gay marriage – Hays Post Archive

By RICKY KERR
Hays Post

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that all 50 states must authorize and recognize gay and lesbian marriages will go down in history as a major turning point in the ongoing fight for LGBT civil rights. For the first time in American history, states are required to provide and recognize marriage licenses regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity of the two partners.

For Natalie McCall and Carrie Nassif, Ellis County residents, the decision was surprising.

“I didn’t really think it was going to happen so I was pretty surprised,” Nassif said. “I was kind of, I think, in a state of shock for a while. I don’t think it really sunk in because, like I said, I wasn’t expecting it to go that way.”

The couple drove to Des Moines, Iowa, five years ago to get married under an Iowa state license. Now, with the recent Supreme Court ruling, the state of Kansas will have no choice but to recognize their marriage.

Carrie Nassiff (left) and Natalie McCall (right) getting married in Des Moines, Iowa. The couple drove out of state five years ago to obtain an Iowa marriage license. — Carrie Nassif (left) and Natalie McCall (right) getting married in Des Moines, Iowa. The couple drove out of state five years ago to obtain an Iowa marriage license. (Courtesy photo)

“Kansas actually never recognized our marriage but we were the first same-sex couple, we’re assuming,” McCall said. “Because I had my name changed back to my maiden name through our marriage license and so when I went to the Social Security Administration it took them a while to figure out what was going on and finally they came up and asked me in a whisper ‘is this a same-sex marriage?’ and I was like ‘yes’ and they didn’t know any better so they went ahead and switched my name with the marriage license. We have heard a lot of reports from people now that are not able to switch their names through that so…it benefited us to be one of the first people in Ellis County to attempt that.”

The court ruling will allow the couple to receive a number of benefits heterosexual married couples currently enjoy.

“The first, most relevant (benefit) is when we file taxes,” Nassif said. “We had to file as a married couple federally and as two individuals for the state. I feel so bad for our tax preparer because she’d have to run through a lot of programs and erase this part and add this part, so I think that’s (filing taxes as a married couple in Kansas) going to be lovely.”

While the court ruling chalks up as a win for civil rights activists, more work still needs to be done to ensure protections against discrimination in the work place.

“Most people are either really excited or really irritated with the decision,” McCall said. “I think the people that are really irritated are just going to get more irritated because we still have a long way to go. I’m fortunate enough to work for a company that won’t fire me based on my sexual orientation but not a lot of people are that lucky, so there’s probably a lot of people who got fired today when they got to work.”

Legislation barring state agencies from firing anyone based on sexual orientation enacted by former Democratic Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has since been repealed by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.

Brownback has vehemently defended the Kansas constitution’s limited definition of marriage.“Activist courts should not overrule the people of this state, who have clearly supported the Kansas constitution’s definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman,” said Brownback on Friday. “We will review the ruling carefully to understand its effects on the people of Kansas.”

McCall and Nassif had already made plans that emulated many of the benefits they will now be able to take full advantage of.

“We’d already kind of planned to make sure the house title is in both of our names,” Nassif said. “We’ve already tried to take some precautions to make sure that we’re taken care of if one of us were to (pass away), and our kids are taken care of, but it’s really nice to just have (our marriage) sanctioned and not questioned anymore.”

McCall and Nassif responded to the notion held by some people that their marriage is immoral.

“I think (that’s) an interesting argument,” McCall said, “since that argument comes from a religious background usually, and that is not relevant to the state and the Supreme Court.”

“I think a lot of the backlash is from some folks whose religious beliefs disagree with it, but then they don’t have to,” Nassif said. “Their rights have been protected…with freedom of religion, so if they don’t want to have (single-sex marriage) ceremonies in their churches, they don’t have to. But as far as legal status, that should be separate, and I’m really glad that it’s finally recognized. I think a lot of people felt like interracial marriage was immoral too, so I think that the times will change.”

For the full video interview with Nassif and McCall, see above.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s veto last week of SB 1062 — a controversial “religious freedom” bill few Americans read and even fewer understood — may well have been a defining moment in the history of gay rights in America.

Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute.

Post SB 1062, it will be politically difficult, if not impossible, to pass laws that are perceived to allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation — even to protect religion, even in red states with Tea Party favored governors.

Brewer’s veto — urged by business leaders, both of the state’s Republican Senators, and even several legislators who voted for the bill in the first place — is symbolic of the new zeitgeist in America: Like it or not, it’s no longer economically, socially or politically feasible to be seen as a state hostile to lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender people.

This is huge.

It now appears that discrimination against LGBT people is fast approaching the same level of unacceptability as racial discrimination for a growing majority of Americans.

What SB 1062 supporters called “religious freedom,” opponents successfully reframed as “discrimination” — drawing heavily on the language and imagery of the struggle for racial equality.

Would Arizonians, for example, allow businesses to refuse service to inter-racial couples on religious grounds? If not, what is the rationale for treating discrimination against LGBT people differently in places of public accommodation?

A much-re-tweeted tweet from radio producer Chris Lavoie captured the winning message linking past civil rights struggles to the present battle: “Dear Arizona, In case you missed it, we’ve already had this conversation. You don’t get to decide who sits at the lunch counter. Love, America”

Game over.

What was lost in the din of charge and counter-charge was the actual content of SB 1062. Contrary to most media coverage, this was not a “turn-away-the-gays” bill that would have allowed business owners to refuse service to LGBT people. Instead, the law would have amended the existing Arizona Religious Freedom Restoration Act to cover religious freedom claims by business owners.

As nine legal scholars explained in a public letter to Gov. Brewer, nothing in the amendment would say who wins in cases when a business owner asserts a religious freedom claim:

“The person invoking RFRA would still have to prove that he had a sincere religious belief and that state or local government was imposing a substantial burden on his exercise of that religious belief. And the government, or the person on the other side of the lawsuit, could still show that compliance with the law was necessary to serve a compelling government interest.”

In other words, such “free exercise” claims would likely be rare (“substantial burden” is a high bar) and would often fail in the face of a compelling state interest.

If the media and public failed to grasp the nuances of the proposed law, proponents of SB 1062 have only themselves to blame. Recall that the law was proposed in the first place as a response to cases (in other states) where business owners providing wedding services turned away same-sex couples on religious grounds. But rhetoric from many of the bill’s supporters about the dangers of the “homosexual agenda” drowned out legitimate arguments about protecting religious conscience in limited circumstances.

Ironically, discrimination against LGBT people is already possible in much of Arizona since only a few cities in the state have anti-discrimination laws that include sexual orientation.

If Arizona legislators want to garner public support for expanding protections for religious conscience, they would be wise to start by passing legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Then they might gain the credibility and trust needed for a narrowly tailored law exempting religious small business owners from serving same-sex weddings when it violates their conscience.

That’s unlikely to happen now. The bitter SB 1062 debate has poisoned the well for any effort to seek common ground that could protect LGBT people from discrimination while accommodating religious convictions in limited circumstances.

In her veto message, Gov. Brewer said: “Religious liberty is a core American and Arizona value; so is non-discrimination.”

The sad lesson of the battle over SB 1062 is that in the current climate of name-calling and fear mongering, few people on either side are willing to work together to uphold both.

Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Washington-based Newseum Institute. [email protected]

Hays Post Archive

Tag: gay marriage

Local same-sex couple responds to U.S. Supreme Court ruling (VIDEO)

With the stroke of a pen, Arizona governor changes everything