Before the parade began, dozens of couples took part in commitment ceremonies, a staple of the event.
Tempering the joy over the Supreme Court ruling, Carol Parson, 69, of Brooklyn, said she was not ready to believe that it means a permanent victory for gays.
"It's a long time coming," said Ms. Parson, a retired nurse who marched with Senior Action in a Gay Environment. "We've been fighting for equal rights in the city forever, it seems. I've personally seen too much come and go not to be a little subdued about what's happening. I'm waiting for the backlash."
Friday, June 27, 2003
Supreme Court Strikes Down Gay Sex Ban
By ANNE GEARAN
Associated Press Writer
Posted June 26 2003, 9:43 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- What gay men and women do in the privacy of their bedrooms is their business and not the government's, the Supreme Court said Thursday in a historic civil rights ruling striking down bans on what some states have called deviate sex acts.
Gay rights advocates called the ruling, by a 6-3 vote, the most important legal advance ever for gay people in the United States.
Two gay men arrested after police walked in on them having sex "are entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."
In a lengthy, strongly worded dissent, the three most conservative justices called the ruling a huge mistake that showed the court had been co-opted by the "so-called homosexual agenda."
"The court has taken sides in the culture war," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the three, suggesting the ruling would invite laws allowing same-sex marriages.
The court voted to strike down a Texas law that made homosexual sex a crime. The law allows police to arrest gays for oral or anal sex, conduct that would be legal for heterosexuals.
Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four -- Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri -- prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.
Thursday's ruling invalidates all of those laws, lawyers said.
The case was the most significant of several released on the last day of the court's 2002-2003 term. Justices often choose the last day to announce if they plan to retire, but no one did so Thursday.
In strikingly broad and contrite language, the court overturned an earlier ruling that had upheld sodomy laws on moral grounds.
The Constitution's framers "knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress," Kennedy wrote.
Laws forbidding homosexual sex were once universal but now are rare. Those on the books have been rarely enforced but underpin other kinds of discrimination, lawyers for the two Texas men had argued to the court.
"This is unquestionably the most important gay rights case ever," said Matt Coles, director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.
"The court is saying that personal relationships, intimate relationships that ... give your life meaning, that gay people have the same right to those relationships that everyone else does."
Houston District Attorney Charles A. Rosenthal Jr., who argued in favor of the law before the high court, called the ruling a major departure from earlier court statements.
"I am disappointed that the Supreme Court (majority) did not allow the people of the state of Texas, through their elected legislators, to determine moral standards of governance for this state."
Texas had defended its sodomy law as in keeping with the state's interest in protecting marriage and child-rearing. Homosexual sodomy, the state argued, "has nothing to do with marriage or conception or parenthood and it is not on a par with these sacred choices."
Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer agreed with Kennedy in full.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor agreed with the outcome of the case but would have decided it on different constitutional grounds. She also did not join in reversing the court's 1986 ruling on the same subject.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The court "has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda," Scalia wrote for the three. He took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench.
Although the majority opinion said the case did not "involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter," Scalia said the ruling could open the way to laws allowing gay marriage.
"This reasoning leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples," Scalia wrote.
The ruling also threatens laws banning bestiality, bigamy and incest, he wrote.
Thomas wrote separately to say that while he considered the Texas law at issue "uncommonly silly," he could not agree to strike it down because he found no general right to privacy in the Constitution.
Thomas calls himself a strict adherent to the actual words of the Constitution as opposed to modern-day interpretations. If he were a Texas legislator and not a judge, Thomas said, he would vote to repeal the law.
"Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources," he wrote.
The two men at the heart of the case, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, were each fined $200 and spent a night in jail for the misdemeanor sex charge in 1998.
The case began when a neighbor with a grudge faked a distress call to police, telling them that a man was "going crazy" in Lawrence's apartment. Police went to the apartment, pushed open the door and found the two men.
"This ruling lets us get on with our lives and it opens the door for gay people all over the country," Lawrence said Thursday.
As recently as 1960, every state had an anti-sodomy law. In 37 states, the statutes have been repealed by lawmakers or blocked by state courts.
The Supreme Court was widely criticized 17 years ago when it upheld a Georgia antisodomy law similar to that of Texas. The ruling became a rallying point for gay activists.
Of the nine justices who ruled on the 1986 case, only three remain on the court. Rehnquist was in the majority in that case -- Bowers v. Hardwick -- as was O'Connor. Stevens dissented.
"Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today," Kennedy wrote for the majority Thursday.
Kennedy noted that the current case does not involve minors or anyone who might be unable or reluctant to refuse a homosexual advance.
