Dykes & Dykery

A Kentucky court is trying to force a lesbian woman to testify against her partner.

Prosecutors say that Geneva Case, who allegedly heard her partner Bobbie Joe Clary admit to murdering a man, must testify against her in court.

Kentucky law says that spouses are exempt from having to testify against each other, and though the two women entered into a civil union in Vermont in 2004, Kentucky does not recognize any type of same-sex union or marriage.

The is first legal test in Kentucky state to determine if same-sex partners will receive the same husband-wife privilege, or be forced to testify against each other.

According to local newspaper Louisville Courier-Journal, Case said she will not testify against her partner, citing the spousal privilege under Kentucky Rule 504 that states: ‘The spouse of a party has a privilege to refuse to testify against the party as to events occurring after the date of their marriage.’

Angela Elleman, one of Clary’s attorney, said: ‘It is going to have a huge impact.’

‘It’s going to come up again and again and again,’ she said referring to same-sex couples that are leaving to wed in other states but must face new legal challenges when they come back home.

Elleman also pointed out that certain states and even countries will recognize foreign same-sex unions that are officiated outside their borders. The Kentucky court must now decide if it will recognize same-sex unions officiated outside state borders, and to what extent.

‘Our position is that Ms. Case and Ms. Clary are not in a valid marriage under Kentucky law,’ said Stacy Grieve, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney, in an interview.

In 2004, Kentucky voters passed a constitutional amendment that only recognizes marriages between a man and a woman.

‘The murder happened here and we have to follow the laws of Kentucky.’

That the ceremony is not a ‘marriage’ is valid and recognized under Kentucky law,’ said prosecutors.

‘Geneva Case and the defendant cannot prove the existence of a marriage under Kentucky law.’

Elleman responded: ‘The right to marry, including the right to marry whom one chooses, is a fundamental right firmly entrenched in American culture and in constitutional law.’

Read more. 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else challenge this denial of our rights.

In the process of making Delaware the 11th state, plus the District of Columbia, with legal marriage equality, Sen. Karen Peterson came out as a lesbian, telling her colleagues, “If my happiness somehow demeans or diminishes your marriage, you need to work on your marriage.”

Peterson mentioned her partner of 24 years, Vicki. They entered a civil union, which were officially established in January 2012.

Read the whole article for particulars about the passage of this bill.

Married same-sex couples have the same rights as married heterosexuals to have both parents listed on the birth certificates of their newborn children, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled this morning.

Justices ruled 6-0 to require that the Iowa Department of Public Health begin listing both married parents on a newborn child’s birth certificate, despite state concerns that biological-based parenting rights would be cast aside if a Des Moines lesbian was allowed to establish paternity of her child.

The opinion, authored by Justice David Wiggins, brushes aside state government arguments that Iowa’s interest in “the accuracy of birth certificates, the efficiency and effectiveness of government administration, and the determination of paternity” require that the state hue to biological definitions in recording a child’s parentage.

Iowa currently keeps no records of biological parentage in cases where heterosexual couples use anonymous sperm donors, the court reasons. And state records would not be more accurate by requiring, as Iowa health officials until now have insisted, that nonbirthing mothers go through an adoption process.

“It is important for our laws to recognize that married lesbian couples who have children enjoy the same benefits and burdens as married opposite-sex couples who have children,” the opinion says. “By naming the nonbirthing spouse on the birth certificate of a married lesbian couple’s child, the child is ensured support from that parent and the parent establishes fundamental legal rights at the moment of birth. Therefore, the only explanation for not listing the nonbirthing lesbian spouse on the birth certificate is stereotype or prejudice.

“The exclusion of the nonbirthing spouse on the birth certificate of a child born to a married lesbian couple is not substantially related to the objective of establishing parentage.”

Today’s ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by Melissa and Heather Gartner after the state refused in 2009 to list both of their names on the birth certificate of their daughter, Mackenzie. The baby had been carried by Heather and conceived via an anonymous sperm donor.

Polk County District Judge Eliza Ovrom ruled in the couple’s favor in January 2012, finding that the state had failed to properly follow the 2009 court case that legalized same-sex marriage in Iowa.

Iowa law long has held that if a woman is married, the husband must be legally deemed the father unless there’s a court order that says otherwise.

Read more

Uruguay’s Senate on Tuesday voted to legalize gay marriage by approving a single law governing matrimony for heterosexuals and homosexuals.

Senators voted 23-8 in favor of the bill, which was passed by the lower house in December. It must now return to the lower chamber of Congress with changes.

If approved, the law would make Uruguay the second nation in Latin America and the 12th in the world to legalize gay marriage. Argentina legalized same-sex marriage in 2010.

“It goes beyond homosexuality, it’s about a law where everyone shares the same rights and obligations,” said Federico Grana, a lawmaker in the ruling Frente Amplio coalition and a member of the Black Sheep Collective, a gay rights group that presented the bill’s first draft.

The bill lets couples, gay or straight, decide whose surname goes first when they name their children. It also clarifies rules for adoption and in-vitro fertilization, and eliminates the words “husband and woman” in marriage contracts, referring instead to the gender-neutral “contracting parties.”

“This is an issue of liberty, of people’s choice and justice,” said Sen. Rafael Michelini.

