November 4th, 2004


kansas doesn't have a marriage amendment yet

I was reading some election reactions and a couple of people brought up same-sex marriage bans.

I live in Kansas, where we didn't vote on a ban, and THANK GOD. What stopped it from making it onto the ballot? A few very good state senators did the right thing in May. These people see fred phelps with his "God Hates Fags" signs every day, and decided that they didn't want that sort of hate written into our constitution.

Here's what was very close to making it on our ballot:

§ 16. Marriage. (a) The marriage contract is to be considered in law as a civil contract. Marriage shall be constituted by one man and one woman only and the rights, benefits, privileges and incidents of marriage shall inure only to the benefit of parties to such a marriage. All other marriages are declared to be contrary to the public policy of this state and are void.

(b) No relationship other than a marriage between one man and one woman shall be recognized by the state as being entitled to the rights, benefits, privileges and incidents of marriage.

Similar laws in other states have been used to contest wills, file lawsuits, and deny any kind of right same-sex couples want. Even straight people who don't file their paperwork correctly can be victims... want to leave your kids with your neighbor if something happens to you? Make sure you get a DAMN good lawyer, because that sort of thing is a "benefit" that comes with marriage. These laws have the power to change your legal relationships with everyone not related to you.

In the last election, a lot of the good senators who kept us hate-free were targeted by the far right and voted out. In my own house district, the winning candidate has no political experience and ran strictly on social issues for the first two weeks of his campaign, and he won. I'd discuss him more, but I want to keep this clean in case some kids are reading it.

There are a lot of fellow Kansans on my friends list, and very few of them are gay. I had to consider this issue a lot myself... why fight for something that doesn't effect me?

I decided that I don't want to live in a state that treats people like second class citizens because they're "icky" or "just wrong".

I don't want to live in a state where we create paranoid, over-active laws that get into people's private business.

I don't want to live in a society where my own faith is twisted and manipulated to support bigotry, because Jerry Falwell can't sell his $800 Bible study programs without an "enemy" to rally people around.

Kansans: I know you're sick to death of politics, but please stay alert. Know where you stand on the issues and get ready to take action now. Gay rights groups are emotionally and financially drained right now. National groups wrote this state off a long time ago as a loss. We are sinking deeper into the hypocracy and bigotry of the anti-gay movement - millions of people have been brainwashed until they're not only against gay marriage, they're against any type of civil union or equal rights. The republicans stated in their platform that lawrence v. tx should be repealed, so you can literally be thrown in jail just for having sex.

The vote will be in April. If you don't want to hear me talk about it, you might as well take me off your list now, because I decided months ago I would work for this cause.