Proposal to decriminalize polygamy in Utah

Marriage is special, a protected transaction in the U.S. and elsewhere, and that has led to odd situations as social mores change.  Same sex marriage is now legal in every U.S. state, but long before that happened, laws against homosexual sex had already been repealed. So same sex couples were able to live peacefully together before they could marry.*

In much the same way, it is not a crime in most places for unmarried people to live together, and start families.  The phrase 'polyamory' is sometimes applied to romantic relations among multiple adults.  But marriage, no longer defined as a relation between one man and one woman, is still defined as a relation between two people (but now they can also be of the same sex).  That "two-ness" may be starting to change too.

The WSJ has the story:

Utah Lawmakers Seek to Decriminalize Polygamy
Sponsor says bill will help ‘otherwise law-abiding consenting adults who practice polygamy’
By Talal Ansari

"Utah could decriminalize polygamy for the first time in 85 years.

"Lawmakers in the state House are considering legislation that would reclassify bigamy as an infraction in certain circumstances. The Republican-controlled Senate unanimously passed the bill earlier this week.

"More than 60% of Utah’s population belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially known as the Mormon Church, which practiced polygamy early in its history but banned it more than a century ago.

"Under current state law, bigamy is a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. Bigamy is a legal term, defined as marrying someone while being legally married to another person.
...
"Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes has said his office only prosecutes bigamy crimes “against those who induce marriage under false pretenses or if there is a collateral malfeasance.”

"Sen. Henderson has said her bill would essentially codify the attorney general’s prevailing practices into law.
...
"Polygamy was outlawed in the U.S. in the 1880s. The practice was banned by the Mormon Church in 1890, as Utah sought statehood. Utah wouldn’t become a state until 1896, under the condition that it explicitly ban polygamy in its constitution.


"Since then, the state and the Mormon Church have taken a hard stance against polygamy, with the latter excommunicating its members for engaging in plural marriage.

"In 1935, the state criminalized bigamy. Those moves pushed polygamists to the fringes of society and in geographic isolation.

"The law has been challenged over the years. In 2013, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups declared unconstitutional a key portion of Utah’s polygamy law after it was challenged by stars of the reality-television show “Sister Wives.” An appeals court later dismissed that decision and the Supreme Court decided not to hear the appeal.

"According to a Gallup poll, acceptance of polygamy appears to be increasing in the U.S. In 2018, 18% of Americans believed marrying more than one person was morally acceptable. In 2003, 7% of those asked took the same stance."
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In common usage, I think "bigamy" refers to one person having two spouses (often a man with two wives), but it sounds as if, used as a legal term in Utah, bigamy includes what used to be called polygamy,  the situation of having more than one spouse at the same time. The usual form of polygamy is polygyny, when a man has more that one wife. A less usual form of polygamy is polyandry, when a woman has more than one husband.

All these terms arose when marriage, even multiple marriage, was thought of as between men and women.  We may need new terms for plural marriage now that we recognize same sex marriages.  For example, in a plural marriage of the future, will all the members be married to each other?

This would make legalizing plural marriage potentially more difficult, in terms of defining the legal status of all the spouses, than was legalizing same sex marriage.  In the case of same sex marriage, all the customary rights and obligations of traditional marriage in each state could be extended to same sex couples by a judicial order.  But, e.g. how does divorce work in a plural marriage--is it pairwise, or is it more like dissolving a partnership, or resigning from a partnership?  Can some parts of the marriage persist while other parts are dissolved?

This suggests to me that it may be some time before we see new, plural forms of marriage enshrined in law.  But I wouldn't bet the farm against it in the long term.

(In the meantime, I think we can say that if you support plural marriage, that's big o' you.)
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*In a geographically related story, the Salt Lake Tribune reported last week
BYU students celebrate as school removes ‘Homosexual Behavior’ section from its online Honor Code

Same sex marriage, and abortion, to be legal in Northern Ireland

The Guardian has the story:

Northern Ireland to legalise abortion and same-sex marriage
Equality campaigners were celebrating before the midnight deadline for law to take effect

"Northern Ireland is to legalise abortion and same-sex marriage after an 11th-hour attempt by the region’s assembly to block change collapsed into farce.