"The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. Their right to liberty under (the Constitution) gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government."
The case is Lawrence v. Texas, 02-102.
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Copyright � 2003, The Associated Press
Thursday, June 26, 2003
3712209
Supreme Court Uses Texas Case to Strike Down Sodomy Laws
Thursday, June 26, 2003 12:09 AM ET Printer-friendly version
Dow Jones Newswires
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday used a Texas same-sex sodomy law to strike down all sodomy laws that remain in 13 states.
The surprise ruling went further than the legal question presented in the case and invalidates laws that bar both homosexual and heterosexual anal and oral sex. The ruling upsets a 1986 decision that had allowed sodomy laws to remain on state statutes.
The majority in the case split on whether to disapprove of all sodomy statutes. By 6-3, the high court voted to strike down a Texas law that barred only homosexual activity. The court then voted 5-4 to invalidate laws that apply equally to people of differing sexual orientations engaging in consensual sex. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was the justice who changed her vote.
"Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a dwelling or other private places," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy, in what is sure to become a landmark ruling. "In our tradition the state is not omnipresent in the home."
Referring to the 1986 sodomy case, Bowers v. Hardwick, Justice Kennedy said the decision "was not correct when it was decided and it is not correct today."
The Bowers case said there was no right to privacy for consensual sexual conduct. "It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled," Justice Kennedy said.
Sodomy prosecutions are rarely brought in the U.S. in the remaining states that have such laws on the books. Of the 13 states with a sodomy law, three states besides Texas barred only homosexual conduct.
Justice Kennedy's opinion cited the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution in ruling that the government can't ban private sexual conduct between consenting adults.
"The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle," Justice Kennedy said. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."
Justice Kennedy added "their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention from the government."
This sweeping opinion was underpinned by a detailed critique of the Bowers decision and a discussion of how the status of sodomy laws - in the U.S. and other countries - has changed in recent years.
For example, Justice Kennedy said prior to 1961 all U.S. states outlawed sodomy. By 1986 - when Bowers was decided - that figure was down to 24 states and Washington, D.C. Justice Kennedy also cited a European Court of Human rights decision that invalidated sodomy prosecutions in Europe.
"As the constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom," Justice Kennedy said.
The Texas case began in 1998 when Pasadena, Texas, sheriff's officers, responding to a call about a weapons disturbance, entered the home of John Lawrence and found him engaged in sex with Tyron Garner.
The two were charged with violation of a Texas statute that outlaws sexual conduct between two people of the same sex. Messrs. Lawrence and Garner were found guilty and fined. They appealed, saying the law was unconstitutional.
A Texas appeals panel reversed the convictions in 2000, saying the sodomy law violated a Texas equal-rights provision. That decision was reversed on appeal, however, by another appeals court panel and efforts to get that ruling overturned at the state level were unsuccessful.
Justice Antonin Scalia authored a sharp dissenting opinion that was supported by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas.
Justice Scalia said the Texas law was "well within the range of traditional democratic action" and should not have been overturned. Justice Scalia added the ruling was "the product of a law-profession culture that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda" and reflected a decision by the Supreme Court to "take sides in the culture war."
"Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions," Justice Scalia concluded.
Those voting in the majority for overturning the Bowers decision were Justice Kennedy and Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Justice O'Connor supported only the rejection of the Texas same-sex law.
-By Mark H. Anderson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202 862-9254; mark.anderson@ dowjones.com
Supreme Court Uses Texas Case to Strike Down Sodomy Laws
Thursday, June 26, 2003 12:09 AM ET Printer-friendly version
Dow Jones Newswires
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday used a Texas same-sex sodomy law to strike down all sodomy laws that remain in 13 states.
The surprise ruling went further than the legal question presented in the case and invalidates laws that bar both homosexual and heterosexual anal and oral sex. The ruling upsets a 1986 decision that had allowed sodomy laws to remain on state statutes.
The majority in the case split on whether to disapprove of all sodomy statutes. By 6-3, the high court voted to strike down a Texas law that barred only homosexual activity. The court then voted 5-4 to invalidate laws that apply equally to people of differing sexual orientations engaging in consensual sex. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was the justice who changed her vote.
"Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a dwelling or other private places," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy, in what is sure to become a landmark ruling. "In our tradition the state is not omnipresent in the home."
Referring to the 1986 sodomy case, Bowers v. Hardwick, Justice Kennedy said the decision "was not correct when it was decided and it is not correct today."
The Bowers case said there was no right to privacy for consensual sexual conduct. "It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled," Justice Kennedy said.
Sodomy prosecutions are rarely brought in the U.S. in the remaining states that have such laws on the books. Of the 13 states with a sodomy law, three states besides Texas barred only homosexual conduct.
