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The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend:
"a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."

He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior." (CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)


Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).

"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008



Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:

A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist."
(Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)

"A nutty lesbian blogger."
(MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)


Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush


who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
--"Joe"

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NJ: Civil unions are a separate and unequal failure

by: Pam Spaulding

Thu Jul 19, 2007 at 08:00:00 AM EDT


As marriage equality advocates predicted, after the Garden State's highest court ruled that the state must provide same-sex couples the same benefits as opposite sex married couples, the New Jersey legislature's decision to create civil unions rather than open marriage to gays and lesbians has produced clear evidence that separate is not equal.

Since CUs went into effect five months ago, a Civil Unions Review Commission has been documenting complaints of "civil unioned" couples that have encountered discrimination when attempting to receive benefits normally granted without question to straight couples. Dana of Mombian passed on this email from Garden State Equality:

As of today, five months after New Jersey's Civil Union Law took effect, at least 1 in every 7 civil-unioned couples in New Jersey is being denied equal protection under the law. 

In today's meeting of the New Jersey Civil Unions Review Commission, the state registrar reported that 1,359 couples have gotten civil-unioned in New Jersey since the law took affect on February 19, 2007.

During the same five-month period, 191 civil-unioned couples have reported to Garden State Equality that their employers refuse to recognize their civil unions.  That is a 14 percent, or 1 in 7, failure rate, at least.

During the first four months of the law, the failure rate had been at least 1 in 8, demonstrating that employers have not increased their acceptance of the law as they've become more familiar with it.  Employers are actually becoming more resistant.

"What society would tolerate a law's failing 1 in 7 times?" said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality.  "If New Jersey's Civil Unions Law were a person, it would be arrested for committing fraud."

More below the fold.
Pam Spaulding :: NJ: Civil unions are a separate and unequal failure
Personally, I've always said that if I received the all the rights of marriage without the name, it wouldn't matter to me. However, it's clear that that the word "marriage" is meaningful in this culture for the civil institution, never mind the religious institution, in a way that civil unions will never be. More from the Garden State Equality email:
The Star-Ledger recently ran a front-page story, picked up by news organizations across the country, on how one company, United Parcel Service, refuses to provide equal benefits to civil-unioned employees in New Jersey even though UPS provides equal benefits to its employees in Massachusetts who are married to same-sex spouses there.

Today's new numbers demonstrate that the failure of New Jersey's civil unions law goes way beyond UPS.  The 191 cases that have come to Garden State Equality involve almost 191 companies.

Many of these companies point to a provision in Federal law that allows them to ignore the laws of various states that recognize same-sex relationships. This begs the question: If Federal law is the problem, what difference would it make to call same-sex relationships "marriage" rather than "civil union"?

A big difference.  The Washington Post recently did an investigation in which it reported that companies in Massachusetts are hardly ever using federal law as an excuse to deny equal benefits to same-sex couples married in that state.  Even with the problem of federal law, same-sex couples married in Massachusetts, as that state's law allows are getting equality.  Civil-unioned couples in New Jersey are not.

"Month after month, as new statistics of the Civil Unions Law's failure are released, there's tragically no improvement in acceptance of the law," said Goldstein.  "Civil unions just don't work in the real world.  Marriage is the only currency of commitment the real world consistently accepts.  And the only way to New Jersey will ever see equality is to give same-sex and opposite sex couples the same freedom to marry."

So, for all the presidential candidates out there who feel comfortable with civil unions and a partial DOMA rollback (listening Hillary and John Edwards?) -- federal recognition won't help anyone with a civil union if a company wishes to discriminate. It will be an endless series of conflicts -- a legal morass that will end up in the Supreme Court, which will threaten any hope of equality, given the justices on the bench now.

Read more at BlueJersey.

Related:
* Committee hears that NJ's civil unions are not equal to marriage (June '07)
* Civil unions: more on less

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Raising Visibility
Maybe NJ needs better PR for civil unions.

They could start a state-wide contest to come up with a better term than "civil-unioned."

Unionized?

Unionated?

Seeyou'd?

C(u)ivilized?

I think the ex-governor should be the judge of the contest.  Oh, and Paula Abdul, too.

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report


that is funny but right on. Seeyou'd lol


[ Parent ]
the term irks me
It should be civilly united.

Actually, it should be married, for everyone who wants it. But I'm being redundant since that was the point of the post.


[ Parent ]
Terminology
We used the term 'united'.  :-D

Sarah G


[ Parent ]
Why this problem in New Jersey?
What's the difference between civil unions in New Jersey and those in Vermont and Connecticut? Did the latter two not claim to be equal to marriage? Are companies and citizens there more willing to be generous and not so inclined to say federal law allows them to discriminate because it isn't marriage?

As they say in Jersey--
--the legislators "shoulda" went a different way.

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report

[ Parent ]
yikes
"shoulda went"

is what I meant

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."  The Colbert Report


[ Parent ]
My guess
is that New Jersey is the only state with civil unions making a point of keeping track of how the law is being implemented and whether there is a failure to observe the equality it mandates.

[ Parent ]
Leave it for the states to decide..
I heard Hillary's voice on the morning news make that remark in regard to a question about same sex marriage.  This is her version of:  "I haven't crossed that bridge yet"

In other words:  I'm afraid to discuss the problems that will arise from the creation of multiple types of citizenship for American citizens. 

Will these Civil Union issues (NJ's problems and the lack of them in other CU states) get discussed during the HRC/Logo forum with the candidates?  If I live ______ I can be a in a CU, but if I move _____ I have nothing, or I have to get married, or I have to get a DP. 