Equality campaigners celebrated on Monday as the clock ticked towards midnight when laws extending abortion and marriage rights came into force, ushering in momentous social change as Northern Ireland aligned with the rest of the UK."

Coupling up with the help of the internet

My colleague Michael Rosenfeld, in Stanford's sociology department, has been studying how married couples first met, over time, with particular attention to the internet.  Those of you reading this on a stone tablet or parchment scroll may be surprised to hear that the internet is playing an ever-bigger role. But everyone might be surprised at how much bigger, how quickly.

The first figure below comes from a 2012 paper (with survey data through 2009),
Searching for a Mate: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary
by Michael J. Rosenfeld and Reuben J. Thomas, American Sociological Review 77(4): 523-547.

The red line records the percentage of couples who met online, and it was already the dominant method for same-sex respondents to report meeting, while for heterosexual couples it was surpassed only by meeting through friends (and church and primary or secondary school matches had almost dropped out of the picture, while bars were still making a good showing...)

An unpublished (but media-covered) paper brings the figure up to date to 2017, with the red line now approaching 40% for heterosexual couples, and friends (the blue line) continuing their decline.

Research Note:  Disintermediating your friends 
Michael Rosenfeld,  Reuben J. Thomas, Sonia Hausen,
 Draft date: July 15, 2019
Forthcoming in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Laws about gay sex in Africa

While many countries have legalized same sex marriages, including South Africa, in the rest of Africa the question is whether engaging in same-sex sex will be legalized.  The Guardian has the story of one step forward and maybe back again in Botswana:

Botswana government to appeal against law legalising gay sex
Attorney general says high court was mistaken in its ruling decriminalising homosexuality

"Botswana’s government will appeal against a high court ruling that decriminalised homosexuality, potentially resuscitating a law that punished gay sex by up to seven years in prison.

"The court’s ruling in June, which was praised by international organisations and activists, meant Botswana joined a handful of African countries that have legalised same-sex relationships.
...
"Same-sex relationships are illegal in more than 70 countries worldwide; almost half of them in Africa, where homosexuality is broadly taboo and persecution is rife.

"Botswana’s ruling came after Kenya’s high court upheld its law banning gay sex, keeping same-sex relations punishable by 14 years in jail, drawing strong criticism from the United Nations and rights activists.

...
Botswana is the latest country in Africa to decriminalise same-sex relations, with Amnesty saying it follows Angola in January, the Seychelles in June 2016, Mozambique in June 2015, and São Tomé and Principe, and Lesotho, in 2012.

South Africa is the only African nation to have legalised gay marriage."

Same sex marriage comes to Taiwan

Here's the NY Times story on the new law allowing marriage, and on still to be debated issues including family formation (adoption, surrogacy...):

After a Long Fight, Taiwan’s Same-Sex Couples Celebrate New Marriages
By Chris Horton, May 24, 2019

"TAIPEI, Taiwan — Typically drab and nondescript, Taipei’s Xinyi District Household Registration office exploded with life and color on Friday morning.

"Taiwanese and foreign reporters surrounded the office’s main desk to witness history, as Taiwan became first in Asia to legally recognize same-sex marriages.
...
"The registrations came exactly a week after Taiwan’s legislature made headlines worldwide by voting to recognize same-sex marriage.
...
"Mr. Chi said that Taiwan’s separate-but-equal law for same-sex couples was a step in the right direction, but that more work remained to be done. Instead of having a separate law for gay couples, he said, Taiwan’s civil code should be amended to simply include all couples. The issues of transnational couples and full adoption rights also need the be addressed, he said.
...
"The law passed last Friday went beyond what the constitutional court demanded. The 2017 court ruling spoke in terms of the right to equality and freedom of marriage, but it did not address equality with respect to building a family, said Margaret Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall.

“Now the question is whether the court will be asked to rule on how the constitutional right to equality applies to adoption by married couples of the same sex,” she said. “Other issues of concern include whether to legalize surrogacy and changes to laws related to assisted reproductive technology.”

