Eideard

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

Two days after same-sex marriage became legal in New York, the state’s attorney general has taken legal action challenging the constitutionality of the U.S. law which defines marriage as between a man and woman.

In court papers filed on Tuesday in U.S. federal court in Manhattan, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, violates same-sex couples’ right to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.

The 1996 law prohibits same-sex couples from receiving marriage-based benefits such as Social Security survivor benefits, health benefits and the right to file taxes jointly.

Schneiderman argued the law intrudes on the state’s right to regulate marriage. On Sunday, gay couples began to marry in New York after it was made legal…

“By discriminating among married couples based on sexual orientation and sex, DOMA deprives New York of the ability to extend true equality to all marriages valid in the State,” Schneiderman wrote…

In February, the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act’s section which defines marriage as between a man and woman.

Yes, the bigots and homophobes of America will continue to join with the most backwards elements in American politics to try to halt the progress of this new generation of civil rights advances. They should fail as abysmally as they did in the 1960′s.

This act by the New York State AG feels to me like the 1958 passage of the Fair Housing Practices Law. When the business and commercial capital of the world stands up for human rights, the nation, the world, has to step back and acknowledge their failings. The state of New York has set an example for all the United States that pretend to modernity to get up on their hind legs and fight for the rights of all their citizens.

Jonathan Mintz, Mayor Bloomberg presiding, marries John Feinblatt
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples, from retirees in Woodstock to college students in Manhattan, rushed to tiny town halls and big city clerks’ offices across New York to wed in the first hours of legal same-sex marriage on Sunday, turning a slumbering summer day into an emotional celebration.

They arrived by subway cars and stretch limousines, with children and with grandparents, in matching sequined ties and pinstriped suits, to utter words that once seemed unimaginable: I do.

Even those who had been together for decades, watching same-sex marriage become legal in surrounding states but suffer rejection in New York, said there was something unexpectedly moving and affirming about having their unions recognized by the state in which they live.

“We feel a little more human today,” Ray Durand, 68, said moments after marrying his partner, Dale Shield, 79, whom he met 42 years ago by a jukebox in a West Village bar.

The start of same-sex marriage in New York instantly doubled the number of Americans who live in states where gay and lesbian couples can wed. Gay-rights advocates, energized by their victory in New York — the sixth and largest state where it is legal — are turning their attention next to Maryland, but they face long odds in much of the country, where there are tougher legal and political obstacles…

Despite demonstrations, long lines and bureaucratic glitches, a spirit of patience and good humor pervaded. In Lower Manhattan, brides and grooms defiantly opened dozens of rainbow-colored umbrellas to block the protesters from view.

There were scenes, too, of striking public embrace. Outside marriage bureaus, police officers offered unsolicited congratulations, passers-by honked their horns and strangers tossed hand-made confetti at the newlyweds.

After a bruising multiyear legislative battle that ended when the State Senate approved same-sex marriage last month by a narrow margin, some of the state’s top elected officials seemed determined on Sunday to demonstrate public support for the new law.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo hosted a party for same-sex marriage advocates in Manhattan, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg presided at a wedding in the backyard of Gracie Mansion, and the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, visited the marriage bureaus in all five boroughs.

The bulk of the day’s marriages took place in New York City…Most were New York residents, but 107 of those who married in the city had arrived from states where same-sex marriage is not legal.

But even far from Manhattan, city and town offices opened their doors, sometimes just for a handful of weddings, on a day when they would ordinarily have been closed.

In Shandaken, a town of 3,100 in the Catskills, the town clerk issued just one marriage license, to a New Jersey couple: Katie Morgan, 37, a freelance television producer, and Brooke Barnett, 30, a wine consultant, who have a weekend home in Shandaken.

Three communities — Niagara Falls, Albany and Hudson — were so eager to marry gays and lesbians that they opened their doors shortly before midnight.

Ain’t nothing as American as civil rights proclaiming the all citizens may be married. Too bad the nation ain’t there, yet. But, then, that’s why Black Folks in Texas get to celebrate Juneteenth. Reactionaries and bigots will always try to keep the good news from spreading, change from happening.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

A number of old-fashioned Republican conservatives decided Friday night they would be contradicting their own beliefs in the American Constitution if they voted to deny fellow citizens the same rights of marriage they enjoy themselves – for any reason. The issue turned on gender identity. The decision was made as it should be – on the virtues and value of our Constitution.

The right-wing Conservative Party of New York State, activists from many religions who felt their beliefs take precedence over civil law, Tea Party activists of one or another stripe all tried to turn those Republicans away from acting in concert with Democrats who supported this bill. They failed.

Progressives, Democrats, LGBT activists and civil libertarians, who have toiled for years to bring this measure to pass in a state that has a long history of democracy and struggles for equal rights – won their case. They have prevailed.

Good for you, New York. And special kudos to those Republicans who turned away from the mean-spirited reactionaries and bigots who have captured so much of that Party throughout the United States. I write often about traditional American conservatives. Their history has affected the ethics of my family – and my extended family – throughout my life. Honesty, rejection of hypocrisy, care for the natural wonders of this planet, a willingness to understand and seek understanding in the joys of education, a fair chance at a good life for all – are what I was raised with.