I hope so.  But if they are raised, I highly doubt there will be follow up questions or pressure to admit and acknowledge the shortcomings/flaws and injustices of their points of view. 

Cross THAT bridge, asswipe.  Just let an intern suck your cock so I don't have to, hubby, eh, Hillary? 

Thanks so much my Democratic heterosexist allies.  You really are stepping up to the plate for me.  I knew I could count on you.  Now I'll just sit here and wait for you to come to your senses like a good obedient victim.


Civil Unions Do Not Equal Marriage
No matter how you look at it, the two are not equal. Civil unions, while providing much needed benefits to same-sex families, are a second class status that we should view as a stepping stone to full marriage rights.

The Democrats in New Jersey took the coward's way out and rush to pass civil unions legislation so they would not have to discuss marriage. Its unfair and unfortunate. We have to educate people on why civil unions are not good enough.


On the fence
I'm on the fence as to whether I should have a civil union ceremony now, or wait for full marriage in NJ.  I think marriage will come soon.  The state registrar mentioned in the article is a neighbor of mine and is "family".

Only 1,359 couples
It seems significant to me that so few couples have registered.  This is a lot less than the number of couples who got married in SF in just a couple of weeks.  Does this indicate that a lot of people are holding out for marriage in NJ rather than settling for CU's?

What's not common sense about equality?
I think it's more that people aren't buying the bullsh*t of separate and not equal..why rush to a lie?

As for a comment upthread...as to why NJ seems to be having trouble where Vermont and Conneticut...good question and couple of reasons....first off, NJ court case was high profile...court said give gays equality...the legislature choose not to...so Garden State Equality and Lambda Legal from the start got the word out to report separate and not equal incidents...NJ equality advocates are being vigulent about transgressions...
Vermont was so long ago, and never really set up to be "equal".  Like here in California, the legislature had to pass , and continues to draft and pass laws so that Domestic Partnerships can "approach" equality.  In Connecicuttt, I don't know what's going on...maybe someone can let us know.


[ Parent ]
Same-sex marriage is not possible in the US, Civil Unions are

The LGBT Community Should Fight for the Rights of Marriage Not “Marriage”

Lesbians and gay men have already lost the fight for same-sex marriage and it is time to move on to a fight we can win.

Same-sex marriage with all of the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage cannot exist in the United States in the near future.  Here is why:  Forty-five states have laws or constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Source: Human Rights Campaign)  There has been over 48 million votes cast on this issue in 29 states and almost 32 million, almost two-thirds, voted against same-sex marriage.  As the noted gay historian and professor at the University of Illinois, John D'Emilio, observed in his 2006 article, The Marriage Fight Is Setting Us Back, "The campaign for same-sex marriage has been an unmitigated disaster.  It has created a vast body of new anti-gay laws."  There has already been, in effect, a national referendum and we have lost......BIG.

Real Marriage Does Not Exist in Massachusetts
Despite the title, "marriage", same-sex marriage with all of the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage does not even exist in Massachusetts.  Massachusetts's same-sex marriage, California's domestic partners, and Vermont and New Jersey's civil unions all have the same federal benefits of marriage: zero.

Anecdotal reports of inappropriate or anomalous implementation of California’s two and one-half year old comprehensive domestic partner laws would not be solved by changing the title to marriage.  Lesbians and gay men in Massachusetts have reported problems with their state’s implementation of same-sex marriage.  Like California, Massachusetts's legislature is having to plug some holes because both of these policies are new.  Any new and comprehensive policy, no matter how well written, will have bumps along the road to implementation. (The Gay & Lesbian Review 5/2007 page 6, Marriage Equality Not a Reality In Mass. by Dale Mitchell, Cofounder, LGBT Aging Project, Boston, MA)
 
The Myth About Same-Sex Marriage
There is a myth that marriage has more rights and benefits than civil unions/domestic partners.  That myth is born from the fact that civil unions/domestic partners have only been passed by states.  States have no power to grant the 1138 federal benefits of marriage.  However, a national civil union policy would.  Senators Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, & Biden have pledge to support a national civil union policy.

Separate but Equal Argument is Historically Incorrect
Same-sex marriage activists will say, “Separate is not equal.”  Analogy to Brown v. Board of Education (1954, US Supreme Court) is a common error which ignores the historical facts.  “Separate but equal” was invented by white supremacists in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896, US Supreme Court) to oppress African-Americans.  Domestic Partners was invented by a gay man, Tom Brougham, in 1982 and advanced by lesbian and gay organizations to obtain the benefits of marriage when most lesbians and gay men  viewed marriage as a discredited patriarchal institution.  Indeed, the acceptance of civil unions/domestic partners is more comparable to Brown than to Plessy.

Facing Reality: The Way Forward
In poll after poll, a clear majority of voters say they would support civil unions with all the same rights, benefits and obligations of marriage but they would not support same-sex marriage.  Illogical?  Yes!  But it is a fact we must live with. 

There have been no successful direct challenges to statewide domestic partner or civil union policies.  Domestic partners and civil unions have been overturned only when they were included in ballot propositions whose primary purpose was to ban same-sex marriage.

All of the rights, benefits and obligations of marriage are attainable, with public support, under the title civil unions or domestic partners.  Same-sex marriage is not.  We may not like that fact, however, it is none-the-less a fact.  Why the leaders of our community do not see the obvious is beyond my understanding.  It is time that someone in the lesbian and gay community tell our leaders that their strategy on same-sex marriage has failed.  We must return to the successful strategy of attaining our rights through civil unions and domestic partners which has worked well for over 20 years.

Who among us will be brave enough to say, "The emperor has no clothes" before we are all stripped naked of our rights.



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