“Liberty because the state should not meddle in who you should marry; of justice because if you marry abroad with someone of the same sex and later return to Uruguay, your marriage should be recognized.”

The Roman Catholic Church opposes the proposal, but the church has little political influence in secular Uruguay, which became the first Latin American country to legalize abortion last year.

President Jose Mujica has been pushing for liberal-leaning proposals in his mandate and says he plans to sign the marriage bill into law.

Two lesbians last week made history in Oaxaca by becoming the first same-sex couple to marry after Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that the state’s marriage law was unconstitutional.

The Oaxaca Front for the Respect and Recognition of Sexual Diversity, which was a party to the legal challenge to the high court, said the two women got married on March 22 during a private ceremony.

Mexico City, one of the world’s largest metropolitan areas, also has legalized marriage equality.

The high court ruled last December that Oaxaca’s marriage law was unconstitutional because it limited the ceremony to a man and a woman with the goal to “perpetuate the species.”

The two women, who got married, had sued the state government along with two other gay couples, and after Oaxaca rejected their claim, the three couples then appealed to the Supreme Court.

The high court ruling is expected to lead to a landslide of lawsuits in Mexico’s individual states, starting a domino effect in knocking down the discriminatory laws state by state.

On Wednesday, I wrote about Justice Antonin Scalia’s comment that “there’s considerable disagreement among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not.”

It turns out Scalia’s comment was wronger than I thought — and wrong in a way that Scalia, in particular, should have known.

It relied, remember, on the idea that sociologists are, in some significant way, split on this question. That’s not what the American Sociological Association thinks. Here’s its official statement on the matter:

The claim that same-sex parents produce less positive child outcomes than opposite-sex parents—either because such families lack both a male and female parent or because both parents are not the biological parents of their children—contradicts abundant social science research. Decades of methodologically sound social science research, especially multiple nationally representative studies and the expert evidence introduced in the district courts below, confirm that positive child wellbeing is the product of stability in the relationship between the two parents, stability in the relationship between the parents and child, and greater parental socioeconomic resources. Whether a child is raised by same-sex or opposite-sex parents has no bearing on a child’s wellbeing.

The clear and consistent consensus in the social science profession is that across a wide range of indicators, children fare just as well when they are raised by same-sex parents when compared to children raised by opposite-sex parents.

Pretty definitive. And here’s the punchline: That paragraph isn’t buried in a press release on its blog or in an editorial from its trade magazine. It’s from the amicus curiae brief that the ASA filed in the very case Scalia was commenting on.

First lesbian couple to register as a de facto union in Colombia by IPS Inter Press Service on Flickr.

7. Paratoi - Mardi Gras Caerdydd - Cardiff 2012 by bara-koukoug on Flickr.

Reportage_001_Brighton_Pride_2012_080 by jsopiktures on Flickr.

It was 2004, after the Supreme Judicial Court had cleared the way for same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses in Massachusetts. Governor Mitt Romney remained a roadblock, endorsing a constitutional amendment that would ban it.

Julie Goodridge and other plaintiffs in the landmark case had written a letter to the governor, asking for a meeting. He ignored it, so they staged a press conference at his office to read the letter to the media. That, finally, got them through his door. Once inside, they were shocked.

For about 20 frustrating minutes, say those in attendance whoBoston Spiritinterviewed recently, they shared their stories, pled their case, and tried to explain how equal marriage would protect them and their families. Romney sat stone-faced and almost entirely silent.

“Is there anything else?” Romney asked when they finished. With that, the meeting was over.

“It was like talking to a robot. No expression, no feeling,” recalls David Wilson, one of the plaintiffs in the case who met with Romney that day. “People were sharing touching stories, stories where you’d expect recognition in the other person’s face that they at least hear what you’re saying — that there’s empathy. He didn’t even shake his head. He was completely blank.”

Occasionally Romney would say something.

“I didn’t know you had families,” remarked Romney to the group, according to Wilson.
The offhanded remark underscored that Romney, the governor of the first state prepared to grant same-sex marriage, hadn’t taken the time to look at what the landmark case was really about. By this point the plaintiff’s stories had been widely covered by national media — in particular, Julie Goodridge’s heartrending tale of how her then-partner, Hillary, was denied hospital visitation following the precarious birth of daughter Annie. It was the ignorance of these facts — and Romney’s inaccurate, insensitive answer to her parting question, that pushed Julie Goodridge to her breaking point.

“I looked him in the eye as we were leaving,” recalls Goodridge. “And I said, ‘Governor Romney, tell me — what would you suggest I say to my 8 year-old daughter about why her mommy and her ma can’t get married because you, the governor of her state, are going to block our marriage?’”

His response, according to Goodridge: “I don’t really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don’t you just tell her the same thing you’ve been telling her the last eight years.”

Romney’s retort enraged a speechless Goodridge; he didn’t care, and by referring to her biological daughter as “adopted,” it was clear he hadn’t even been listening. By the time she was back in the hallway, she was reduced to tears.

“I really kind of lost it,” says Goodridge. “I’ve never stood before someone who had no capacity for empathy. It went behind flat affect. It was a complete lack of ability or motivation to understand other people.”

While Goodridge cried, Romney brought the press into his office to give his take on the meeting.

He described it as, “Pleasant.”