Justice Kennedy's opinion cited the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution in ruling that the government can't ban private sexual conduct between consenting adults.
"The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle," Justice Kennedy said. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."
Justice Kennedy added "their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention from the government."
This sweeping opinion was underpinned by a detailed critique of the Bowers decision and a discussion of how the status of sodomy laws - in the U.S. and other countries - has changed in recent years.
For example, Justice Kennedy said prior to 1961 all U.S. states outlawed sodomy. By 1986 - when Bowers was decided - that figure was down to 24 states and Washington, D.C. Justice Kennedy also cited a European Court of Human rights decision that invalidated sodomy prosecutions in Europe.
"As the constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom," Justice Kennedy said.
The Texas case began in 1998 when Pasadena, Texas, sheriff's officers, responding to a call about a weapons disturbance, entered the home of John Lawrence and found him engaged in sex with Tyron Garner.
The two were charged with violation of a Texas statute that outlaws sexual conduct between two people of the same sex. Messrs. Lawrence and Garner were found guilty and fined. They appealed, saying the law was unconstitutional.
A Texas appeals panel reversed the convictions in 2000, saying the sodomy law violated a Texas equal-rights provision. That decision was reversed on appeal, however, by another appeals court panel and efforts to get that ruling overturned at the state level were unsuccessful.
Justice Antonin Scalia authored a sharp dissenting opinion that was supported by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas.
Justice Scalia said the Texas law was "well within the range of traditional democratic action" and should not have been overturned. Justice Scalia added the ruling was "the product of a law-profession culture that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda" and reflected a decision by the Supreme Court to "take sides in the culture war."
"Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions," Justice Scalia concluded.
Those voting in the majority for overturning the Bowers decision were Justice Kennedy and Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Justice O'Connor supported only the rejection of the Texas same-sex law.
-By Mark H. Anderson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202 862-9254; mark.anderson@ dowjones.com
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Spy planes grounded before Sept. 11 a career government employee, devised during the waning days of Clinton�s presidency to go after al-Qaida. But Clinton officials decided just before Christmas to forward the plan to the incoming Bush administration rather than implement it during Clinton�s final days, the officials said.
Spy planes grounded before Sept. 11 The push to arm Predators and use them to hunt bin Laden was presented to the new Bush administration within days of its inauguration, when top counterterrorism official Richard Clarke cited the 2000 successes for national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and showed videotapes from Predator cameras.
could this have prevented sept eleven if bush had allowed them to fly?
could this have prevented sept eleven if bush had allowed them to fly?
statesman.com | Rumsfeld defends Iraq intelligence, predicts weapons will be foundBlix said that after his inspectors had been working for only 14 weeks, Washington wanted to end the process. "Now the U.S. government wants the world to have patience," he said. Blix said he didn't "exclude that they (U.S. teams) may find something," and added that he didn't know all the intelligence the U.S. and British had since the only data he sought was about sites to be inspected and not how those sites were determined..
He became skeptical of the U.S. and other countries' intelligence because none of the sites proved to have weapons of mass destruction. "There was a 100 percent certainty of the existence of weapons, but zero percent knowledge of where they were," he said
WHEN IS SOMEONE GOING TO TELL US THE TRUTH
WE NEED TO GET OUT OF IRAQ
WE NEED TO IMPREACH AND IMPRISION GEORGE BUSH AND RUMSFIELD, AND ALL
HIS MENIONS
He became skeptical of the U.S. and other countries' intelligence because none of the sites proved to have weapons of mass destruction. "There was a 100 percent certainty of the existence of weapons, but zero percent knowledge of where they were," he said
WHEN IS SOMEONE GOING TO TELL US THE TRUTH
WE NEED TO GET OUT OF IRAQ
WE NEED TO IMPREACH AND IMPRISION GEORGE BUSH AND RUMSFIELD, AND ALL
HIS MENIONS
Monday, June 23, 2003
The Bottom Line: Boguscan be summed up in a single word: bogus.
Bogus is the name of the game, and not just in libraries. The much-vaunted Bush tax cut is totally bogus, a shell game in which money is moved from one place to another with political sleight of hand. The bottom line is that for most ordinary people the benefits amount to less than zero. What the Feds give, the state and local governments will be taking away, and then some. Part of that is because of the states� own foolish budgetary decisions in recent boom times. (Remember the boom times?) But a large part is because the federal government has required the states to provide expensive programs, from Medicaid to Homeland Security, but not provided anywhere near enough cash to help pay the bills.
