On the Gay Front…

Well, actually, this is just on the national/international make the big news front. I don’t really have the time to scour all kinds of local papers about local news concerning gays…But I digress.

Of course, the biggest news was that that Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals extended the stay on Judge Walker’s ruling that Prop 8 was unconstitutional. However, as disappointing as that was, there are some encouraging signs.

The court has expedited the matter and it is set to go before the court on December 6 of this year, something that’s almost unheard of in federal courts of appeals.

But perhaps most telling is that the court has told Prop 8 supporters, all of whom are private religious organizations, to demonstrate why they have the right to file an appeal of a ruling that the state is not contesting. The state did not even defend Prop 8 during the original hearing. The request for this information appears to suggest that the appeals court is considering the argument that the plaintiffs have no legal standing to file the appeal.

If the court rules the supporters of Prop 8 have no legal standing, there are two possible courses of action. They give up the battle in California (where the governor and the state’s attorney general support allowing gay marriages to resume immediately) and take the fight elsewhere or they file an appeal of the ruling that they have no standing.  That appeal will be with either the entire 11-member Ninth Circuit Appeals Court or directly to the US Supreme Court, which will probably schedule the case to be heard in October, 2011.

I would prefer the latter to happen because then, with one fell swoop, just as it did with the Loving v Virginia ruling and the Lawrence v Texas rulings, the Supreme Court will invalidate all the constitutional amendments of all the states that added them to their state constitutions. If the supporters of Prop 8 (not sure if they’re now the defendants or the plaintiffs since they are the ones seeking to change the ruling…) choose to NOT fight, I believe (although I’m not an attorney) that Judge Walker’s ruling will apply only to California. Then there will have to be court battles in all the other states over the constitutional amendments until one of them makes it to the US Supreme Court. While there is no legal precedent stating that such an amendment is federally unconstitutional, it will still require lots of time and money in order to file all those cases and fight them in court.

Moving on…

Mississippi seems to have a real problem with gays and public schools. Almost like a “if we don’t see them they don’t exist” type mentality. Ostrich with its head in the sand. (Although I hope everyone is aware that ostriches really don’t stick their head in the sand. That probably started with a statement from Pliny the Elder in his Natural History collection when he said that an ostrich that has its head and neck in a bush believes its entire body to be concealed as well.) But I again digress…

A student in Mississippi had her picture and even her name removed from the school yearbook because she chose to wear a tuxedo to get her senior picture taken. Well, actually, it was not really removed since it was never included in the book to begin with. Except may in the drafts/proofs before it goes to the printer. It’s not like she was a trouble-maker. She was an honor student and played several different sports. She attended the same school from kindergarten through her senior year, so it’s not like she just moved in and had no friends or no social network among her peers— all of who accepted her as she was. Mississippi simply must get itself into the modern age if it doesn’t want to waste its already struggling budgets on defending unwinnable discrimination cases.

The good news for gays comes from international news.

Mexico has taken another step towards full gay equality when the highest court in Mexico upheld a law that allows gay adoption, making the US stand on gay marriage and gay equality look that much more Dark Age-ish.

Germany too has begun to move towards equal treatment of gays. Today, the highest court in Germany ruled that the government cannot impose a higher inheritance tax or a lower tax exemption threshold on gay couples. They also ordered the government to reimburse the difference to gay couples who have had to pay a higher percentage in taxes after the death of their partner.