An Israeli gay couple recount their American surrogacy experience

Twins, no less, after a journey through U.S. surrogacy by a gay Israeli couple, from Haaretz:

Two for the Price of One: An Israeli Gay Couple's American Journey to Fatherhood By Hilo Glazer

"From the moment surrogacy for Israeli gay men swung away from Asia and landed in the American kingdom of capitalism, having a baby became a complex spreadsheet in which every row carries a price tag.
...
"We continued shopping in the most experienced agency in the gay fathers’ realm in Israel, which was founded by a marketing man. He mentioned two options: an American route and a Canadian route. The Canadian path is at least 100,000 shekels cheaper because there’s no need to pay the surrogate mother. How so? In Canada, surrogacy is, by law, completely altruistic, the marketing man explained, and the women are good Christians who want “to grant people the right to raise a family.” He added, with a thin smile, that these surrogate mothers receive “enlarged reimbursement of expenses,” and hinted that this was a way to get around the Canadian ban on paid surrogacy.
...
"The first step is to find an egg donor. In this field, America really is the land of opportunity – with a price range to match. We paid the low rate ($8,000) because we made do with the database of candidates that’s attached to the clinic and for which there’s “no charge” to access. It’s a pretty limited database, with about 15 candidates at any given moment.

"But hey, this is America, so there’s no upgrade that money can’t buy. An additional payment of $8,500 to $20,000 provides access to premium databases. There’s one consisting of donors who are models (they call it “donors who look like you,” and you can select the desirable physical qualities), while there’s another of donors who are Ivy League graduates. Unfortunately, there’s no overlap between the databases. An egg from a Jewish donor will cost more – around $20,000 (half to the agency, half to the donor). All told, if you go with the select databases, the cost of the egg donation can reach $35,000.
...
"The next stage, then, is to find the surrogate. The clinic put us in touch with five agencies for surrogates, each of which controls a different region of the country.

Because demand for surrogate mothers exceeds supply, hooking up with an agency doesn’t ensure an available woman when the contract is signed. The average waiting time is between four months and a year and a half. We were ready to pay in order not to lose momentum, and we went for the fastest option. The supply of surrogates available in Oregon, where the clinic was situated, had run out, so we had to expand into new territory...
...
"After two weeks, we were informed that a suitable candidate had been found...24, married and the mother of an 18-month-old girl, a part-time preschool teacher living in Oklahoma City. (Motherhood is a condition for surrogacy so that there are no known complications preventing the woman from giving birth.) Oklahoma is considered part of the Bible Belt, but Tiffany, for one, wasn’t put off by the fact that we were a gay couple.
...
"Spreading out the surrogate’s salary over nine months is liable to cause a conflict of interest with her. The classic dilemma is whether to have amniocentesis (generally performed at the start of the second trimester). It’s the most reliable indicator of the embryo’s health but also increases the risk of a miscarriage – a scenario we would obviously not want, but one more fraught with problems for the woman. She, after all, would have endured a rigorous selection process, taken medications, undergone invasive medical procedures, and in the case of a miscarriage, would be rewarded for only a few weeks of work.
...
"American agencies now customarily offer clients a “guarantee to baby” option: In return for a fixed price, the clinic undertakes “to provide” a baby, no matter how many attempts this entails. The deal is also valid for unsuccessful embryo transfer and in case of a miscarriage. Guided by fear of failure and of the need to make a double payment, we – and pretty much all the other couples who face a similar dilemma – opted for the “all inclusive” rate.
...
"The bonus of the visit to Portland was a meeting with the egg donor ...
Into the room came a delicate young woman of 21...accompanied by her fiancé ... She’s a nursing student, he’s starting med school, and both aspire to do volunteer work in plague-ridden regions of Africa.
...
[The surrogate] Tiffany’s life story, which we heard about during her hospitalization, raised a host of ethical questions that had been pushed aside once we’d opted for First World surrogacy over one in India.
... Was her economic plight fundamentally different from the distress of an imagined Indian surrogate mother? Wasn’t the medical risk she took the same? Could we be certain that she had volunteered for the process and not been pushed into it by a relative? Wasn’t her basic salary – about $30,000 – too small compared with the payments received by the doctors and the mediators?  "
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Here's a subsequent story from Haaretz (not related to the particular couple above):

Jewish Agency offers loans to staff seeking surrogacy abroad
For the first time in history, a state entity is offering its employees support for the extremely expensive procedure, which is denied to gay men in Israel by law

Ongoing controversies about same sex marriage

Relatively recent stories, about the Methodist world and the Arab world remind us that there remains considerable active repugnance to same sex marriage.

