Same sex couples receive marriage applications in Massachusetts

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Sunday, May 16, 2004 | KEN MAGUIRE

[Cracker72]

(05-16) 21:43 PDT CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) --

City clerks began handing out marriage-license applications to gay couples just after midnight Monday, making Massachusetts the first state in the nation to legalize same-sex unions and the United States just one of four countries in the world where homosexuals can legally wed.

The first couple to begin filling out the paperwork was Marcia Hams, 56, and her partner, Susan Shepherd, 52, of Cambridge. They showed up a full 24 hours ahead of time to stake out the first spot in line to get the nation's first state-sanctioned gay marriage applications.

"I'm shaking so much," Hams said as she filled out the application while sitting at a table across from a city official. "I could collapse at this point."

Outside, throughout the day and into the night, the atmosphere was festive -- complete with a giant wedding cake -- as officials in the liberal bastion of Cambridge seized the earliest possible moment to begin the process of granting same-sex couples the historic right at the center of legal battles nationwide.

By late Sunday night, police estimated that more than 5,000 people had descended outside city hall, cheering and clapping as it opened its doors to let more than 260 couples inside just ahead of the midnight deadline. Many in the crowd were family and friends who wanted to join in the festive atmosphere. There were also scores of reporters, and a few protesters stood across the street.

The state's highest court had ruled gays and lesbians must be allowed to marry beginning Monday, and some of the couples in line planned to head to the courts as soon as they opened later in the morning to seek waivers allowing them to wed before the usual three-day waiting period.

Massachusetts was thrust into the center of a nationwide debate on gay marriage when the state's Supreme Judicial Court issued its narrow 4-3 ruling in November that gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed.

In the days leading up to Monday's deadline, opponents looked to the federal courts for help in overturning the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.

[jrlc]

Kerry and Kennedy in 1971: "First let's undermine the US in Vietnam. Then we can go for gay marriage. When you get to be Pres. JFK-lite, there will be no end to how much of America we can destroy."

[defendingright]

God is a just God. If He destroyed two cities for this abomination, He must also judge this nation.

[mathluv]

On Fox & Friends now. The les can not hold up against E.D.

[defendingright]

God is not mocked.

[VRWC_minion]

Civil marriage is about imposing obligations, not granting rights. Society needs to impose obligations in order to protect widows and orphans and abandoned children. Without the imposition of obligations on spouses, society is left with the cost of raising children and caring for impoverished spouses.

In order to accomplish marriage for gays, the debate had to be changed from establishing obligations to rights. The subject went from the imposition of obligations to the granting of rights. In a nation that prides itself on equal rights, this reversal has been immensely successful in making the argument that gays should be granted the same rights as heteros.

In fact, its been so successful the religious right and all conservatives have accepted the premise and have been suckered into making the argument be one of rights. When they do all they can use to stop it is to invoke God to a godless world.

However, the redefining of the reason for state involvement has a dangerous and is eventually lethal to the concept of the obligations of marriage. Because marriage will be heretofore a concept that grants rights to the parties and not obligations, the laws and the court orders will begin to reflect this change. The final act of this play will be that impoverished spouses that get abandoned will not get as much support from the state as before and more children's needs will have to be met by the state.

Accompanying the slide caused by redefining marriage as a system of rights will come the property and income battles in courts by couples who are not dependent on each other and who have no children. This will be enhanced by the existence of the precedence of cases which gays will be bring forth. Their cases will be mostly concerned with dividing property and most likely determining who by virtue of having earned the property are most entitled to it. In other words, rights not obligations.

The result of this is we will move farther away from the concept that spouses are responsible for the children and their spouse if a marriage terminates. In short, the losers will be the the weakest members of the family and by extension the society as a whole which will be forced to pick up the pieces.

[rep-always]

That is exactly what I have been thinking all morning while trying to hang on to the Word of God. This country has made the turning point, Sodom and Gomorrah. Heaven help us.

[tiamat]

cyborg wrote:


Let's get married.

---

ROFLMAO!

You just made me spew coffee on my keyboard......

[Tabi Katz]

Missing from this picture: Jane Fonda and a bottle of whiskey.

[Luke21]

We are being shown once again that we are not a representative republic at all, but an oligarchy. The left, as it has since the 1950's, simply imposes its desired doctrines on the public by judicial fiat.

