The Tennessee hardware store owner who put up a “No Gays Allowed” sign on his store’s front door, says he did so “to let the homosexual people know that there are Christian people that are willing to take a stand.” Believe me, homosexual people are fully aware that there exist Christian people who are willing […]
Apropos of my previous post, it is in Texas where we’re seeing most of these attempted recusals from official duties, and where the state’s attorney general has taken the position that “religious liberty” should be a shield for public servants refusing to serve same-sex couples in the conduct of official government business. Yet in 1983, […]
An increasing number of news reports that there are clerks’ offices that are refusing, citing religious grounds, to issue civil marriage licenses to same-sex couples has me boiling mad. 1. If you are a public servant, paid with taxpayer funds, you must serve all the public. You don’t get to pick and choose. Same-sex couples […]
On a tangent to my previous post about whether today’s opinion requires clergy to marry same-sex couples (as I noted, it doesn’t), it’s been asked whether the ruling allows public officials (clerks, magistrates, etc.) to opt out of issuing marriage licenses or marrying same-sex couples, when that otherwise would be their responsibility, if they have […]
You’ll hear some people–some of them even candidates for the U.S. presidency–saying that today’s majority decision by the U.S. Supreme Court affirming a right to marry is a blow to religious liberty, asserting that religious organizations will be forced against their will to marry same-sex couples. That is a lie. This decision is solely about […]
In my previous column I noted I was about to get married. I hope you’ll forgive my ongoing self-indulgence as I write about my nuptials once more. One’s own wedding, after all, doesn’t happen every day. Admittedly, given California’s rollercoaster history regarding marriage equality, some of us have been married multiple times to the same […]
In the midst of the amazing joy of my wedding, I also need to take a moment to recognize one of my life’s sorrows. Ten years ago today, less than a month after his 65th birthday and just days after his 42nd wedding anniversary, my father died far too early from complications resulting from Guillain–Barré […]
On our wedding blog, I’ve posted: Audio and script for our wedding ceremony at San Francisco City Hall. Background on the cartoon avatars that we used throughout our wedding decor. Each table at the reception had a daguerrotype/tintype-style photo of our avatars in a different spot in San Francisco (or at home in Daly City). All […]
One week from today, I expect my life paradoxically to stay pretty much exactly the same, yet at the same time to change utterly, in ways I’m not sure I truly understand or even can fully imagine. I expect my life to change, though, because people whose opinions in such matters I trust, people who […]
An edited version of this piece appeared in the August 22, 2013 edition of the SF Bay Times. As though wedding planning weren’t stressful enough on its own, California couples making or reviving plans to marry this summer and beyond have been faced with the additional anxiety of wondering whether the issuance of marriage licenses […]