From the Washington Post:

Reeling from contentious LGBT vote, some Methodists pledge to fight while others mull leaving

"Dumbarton United Methodist Church is the oldest United Methodist congregation in Washington, D.C., dating almost 200 years before the United Methodist denomination was created — even before the United States was created.

"On Wednesday, when the church’s minister, the Rev. Mary Kay Totty, traveled back to Washington from a groundbreaking meeting in St. Louis, where the denomination decided to uphold its opposition to same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy, she said she thought that centuries-old history might be at a breaking point.

“To think of not being Methodist,” she said, then stopped, unable to complete the sentence. Dumbarton voted to affirm gay worshipers more than 30 years ago, and the church has performed 20 same-sex marriages since 2010, breaking the rules of the denomination every time. Now such actions will be met with much harsher penalties."
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(The NY Times reports that there were some voting irregularities:
Improper Voting Discovered at Methodist Vote on Gay Clergy)

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And from the Guardian:

Luxembourg PM takes Arab leaders to task on gay rights at summit
Xavier Bettel says his same-sex marriage would condemn him to death in some countries

"Luxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, has confronted Arab leaders over the repression of gay rights, telling them his same-sex marriage would condemn him to death in some of their countries.
...
"Bettel, the first EU leader to be married to a same-sex partner, had planned to make the intervention before arriving at the summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, which was the first gathering between the EU and Arab League.

"Homosexuality is punishable by death under sharia law in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. Other countries in the region prohibit same-sex acts, including Algeria, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia, Syria, Kuwait and some of the United Arab Emirates.
...
"Bettel’s point is underscored by the treatment of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Egypt, the country that hosted the summit.

"Homosexuality is not illegal in Egypt, but LGBT people are frequently detained on euphemistic charges such as “debauchery”. After the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, came to power in a coup in 2013, he “appeared to embrace persecution of gays and trans people as a political strategy” according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

...

"The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, defended the bloc’s decision to hold the summit. “If I only talked to flawless democrats, then I would end my week already by Tuesday,” he said."

Surrogacy, same sex marriage, and other Singapore repugnancies

Yesterday I blogged about a court ruling in Britain that, although commercial surrogacy is illegal in Britain, it is legal for a British subject to have a child by legal surrogacy in California.  Today we turn to Singapore, where a court had ruled that a child born by surrogacy to a gay couple could not be regarded as the biological father's child (even by adoption).  A higher court this week modified the decision.  It turns out that in Singapore surrogacy is not legal for unmarried couples, and there is no same sex marriage. In fact, homosexual sex remains a crime in Singapore...

NBC has the story:
Singapore court allows gay man to adopt son in landmark ruling
The ruling comes amid a renewed public push to review Singapore's colonial-era law under which gay sex carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.

"Singapore's high court on Monday allowed a gay doctor to adopt his biological son, a landmark ruling in the socially conservative city-state that comes almost a year after his initial bid was rejected.

"The decision overturns a 2017 ruling in which a court said the man could not adopt the boy because he was born by a surrogate in the United States through in-vitro fertilization — a procedure not available to unmarried couples in Singapore.

"The ruling also comes amid a renewed public push to review Singapore's colonial-era law under which sex between consenting males carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail, after a repeal of a similar law in India this year.
...
"The man, in a relationship with a same-sex partner, paid $200,000 for a woman to carry his child through in-vitro fertilization in the United States after he had learned he was unlikely to be able to adopt a child in Singapore as a gay man."
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It appears that the judge's ruling acknowledged Singaporean law against same sex marriage and same sex relations generally, but felt that the welfare of the child (who otherwise would not have had a legal parent) needed to be given priority.

Surrogacy law in Israel

Haaretz has the story of the recent expansion of access to surrogacy in Israel, which however excludes same sex couples.

