TOP6NEWS - Date 7.15.05

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1-NEWS: MD ssm case in Baltimore court 7.27.05
2-NEWS: CNN on corporate dp benefits
3-NEWS: Would ssm also mean a ban on private discrimination? (blog conversation)
4-NEWS: Who is the 'real' parent?
5-OP-ED: M. Sommerville: Gay rights, children's rights
6-OP-ED: G. Gerard: Increasing education would save m, not opposing ssm

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1-NEWS: MD ssm case in Baltimore court 7.27.05

9 couples challenge state law limiting unions to heterosexuals
By ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG
Friday, July 15, 2005 WashBlade
The Baltimore Circuit Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments July 27 in a Maryland lawsuit seeking to legalize same-sex marriage.
The suit, Deane and Polyak vs. Conaway, was filed in July 2004 by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of nine same-sex couples and a gay man whose partner died. It is challenging the constitutionality of a 1973 provision that limits marriage to a man and a woman, according to David Rocah, an attorney with the ACLU working on the case.
New Jersey, California, New York and Washington also have pending same-sex marriage cases, according to the gay rights group Lambda Legal. Massachusetts is the only state to recognize same-sex marriage.

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2-NEWS:CNN on corporate dp benefits

Companies confused over gay rights
Thursday, July 14, 2005 Posted: 0709 GMT (1509 HKT)
CNN) -- Art Weidner describes himself as an easy-going guy. An engineer based in Seattle, Art enjoys spending time outdoors. He usually avoids public confrontation.
But a recent e-mail from his boss explaining why his company was supporting gay pride month prompted Art to speak out.
"I felt that this was something beyond the realm of what a CEO should be doing," Weidner told CNN. "I felt he was pushing a political, social and personal agenda on company time."

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3-NEWS: Would ssm also mean a ban on private discrimination? (blog conversation)

WOULD RECOGNITION OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE ALSO MEAN A BAN ON PRIVATE DISCRIMINATION, Volokh Conspiracy http://volokh.com/posts/1121297196.shtml
if the theory is that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of sex discrimnation?
  Many proponents of same-sex marriage rely (at least in part) on this theory, and at least one judge has accepted it. If Jane is barred from marrying Kate but is allowed to marry Larry, the argument goes, that’s sex discrimination -- the law is considering Jane’s, Kate’s, and Larry’s sex in deciding whom they may marry. Under similar circumstances, bans on interracial marriage are treated as race discrimination; therefore, bans on same-sex marriage should be treated as sex discrimination. Let’s assume that this argument is indeed accepted, and courts hold that traditional marriage rules violate the Equal Protection Clause (or a state Equal Rights Amendment).

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4-NEWS: Who is the 'real' parent?

Family Matters
Who's the real parent?
By Sara Orozco, Ph.D.
Bay Windows Published: Thursday, July 14, 2005

Several years ago I was vacationing in Maine on the beach with my now wife and twin sons. Although we have fraternal twins, when they were two years old they looked identical and that fact alone brought us lots of (unwanted) attention. One particular day on our vacation really stands out for me.
After loading up snacks, sun block, hats, towels, toys, balls, books, water, juice boxes, chairs, sun glasses, shovels, buckets, umbrellas, change of clothes, swimmies, cell phone and camera into fancy mesh beach bags, we put our sons into their two-seater plastic wagon, with the big, black plastic wheels that do not spin in the sand and dragged it to the perfect spot on the beach. I don't know about my wife, but I always feel as if people are staring at us, trying to figure "us" out. I catch people looking back and forth between my wife and me, then to my wife and the kids, then to the kids and me and then to my wife, the kids and me. And when the dog is with us, it gets even more complicated because she really doesn't look like any of us. Well, that morning, after my wife and I finally found a great spot on the beach alongside the other 6000 families, I noticed one particular group of people several yards away staring at us. "Location at approximately three o'clock" I said to my wife. "But don't look." She looks over the rim of her sunglasses at me and then resumes her reading. "For goodness sake," I sigh under my breath, "we look just like any other family on this beach." My wife ignores me. I knew it was just a matter of time before they asked the real question.

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5-NEWS: M. Sommerville: Gay rights, children's rights

Margaret Somerville
National Post

Thursday, July 14, 2005
As its advocates claim, same-sex marriage will be a powerful public statement against the discrimination suffered by homosexuals. But it will also affect the fundamental rights of children, a vulnerable group of Canadians with no power to protect themselves at the ballot box. So let me try to speak for them, and put forward the case that accepting same-sex marriage requires that we enact new legislation to protect children's rights.
When limited to the union of a man and a woman, marriage establishes, as the norm, children's right to an identified biological mother and father, and to be reared by them, unless there are good reasons to the contrary. Same-sex marriage, in disconnecting marriage from procreation, compromises this right for all children, not just those brought into same-sex marriages. The new law, Bill C-38, implements that change by redefining parenthood from natural parenthood to legal parenthood -- from an institution defined by biology, to one defined solely by law.

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6-NEWS: G. Gerard: Increasing education would save m, not opposing ssm

Gay Marriage Critics Are Misguided
by Gene C. Gerard
July 14, 2005
One of the strongest criticisms of gay marriage is that it threatens the institution of marriage itself. James Dobson, the founder and leader of the evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family, wrote a book devoted to this argument entitled Marriage Under Fire. 
In the book, Mr. Dobson warned, “...when the State sanctions homosexual relationships and gives them its blessing, the younger generation…quickly loses its understanding of lifelong commitments.” 
Rather than merely obtaining the same rights that heterosexual married couples enjoy, Mr. Dobson advised, “marriage between homosexuals will destroy traditional marriage [because] this is the ultimate goal of activists.”

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