The linchpin of the president�s education agenda, for instance, which he developed before terrorists made it possible for his administration to dispense with domestic policy�and civil liberties�was something with the catchy slogan �Leave No Child Behind.� It is a program heavy on performance standards that may as well be called �Leave No Child Untested.� But the states have been picking up most of the added costs for the new mandates. Thus your state and local taxes are soaring, and your alleged tax cut merely moved from beneath one government walnut to another. You�ll get a peek, and then it will disappear
Bogus is the name of the game, and not just in libraries. The much-vaunted Bush tax cut is totally bogus, a shell game in which money is moved from one place to another with political sleight of hand. The bottom line is that for most ordinary people the benefits amount to less than zero. What the Feds give, the state and local governments will be taking away, and then some. Part of that is because of the states� own foolish budgetary decisions in recent boom times. (Remember the boom times?) But a large part is because the federal government has required the states to provide expensive programs, from Medicaid to Homeland Security, but not provided anywhere near enough cash to help pay the bills.
The linchpin of the president�s education agenda, for instance, which he developed before terrorists made it possible for his administration to dispense with domestic policy�and civil liberties�was something with the catchy slogan �Leave No Child Behind.� It is a program heavy on performance standards that may as well be called �Leave No Child Untested.� But the states have been picking up most of the added costs for the new mandates. Thus your state and local taxes are soaring, and your alleged tax cut merely moved from beneath one government walnut to another. You�ll get a peek, and then it will disappear
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Bush May Have Exaggerated, but Did He Lie? ASHINGTON � The hunt for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq has been fruitless. The tax cut turns out to give no break whatsoever to millions of low-income taxpayers. In the view of some Democrats, President Bush has been lying about these and other matters, the way Lyndon B. Johnson lied about Vietnam, Richard M. Nixon about Watergate and Bill Clinton about his sex life.
For instance, Senator Bob Graham
BUSH IS AN EVIL MAN, AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED, HISTORY WILL SEE IT THUS!!!!!!!!!!!!
For instance, Senator Bob Graham
BUSH IS AN EVIL MAN, AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED, HISTORY WILL SEE IT THUS!!!!!!!!!!!!
CBS News | Questions Mount Over Anthax Shots | June 20, 2003�20:37:24 General Accounting Office investigation last fall found that the rate of side effects from anthrax vaccine was hundreds, sometimes thousands, of times higher than what the military claimed.
what a fucked up country i am living in, bush world
what a fucked up country i am living in, bush world
Friday, June 20, 2003
Attack kills power west of Baghdad
]
IM PREACH BUSH, AND FIRE ALL THE NEO CONS.
WHY ARE AMERICANS ALLOWING THIS SHIT?????!!!!!!!!
]
IM PREACH BUSH, AND FIRE ALL THE NEO CONS.
WHY ARE AMERICANS ALLOWING THIS SHIT?????!!!!!!!!
Iraq attacks rattle White House Rumsfeld said Wednesday that Americans will be patient and will tolerate the U.S. casualties.
�I believe that they feel that this is a worthwhile effort on our part,� Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing, �that it is something that reflects the American spirit, and they recognize the difficulty of the task.�
bush is a bastard, and rumsfield is a mother fucker, why the fuck are we allowing the shit to happen america!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????/
�I believe that they feel that this is a worthwhile effort on our part,� Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing, �that it is something that reflects the American spirit, and they recognize the difficulty of the task.�
bush is a bastard, and rumsfield is a mother fucker, why the fuck are we allowing the shit to happen america!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????/
Ex-Priest To Make Plea, Face 30 Years: From The Tampa Tribune
this is so fucked up, the church is so fucked up
this is so fucked up, the church is so fucked up
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
U.S. hunts ambush suspects in Iraq Britain�s Daily Telegraph on Tuesday quoted a �very senior British official in Baghdad� as saying that the reconstruction process in Iraq is �in chaos� and suffers from a �complete absence of strategic direction.� �This is the single most chaotic organization I have ever worked for,� the paper quoted the unidentified official as saying
Monday, June 16, 2003
Sunday, June 15, 2003
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Sunday, June 08, 2003
Saturday, June 07, 2003
Friday, June 06, 2003
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, said Bush had ample grounds to oust Saddam, beyond the alleged weapons program, and blamed any misinformation on "the devastation" of U.S. intelligence capabilities under former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.
MSNBC Cover This is one of those days in which you might not be fully appreciated for the wonderful breeze of fresh air you bring to the group, dear Aquarius. Revenge of the stale and old may be coming into the fold today. Don't give in to negative forces trying to hold you back from expressing yourself fully. Have confidence that you have everything it takes to be successful in whatever path you decide to undertake.