Why the Battle for Gay Rights in Israel Passes Through Parenthood, Not Marriage

"Thousands of Israelis walked out of their workplaces and took to the streets Sunday, to protest the government’s denial of gay men’s rights to have children through surrogacy.

"The protest over the legislation highlights how in a country where marriage is governed by religious authorities, parenthood is seen as the key to equality.

"The new legislation loosened surrogacy regulations in Israel, giving single women and women unable to become pregnant for medical reasons the right to apply for state support for surrogacy. However, an additional clause that would have granted the same rights to single fathers – and, by extension, gay couples – was nixed."

Bermuda steps backward on same sex marriage

The NY Times has the story:
Bermuda Outlaws Gay Marriage, Less Than a Year After It Became Legal

"Bermuda has forbidden same-sex marriage, only nine months after legalizing it, in what advocates for gay and lesbian rights called a disappointing setback.

"Same-sex marriage became legal in Bermuda, a British overseas territory, in May as a result of a ruling by the island’s Supreme Court.

"But the unions are unpopular with some voters.

"In 2016, Bermudians voted against same-sex marriage in a referendum, and after the court ruling in May, the territory’s legislature drafted a bill banning same-sex marriage but giving all couples legal recognition as domestic partners. Parliament adopted the Domestic Partnership Act in December, and on Wednesday the territory’s governor, John Rankin, signed it into law.

"The British prime minister, Theresa May, said Britain was “seriously disappointed,” but the Foreign Office said on Thursday it would be inappropriate to block the measure.

"Same-sex marriage became legal in England, Wales and Scotland in 2014, but it is not permitted in Northern Ireland. The issue has been divisive in Britain’s overseas territories, which control their own internal affairs but rely on Britain for defense and for representation in the international community."

Ninth Circuit rules that laws against prostitution are not unconstitutional

The Washington Post has the best headline:
They argued that prostitution is a constitutional right. Nice try, said federal court.

"The Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in the case Lawrence v. Texas is one of its best-known in recent memory. In a 6-3 decision, the justices invalidated every remaining sodomy law in the United States, rendering the country’s archaic and largely unenforced bans on same-sex sexual activity unconstitutional. “Intimate conduct” between consenting adults was a fundamental right protected by the Constitution’s due process clauses, the high court found.
...
"The Erotic Service Provider Legal Education and Research Project, or ESPLERP, filed a lawsuit in federal court in 2015 claiming that, under the Supreme Court’s ruling, California’s anti-prostitution law violates the constitutional rights of prostitutes and clients to engage in consensual sexual activity. They even went so far as to say that the ruling barred laws criminalizing prostitution among adults and that paying for sex was a form of protected commercial speech.
...
"On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based court threw out the lawsuit, ruling that paying for sex didn’t count as the type of “intimate conduct” that Supreme Court justices had in mind.

“There is no constitutional rights to engage in illegal employment, namely, prostitution,” Judge Jane A. Restani wrote for the three-judge panel."
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Here's the story in the SF Chronicle:
Sex for sale is not a constitutional right, court rules

"Three former prostitutes, a would-be client and the Erotic Service Providers Legal, Educational and Research Project had argued that the high court, in striking down state laws against gay or lesbian sexual activity, recognized an adult’s right to engage in consensual sex without state interference. They maintained that the ruling extended to adults who consent to sex for a price.

"A panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco seemed receptive to that argument at a hearing in October, suggesting that the 1872 state ban might need closer scrutiny.

"One panel member said prostitution had been historically subjected to the same sort of moral disapproval that had once condemned gay sex, and might be more acceptable under the Supreme Court’s current view of individual rights. Another asked why it should be “illegal to sell something that it’s legal to give away.”

"But in a 3-0 ruling Wednesday, the panel ruled that the Supreme Court had not legalized prostitution with its 2003 decision.

"Although the scope of the ruling was not clear, the Supreme Court specified that the gay sex case “does not involve ... prostitution,” Jane Restani, a judge of the U.S. Court of International Trade temporarily assigned to the appeals court, wrote in the panel’s decision."

