marriage

By Stephen Wissink

Quick, someone call the hotline at Stop Torture Now.

The human rights group needs to protest the intentions of two state Senators in North Carolina who want to inflict cruel and unusual punishment upon every unhappily married couple across the state that wants to divorce and move on with life.

These two high-and-mighty-moralists from the ‘burbs of Bubbabville have proposed legislation that would force divorcing couples to wait a full two years – more than 1.05 million minutes for you clock watchers – before they could even file the papers in court.

And you thought waiting for 5 o’clock to come on a sunny Friday afternoon is a dreadfully long ordeal.

Senator Allran, the rocket surgeon representing Alexander and Catawba counties is at it again, this time sticking his nose where it truly doesn't belong: your marriage, or more precisely, your divorce.

The “Healthy Marriage Act” would change the way couples in North Carolina get a divorce. Instead of requiring that they live apart for one-year, Allran’s new legislation would have them file an intent to divorce, then wait two years before their split is official.

The couple could live together or apart during those two years, according to the bill.

The couple would have to complete courses on improving communication skills and conflict resolutions, something that isn’t required currently.

And if they have kids, the couple would have to take a four-hour course on how divorce affects children. (News & Record)

After President Obama's declaration of support for marriage equality for gay couples, we should pick up on this political progress and RUN with it. Don't let our disappointments hold us back, and don't let the election on Tuesday splinter our potentially larger coalitions--which would benefit all our causes including gay rights.

On Tuesday night, Greensboro's City Council voted 8-1 to pass a resolution opposing Amendment One on May's ballot. Parts of the live blog from Yes! Weekly are here.

Today was National Coming Out Day. An event that was started over 2 decades ago. Today at NCSU hundreds of students got their I <3 Diversity shirts from the NCSU GLBT CA and about 100 of them came over to my Democracy NC table and registered to vote. The free expression tunnel was painted in recognition of this event. There are a whole week of celebratory events. It was a good day for democracy and equality.

National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is an internationally observed civil awareness day celebrating gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, etc. people and communities. The name coming out describes their process of publicly identifying their sexual orientation. It is observed annually by members of LGBT communities and their straight supporters on October 11.

Reading Tami Fitzgerald's sad complaint today about equal rights for gay people, I found myself wondering how some people can dedicate their lives to hating others. I supposed that's what Jesus would want.

Four words.

• "It's a biblical issue," Baity said.

If there ever was a litmus test for upholding the separation of church and state, the idea that something "is a biblical issue" should put the matter to rest.

Another stupid war
All teh gayz fault
Show lies

The National Organization for Marriage, an anti-marriage equality organization, bussed into Raleigh from out of state today for a summer afternoon protest. I imagine they were surprised to find they were in the minority here in NC when they held a rally that almost no one showed up to. The counter-demonstration however had a little over 200 people.

How does it affect you? That's my question. I like to ask people opposed to granting marriage equality to same-sex couple, to see how they respond. For some reason i get a lot of responses that start with "Well, God said..." I don't recall getting a clear answer, usually the closest to an actual response I get is some of the poorly constructed, inaccurate, and mostly unrelated canned responses from a NOM advertisement, probably forwarded by e-mail six or seven times.

So that is what I wonder, How will the government recognizing my relationship as equal to that of other couples affect an opposite-sex couples life? I would love to know because I am hard pressed to come up with a viable answer.

While people are mulling that over I'd like to share some of the ways that the government's refusal to recognize my relationship affects my life.