Many in that extended family have walked away from what the Republican Party has become in these last ten years. I’d be the last to suggest there’s a qualitative change among today’s Republicans – outside of the states that never left those values in the first place.

Good for you, New York.

Legislators have begun to recognize the medical, humanitarian and economic value of helping terminally ill patients and their families navigate treatment options as they approach the end of life.

Last week, over the objections of New York State’s medical society, Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law a bill — the New York Palliative Care Information Act — requiring physicians who treat patients with a terminal illness or condition to offer them or their representatives information about prognosis and options for end-of-life care, including aggressive pain management and hospice care as well as the possibilities for further life-sustaining treatment.

The good doctors were worried about thoughtful options getting in the way of the profits normally raked-in during the last couple months of anyone’s life in the United States.

A similar provision in the original federal health care overhaul proposal, which would have reimbursed doctors for the time it takes to have such conversations, was withdrawn when it was erroneously [deliberately] labeled by conservatives as a “death panel” option.

Last week, a study in The New England Journal of Medicine reported that among 151 patients with newly diagnosed metastatic lung cancer, those who received palliative care, which is care focused on symptoms, along with standard cancer therapy had a better quality of life, experienced less depression, were less likely to receive aggressive end-of-life care and lived nearly three months longer than those who received cancer treatment alone…

While some patients, especially those who are young or are the parents of young children, choose to pursue aggressive treatment for their diseases until their dying days, studies have shown that most terminally ill patients opt for comfort care after receiving honest information about their survival prospects and the benefits and risks of further disease-directed therapy.

RTFA. Lots of sensible information and discussion of an ordinary state government aiding the quest for terminal patients to get such information. Something which wouldn’t stand a chance in most states, especially those with an excess of influence given over to bible-thumping nutballs.

Something I’m proud to put on my life resume.

Try breaking that lockstep, folks!

New York took a major step towards becoming the last state in the country to adopt no-fault divorce as the State Senate approved legislation that would permit couples to separate by mutual consent, a major shift with sweeping implications for families and lawyers.

For decades, New Yorkers have has been bedeviled by longstanding divorce laws that critics said spurred endless litigation and bitter custody fights that were both unnecessary and cruel.

Under current divorce law, one spouse must take the blame, even if both sides agree that a marriage cannot be saved. Instead a spouse must allege cruel and inhuman treatment, adultery, or abandonment for one year before a court can grant a divorce.

Efforts to change those laws have been turned back repeatedly over the years, even as other states moved over time to liberalize their matrimonial laws to include some version of no-fault divorce. Opponents included the Catholic Church, which objects to making divorce easier, as well as some women’s advocates, who have feared that no-fault divorce would inflict unfair economic burdens on women…

Mostly the Church; but, perish the thought the NYT offends the pope.

The newest legislation must still pass the State Assembly, which is considering two different bills that would include some version of no-fault divorce, as well as some related legislation.

But advocates said on Tuesday that they believed that victory in the Senate, which was controlled by Republicans until last year, gave the measure momentum and a high likelihood of gaining approval in the Assembly, which is also controlled by Democrats.

“I think that the main hurdle is here,” said Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson, a Democrat from Westchester and the Bronx who was the chief Senate sponsor of the bill, before the vote. The vote passed 32-27, according to an unofficial tally, with all but two Democrats joined by two Republicans in support.

Which proves that New York Republicans play the game of opportunist politics to please reactionary religions better than do the Democrats. Too bad the citizens of that state have been the losers in that corrupt contest for all these years.

Would you buy a political party from this man?

A Republican political operative has been accused of funneling more than $1 million from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign contributions for his own private use.

John Haggerty, 41, was charged with grand larceny and money laundering by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

The case stems from Bloomberg’s contributions last year of $1.2 million to the state Independence Party, using his personal checks. Haggerty said the funds were used for election day costs, such as poll watchers, through his company Special Elections Operations, authorities said.

Instead, authorities say the company was bogus and Haggerty pocketed all but $32,000 of the money, using the funds to purchase a home that had belonged to his father.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance called the scheme “audacious” and said Haggerty…”presented Mayor Bloomberg with a phony budget that detailed more than $1 million in sham expenditures that he claimed were necessary for the support of the operation”.

Hey – quit giving ideas to the Tea Party crowd!

They’re already stuffed full of their own particular flavor of hustler.

How long can you hold your breath – and why?

Four teenagers were injured after a driver fainted while holding his breath as part of a game being played in a moving car, Wheatland, N.Y., police said.

The teenagers were treated for minor injuries after the car hit a tree and a boulder, the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle reported Wednesday.

The driver of the car, Bryan Parslow, 19, a paraplegic, and a passenger, Sean Parslow, 16, had to be freed from the vehicle Monday night by firefighters, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said. The other passengers were David Fox, 19, and Brian Sinclair, 19.

The driver and passengers allegedly told police they were holding their breath through the town of Garbutt when Bryan Parslow blacked out and lost control of the car.

Alcohol was not a factor in the accident, authorities said.

They didn’t say anything [publicly] about stupidity.