Same sex marriage is now legal in Australia

From the NY Times: Australia Makes Same-Sex Marriage Legal

"SYDNEY, Australia — Australia’s Parliament voted overwhelmingly to legalize same-sex marriage on Thursday, overcoming years of conservative resistance to enact change that the public had made clear that it wanted.

The final approval in the House of Representatives, with just four votes against the bill, came three weeks after a national referendum showed strong public support for gay marriage. The Senate passed the legislation last week.

“This belongs to us all,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a longtime supporter of same-sex marriage who had previously failed to get it legalized, said on Thursday. “This is Australia: fair, diverse, loving and filled with respect. For every one of us this is a great day.”

...

"A handful of lawmakers tried to add amendments that they said were meant to safeguard religious freedoms for opponents of same-sex marriage, but their efforts failed. Mr. Turnbull noted that nothing in the legislation requires ministers or other celebrants to oversee weddings of gay couples or threatens the charity status of religious groups that oppose same-sex marriage, two concerns the lawmakers had raised."

London crossing signs and diversity in marriages

Walking from HM Treasury to LSE, a quarter turn around Trafalger Square shows that British traffic wardens have a relaxed view of modern marriage--here are two walk signs (or maybe go-ahead signs) that seem to celebrate both traditional and same-sex marriage.  (I was in a bit of a hurry so I didn't have time to circumnavigate the square and look for other variations on this theme...)

Yesterday was Loving Day: 50 years of legal inter-racial marriage throughout the United States

Yesterday was Loving Day, the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on June 12, 1967 in the case of Loving v. Virginia, that bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional.

I don't think anyone can help being reminded of the Supreme Court decision on June 26, 2015, that decided that bans on same sex marriage were unconstitutional (in the less fortuitously named case of OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL.).

Here's the NY Times, on a couple married in 1950 in California: ‘We Are Not Unusual Anymore’: 50 Years of Mixed-Race Marriage in U.S.

"When they married in Oakland in 1950, mixed-race marriage had just become legal in California, the result of a lawsuit that reached the State Supreme Court. They are among the oldest living interracial couples legally married in the United States. It would be nearly two decades before all couples like them across the country were allowed to marry.

On Monday, they will mark the 50th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court case that overturned antimiscegenation laws nationwide. Mildred and Richard Loving, a black woman and a white man, had been sentenced to a year in a Virginia prison for marrying each other. The case would serve as a basis for the Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriage."

Who can be parents in Italy? (Adoption by same sex couples...)

In Italy, Confusion and Division Over Same-Sex Parenting
Court ruling highlights conflicting views over the rights of homosexual couples as parents

"An Italian court’s decision to recognize two homosexual men as the fathers of twin children has exposed confusion and a deep divide in the country over parenting rights of same-sex couples.

It was disclosed earlier this week that a court in the northern Italian city of Trento granted the men full rights as parents to their six-year-old twins, who were born in Canada through surrogacy.

The gay community hailed the decision—the first to accord full parental rights to a non-biological father—as historic in a country that last year became one of the last in Europe to approve civil unions for gay couples. But the ruling kicked up controversy right away, with the head of the main group opposing the civil-unions bill saying it marked a “sad day for Italy.”
...
"The 2016 legislation approving civil unions stopped short of addressing broader questions of parental rights and other family law issues for same-sex couples. Political opposition was so fierce that lawmakers scotched any reference to adoption or parental rights to get the bill passed. As a result, Italian law today recognizes only the biological parent, and joint adoption by gay couples isn’t allowed.

Italian courts have been left to fill that gap in a haphazard way, with some judges approving adoption requests by gay partners of a biological parent and others turning them down. The result: up to 1,000 children of gay couples are caught in a legal limbo.
...
"Riccardo and Lorenzo, the Trento couple who released only their first names, sought to break new ground. The pair, an entrepreneur and a civil servant in their 50s who have been together for more than 20 years, were married in Canada. Their twins were born in Canada via surrogacy, a practice that is illegal in Italy. Canadian law allowed both men to be listed as the twins’ fathers on the birth certificate.

