-2004Mar26.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Marriage at a Young Age<br>I don't know how old Alison Pattillo's children are, but her protest that the March 17 "Defining Marriage" article in Kids Post was too adult for most children is in error [Free for All, March 20].]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[What's the Problem?]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9622-2004Mar19.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9622-2004Mar19.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[IN ASKING Congress to send to the states a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, President Bush cited the dual menace of "activist judges" and rogue local officials bent on imposing same-sex unions against the people's will. This argument had a certain superficial plausibility right after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decreed gay marriage a right and while San Francisco officials were licensing gay unions in apparent defiance of state statute. The idea was that state institutions would prove themselves unable to "defend" marriage and that the only viable response was the radical option of amending the federal Constitution. Yet even assuming that heterosexual marriage needs defense from loving, lifelong gay and lesbian relationships -- a premise that we reject -- the argument was wrongheaded. As recent events have shown, state  institutions  are responding in accordance with the wishes of state voters, without any help from Washington.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Debasing the Constitution]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3604-2004Feb24.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3604-2004Feb24.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<em>  "</em><em>Today, I call upon the Congress to promptly pass and to send to the states for ratification an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and woman as husband and wife."</em>]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Gay Marriage Games]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38160-2004Feb12.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38160-2004Feb12.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[IN HIS STATE of the Union speech only a few short weeks ago, President Bush framed his support for a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the conditional tense. Responding to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decision recognizing same-sex marriage as a right under the state constitution, Mr. Bush stated that if "activist judges" insist "on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process." Now, however, Post staff writers Mike Allen and Alan Cooperman report that the Bush administration has decided to dispense with the hypotheticals and endorse the amendment -- though presidential spokesman Scott McClellan refused Wednesday to confirm any change. The move, assuming the administration follows through, prompts the question of what exactly has changed since the president's speech. Massachusetts, after all, is still the only state where judges have decreed gay marriage. Why is the president so quickly abandoning his previous position?]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why Not Civil Unions?]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17475-2004Feb5.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17475-2004Feb5.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THE HIGH COURT of Massachusetts delivered a hard-line response this week to the state Senate's request for guidance on the subject of gay marriage. The Senate had asked for clarification of the court's earlier ruling that, under the state's constitution, gay men and lesbians were entitled to marry -- specifically, whether the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling might be satisfied by a bill creating Vermont-style civil unions, which confer all the benefits of marriage on gay partnerships while reserving the word "marriage" for opposite-sex couples. The idea was to avert a showdown over amending the state constitution by passing a civil-union bill instead. "The answer to the question is 'No,' " the court responded. Civil unions were akin to the separate-but-equal doctrine that permitted racial segregation, and the  "history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[State of Gay Unions]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47627-2004Jan25.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47627-2004Jan25.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[PERHAPS THE MOST carefully worded section of President Bush's State of the Union speech this year was his not-so-artful dodge on the subject of gay marriage. "Activist judges . . . have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives," he lamented, thus seeming to set up a presidential endorsement of the noxious proposal to amend the federal Constitution to ban same-sex unions. But Mr. Bush then went on to support the amendment only in the conditional tense: "If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people <em>would be </em>the constitutional process" (emphasis added). Mr. Bush then muddied the waters further by adding his usual plea for tolerance of gays, insisting that "each individual has dignity and value in God's sight." The idea, in an election year, is not subtle. Mr. Bush wants to keep the Republican base at bay with verbal Pablum about the "sanctity of marriage" and a promise to support an amendment if this gay-marriage thing gets out of hand. But at the same time, he wants to avoid energizing Democrats and alienating centrists by actually calling for one now.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Merits of Gay Marriage]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63767-2003Nov19.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63767-2003Nov19.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ONE ARGUMENT against gay marriage is that most Americans oppose it. It has never been condoned by common law. Many Americans view homosexuality as immoral and contrary to God's law. They believe, and sometimes cite allegedly scientific evidence to show, that children raised by gay or lesbian parents fare worse than those raised by a mother and a father.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Recognizing Gay Couples]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10664-2003Jul4.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10664-2003Jul4.html?nav=rss_politics/specials/gaymarriage/editorials</guid><pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:09:56 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[SHOULD GAY COUPLES be entitled to seek the same legal recognition and protections afforded to heterosexuals who choose to marry? The Supreme Court ruling striking down Texas's anti-sodomy law didn't answer this question, nor should it have. Rather, the majority afforded constitutional protection to "a personal relationship that,<em> whether or not entitled to formal recognition in the law, </em>is within the liberty of persons to choose without being punished as criminals" (our italics). But the ruling -- as Justice Antonin Scalia noted in his angry dissent -- inevitably raises the far more contentious issue of whether such recognition should be extended to gay couples.]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>