Gay marriage couldn't pass at the ballot box, no problem... The yahoos vote to deny illegals rights to raid the public treasury, no problem...The same idiots vote to make English the official language of the nation, no problem...They laugh at us. They mock us. But someday they will not be able to mock any more. The Lord is in the Heavens. Have no fear. It may be as the days of Sodom. But their destruction is sure.

This nation is a fraud, and we deserve what comes of this evil.

[Monty22]

They look like Roger Ebert.

[verity]

God is not mocked.

One could theorize that if God is omniscient, He is not surprised by this. Or, God screwed up by giving us free will.

[Quilla]

I saw brief film footage of these "couple" waiting for their licenses in what I assumed was a courthouse. There were a few children in the shots - not one of which was smiling. My prayers go out for the poor children who have to live in this unnatural environment.

[ohioman]

Get outta here fag lover man. You always soil every thread you populate.

[megatherium]

There is a logic to same-sex civil unions, that grant such rights as hospital visitation rights for same-sex partners. Encouraging gay men to be monogamous makes sense from a public health point of view, if in fact civil unions would actually lead to more monogamy among gay men (debatable at best).

But gay activists want the tremendous affirmation of their lifestyle that marriage will confer. This is a key step in their drive to normalize their sexuality, to get it accepted by middle America. I am sorry for all the teenagers who are experiencing sexual confusion who will decide it's ok to be gay as a result, with all its misery and danger.

[CurlyBill]

This is nothing more than a benefits grab, plain and simple. Marriage has always been an institution between a man and a woman. If we legitimize gay marriage, one only wonders what might be next. Before you laugh this one off, please tell me why the gay rights marches have included members of NAMBLA in them without condemnation. Now further deviant groups, emboldened, will also seek legitimacy.... and will threaten lawsuits if not given the same endorsement from government. Two products of Massachutsetts this year: John Kerry and gay marriages.

[tractorman]

If homosexuality was normal,
none of us would be here.

[Piquaboy]

Has Kerry and Kennedy got their license yet?

[Honorary Serb]

It's stuff like this that would make me pass up Harvard Law and MIT or the Kennedy school for grad school because that means 4 more years at least in Cambridge.

DON'T go to the Kennedy School--it is the home of hard -core Serb-bashers and other hypocritical "human rigthsers". Remember, it is four "human rightser" elitist judges who created gay "marriage" in Massachusetts.

MIT and Harvard Law (or for that matter, most of the Harvard graduate school of arts and sciences) are fine. Don't let a few fruits and nuts in Cambridge keep you from going there.

[Dimensio]

But consider this: approximately 33% of the babies born in the US are currently bastards. Unmarried parents. Among black babies it's over 70%. Just consider it. No mother and father, just a mother, and maybe a boyfriend who hangs around for a while.

I never thought of it that way. You're right. Same-sex marriage will result in an increase of illegitimate births...

Oh, wait. No, it won't.

In fact, I don't see how desiring "stable families" equates to "oppose same-sex marriage". It looks like another one of the lame arguments that allowing same-sex marriage will suddenly cause everyone in an opposite-sex marriage to love their spouse less.

[Dimensio]

This is nothing more than a benefits grab, plain and simple.

Well, I guess that's a very simplistic way of looking at it. The same can be said of allowing opposite-sex marriage -- for what reason would an opposite-sex couple seek to have their union legally recognized except as a "benefits grab"?

Marriage has always been an institution between a man and a woman.

Except where it's been an institution between a man and multiple women.

If we legitimize gay marriage, one only wonders what might be next.

Only those without a sense of perspective or the ability to understand the problem with apples and oranges comparisons.

Before you laugh this one off, please tell me why the gay rights marches have included members of NAMBLA in them without condemnation.

They have? I'm sure that you could point to a recent occurance. Now further deviant groups, emboldened, will also seek legitimacy.... and will threaten lawsuits if not given the same endorsement from government.

State the nature of these "deviant groups", and I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to point out how their "cause" and their demands are not on par with same-sex marriage benefits.

Two products of Massachutsetts this year: John Kerry and gay marriages.

The Internet is a source of both Freerepublic and child pornography. Shall I condemn the former because of the latter's derivation from the same source?

(before anyone squawks, and I know that someone without reading comprehension will squawk, my point is that Freerepublic is not at all like child pornography).