Once back in Italy, the couple sought to have the Italian state recognize the Canadian birth certificate, seeking a parental status that affords more rights than adoption in Italy. An adoptive parent’s relatives have no legal relation with the adopted children, who therefore have no legal status when it comes, for instance, to inheritance from grandparents. The court granted the couple’s request, effectively recognizing both men as fathers.

“[We] sought no more than to see our children’s legal family rights protected, just as with other families,” they said in a statement.

Nichi Vendola, a gay Italian politician and leader in the fight for same-sex rights, hailed the decision. “When you raise, care for and love a child, you’re a father, mother, parent,” he said.

In Italy, however, court decisions don’t set legal precedent, so the legislative gap remains for parliament to fill. With Italy headed to elections this year or next, there is little political appetite to take up the bruising battle over parenting rights again."

Germany en route to annul historical convictions of gay men

Deutsche Welle has the story:
Germany set to annul historical convictions of gay men

"German men convicted on the basis of a 19th century law criminalizing homosexuality now have a chance at getting late justice in the wake of an expert study commissioned by the Anti-Discrimination Agency.

Their supposed crime was the same during the Nazi era as it was in the federal republic founded in 1949: They loved other men and had homosexual sex.

Those who were caught engaging in homosexual acts or who were denounced as homosexuals were spared no mercy by the state. The law containing the infamous Paragraph 175 outlawing sexual relations between men dates back to the 19th century, but it was applied especially zealously under Nazi rule. The law remained intact even after 1945. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969, but Paragraph 175 was not abolished until 1994.

By that time, more than 50,000 men had been convicted for being gay, something that "violated the very core of their human dignity," said Christine Lüders, the head of the government's Anti-Discrimination Authority, in Berlin on Wednesday. At her side was Martin Burgi of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. The legal expert has compiled a study on the rehabilitation of homosexuals convicted under the law. He's confident it can be done, saying there's no legal barrier to rehabilitating the men.

...

"For laypeople, it's hard to understand why men convicted under Paragraph 175 by the Nazis have been rehabilitated since 2002, while verdicts handed down in the post-war era are still being upheld. The logic is as appalling as it is banal: The Nazi dictatorship was declared an unjust state; the Federal Republic of Germany, on the other hand, is based on democratic principles. That means the men who had the misfortune to be found guilty of homosexuality in the post-war era still have criminal records.

But Burgi says that "collective rehabilitation" of those affected by the law can be achieved with the help of social and democratic principles."

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Here's the Associated Press story from ABC: German Cabinet OKs plan to annul homosexuality convictions

"Germany's Cabinet on Wednesday approved a bill that would annul the convictions of thousands of gay men under a law criminalizing homosexuality that was applied zealously in post-World War II West Germany.

The decision also clears the way for compensation for those still alive who were convicted under the so-called Paragraph 175 outlawing sexual relations between men.

The legislation was introduced in the 19th century, toughened under Nazi rule and retained in that form by West Germany, which convicted some 50,000 men between 1949 and 1969.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969 but the legislation wasn't taken off the books entirely until 1994.

The bill approved Wednesday by Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet of conservatives and center-left Social Democrats still requires parliamentary approval. "
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This echoes recent events in England: see my earlier post on that

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Turing's law: UK posthumously pardons thousands of gay men

An ancient repugnance crumbles: Same sex marriage is a right, in all 50 of the United States

Here's the NY Times headline: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules, 5-4

"Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the 5 to 4 decision. He was joined by the court’s four more liberal justices."

We're all a little more equal today.

But the close vote means that understanding repugnant transactions--transactions that some people would like to engage in, and others wish to prevent--is important.
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Here's a graphic graphic from the Times, on the one-step-forward-two-steps-back progress of this latest civil right:
Gay Marriage State by State: From a Few States to the Whole Nation

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Justice and Liberty are celebrating again...

Same sex marriages, south of the border

The revolution in reversing an ancient repugnance is quieter there:
With Little Fanfare, Mexican Supreme Court Effectively Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

"In ruling after ruling, the court has said that state laws restricting marriage to heterosexuals are discriminatory. Though the decisions have been made to little public fanfare, they have had the effect of legalizing gay marriage in Mexico without enshrining it in law.

“When I heard the judge pronounce us legally married, I burst into tears,” said Mr. Gonzalez, 41, who, like nearly all gays marrying in Mexico, needed a court order enabling him to exchange vows.

As the United States awaits a landmark decision on gay marriage by the Supreme Court, the Mexican court’s rulings have added the country to a slowly growing list of Latin American nations permitting same-sex unions.

Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil already allow same-sex marriage. Chile plans to recognize same-sex civil unions this year; Ecuador approved civil unions in April; and Colombia grants same-sex couples many of the same rights extended to heterosexual married couples.

“It’s a huge change from where things were 10 years ago,” said Jason Pierceson, a professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield who studies gay marriage trends in Latin America.

The shift in Mexico, the second largest country in Latin America after Brazil, is the product of a legal strategy that advocates used to bypass state legislatures, which have shown little inclination, and often hostility, to legalizing gay marriage.

In 2009, Mexico City, a large liberal island in this socially conservative country, legalized gay marriage — a first in Latin America. There have been 5,297 same-sex weddings there since then, some of them couples coming to the city from other states."

Same sex marriage becomes legal in Ireland, by popular vote

Ancient repugnances can be swept away in a matter of decades, and now it's Ireland's turn. The NY Times has the story: Ireland Votes to Approve Gay Marriage, Putting Country in Vanguard

 "Ireland has become the first nation to approve same-sex marriage by a popular vote, sweeping aside the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church in a resounding victory Saturday for the gay rights movement and placing the country at the vanguard of social change.

"With ballots from 34 out of the 43 voting areas counted, the vote was almost two to one in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. All but one of the districts that were counted voted yes, and it appeared to be statistically impossible for opposition votes to overcome the ayes.

"Turnout was large — more than 60 percent of the 3.2 million people eligible to vote cast ballots. Government officials, advocates and even those who had argued against the measure said that the outcome was a resounding endorsement of the constitutional amendment.

"Not long ago, the vote would have been unthinkable. Ireland decriminalized homosexuality only in 1993, the church dominates the education system and abortion remains illegal except when a mother’s life is at risk. But the influence of the church has waned amid scandals in recent years, while attitudes, particularly among the young, have shifted.

Continue reading the main story

When Same-Sex Marriages Became Legal

About 20 countries have already legalized same-sex marriages. Here is a list of when each did.

• 2001 The Netherlands 
  2003 Belgium
  2005 Canada and Spain
  2006 South Africa 
  2009 Norway and Sweden
  2010 Argentina. Iceland and Portugal 
  2012 Denmark
  2013: Brazil, England and Wales, France, New Zealand and Uruguay
  2014 Luxembourg and Scotland
  2017 (Law becomes effective.) Finland 

The vote is also the latest chapter in a sharpening global cultural clash. Same-sex marriage is surging in the West, legal in 19 nations before the Irish vote and 37 American states, but almost always because of legislative or legal action. At the same time, gay rights are under renewed attack in Russia, in parts of Africa and from Islamic extremists, most notably the Islamic State.

The results in Ireland, announced on Saturday, showed wide and deep support for a measure that had dominated public discourse and dinner-table conversation, particularly in the months before the lead-up to the vote on Friday. Supporters celebrated in gatherings and on the streets, with the rainbow colors of the gay rights movement and Yes vote buttons conspicuously on display.

A non-repugnant transaction that reads like a riddle, reflecting cultural changes

When I was in elementary school (yes, there were schools then), I more than once heard the following riddle, which was a sign of the times:
"a father and his son are in a car crash that kills the dad. The son is rushed to the hospital; just as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, “I can’t operate—that boy is my son!” How could this be?"

I thought of this riddle (and the role that conventional assumptions about gender roles play in it) when I saw this recent headline in the Telegraph:
Mary Portas: My brother is the 'father' of my son

The story answers the riddle in a way that indicates how much times have changed once again.

"Mary Portas has disclosed how her own brother helped her become a mother for the third time, after becoming a donor for an IVF procedure.

Portas, nicknamed the "Queen of Shops", has told how her wife Melanie Rickey became pregnant with their son thanks to help from her younger brother Lawrence."