Alabama pol threatens to out lawmakers" alleged affairs over gay marriage criticism

Alabama’s only openly gay lawmaker says if her colleagues don’t stop calling same-sex marriage immoral, she’ll publicly out her heterosexual colleagues she claims are having extramarital affairs.

State Rep. Patricia Todd said she was furious and disappointed by comments made after a federal judge struck down the state’s gay-marriage ban last week. 

“I’m sick of the hypocrisy,” the Birmingham Democrat said on Facebook. “If you start disparaging my community, and I know that you are not exactly the family values person that you put yourself out to be, well, then, beware.”

Todd has not identified by name anyone she is considering accusing.

U.S. District Judge Callie V. S. Granade’s order, issued Friday, potentially makes Alabama the 37th state where gay marriage is legal. She put the order on hold for 14 days to let the state appeal. The state wants the ruling to remain on hold until the Supreme Court takes up the issue later this year.

Republican House Speaker Mike Hubbard called Granade’s ruling outrageous and said Alabama would defend “the Christian conservative values that make Alabama a special place to live.” Todd said that was one of many statements that upset her, although she hasn’t accused Hubbard.

Hubbard said he considered Todd a friend and was sorry he upset her, but they have a “fundamental disagreement on allowing same-sex marriages in Alabama.” Hubbard later took down his statement from social media because, his spokeswoman said, she was constantly removing profane responses from people on both sides of the debate.

Todd was elected in 2006 to the Alabama House of Representatives, a body that passed the gay-marriage bans and where a legislator in 2004 proposed banning any textbooks and public school library books that suggested homosexuality was acceptable. Todd said she has been treated cordially through the years, but became fed up with the recent comments.

“It’s again making Alabama look stupid, but we can’t help ourselves,” Todd said.

Todd has yet to follow through on her threat, and has acknowledged that to do so risked slander.

“It was an attempt to say, ‘Hold your tongue and speak about the issues and not the emotional response you are trying to incite in people. And how dare you say that we are not family,’” Todd said.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore on Tuesday urged state probate judges not to give marriage licenses to gay couples if the district judge’s stay expires.

In a letter Tuesday to Gov. Robert Bentley, Moore denounced Granade’s decisions as judicial tyranny and said he was dismayed that some probate judges indicated they would give licenses to gay couples if the stay is lifted.

He said the rulings were nonbinding on Alabama courts and said he would advise probate judges that giving marriage licenses to same-sex couples would violate “the laws and Constitution of Alabama.”

Lifting the ban could lead to “marriages between multiple groups of people, whether they be men or women, or marriages within a family – incest,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of things that could occur because of this.”

Moore was removed as chief justice in 2003 when he ignored a court order to remove a Ten Commandment monument from the state judicial building. He was re-elected in 2012.

Richard Cohen, the head of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, called Moore’s letter “outrageous.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Alabama pol threatens to out lawmakers" alleged affairs over gay marriage criticism

Florida ends gay marriage ban

Tuesday, January 06, 2015 | 10:59 AM    

KISSIMMEE, Florida (AP) — Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage ended statewide at the stroke of midnight Monday, and court clerks in some counties wasted no time, issuing marriage licences and performing weddings for same-sex couples in the early morning hours.

But they were beaten to the punch by a Miami judge who found no need to wait until the statewide ban expired. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel presided over Florida’s first legally recognised same-sex marriages Monday afternoon.

Still, most counties held off on official ceremonies until early Tuesday, when US District Judge Robert L Hinkle’s ruling that Florida’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional took effect in all 67 counties.

“It’s been a long time coming. We’re just so excited and so happy,” Osceola County Commissioner Cheryl Grieb said after she married Patti Daugherty, her partner of 22 years, at a courthouse in Kissimmee, just south of Orlando. In matching white pants and white embroidered shirts, the couple stood under a canopy of lace and ribbons as County Clerk of Court Armando Ramirez officiated and US Rep Alan Grayson, D-Fla, served as a witness. Supporters counted down to midnight, with a clock ticking away at the front of the room.

Florida — the third-most populous state, with 19.9 million people — becomes the 36th state where gay marriage is legal. Seventy per cent of Americans now live in states where same-sex couples can legally wed.

In several of the Deep South states surrounding Florida, gay marriage bans remain in place. That puts Florida — a state much changed since the 1970s, when former beauty pageant queen and orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant started her national campaign against gay rights in the 1970s — in place to potentially serve as a mecca for gay couples who could travel there for weddings.

But while the end of the ban was met with cheers or even shrugs from Florida’s more liberal enclaves, political and cultural divisions remained in the battleground state, especially farther north, where more conservative Floridians live.

In Jacksonville, Duval County Court Clerk Ronnie Fussell shut down the courthouse chapel, saying no marriage ceremonies — gay or straight — would be allowed. At least two other northeast Florida counties did the same.

“The day is going to come very soon where America is going to wake up and say, ‘Whoa! Wait a second! I wanted two guys to live together. I didn’t want the fundamental transformation of society,"” said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy council. He led the petition drive to put the gay marriage ban on the ballot back in 2008.

There were no such obstacles in Key West, at Florida’s southern tip. Aaron Huntsman and William Lee Jones received the Keys’ first marriage licence issued to a same-sex couple early Tuesday. They exchanged nuptials in matching black tuxedos with blue vests, in front of several hundred people on the Monroe County Courthouse steps.

After their vows, Jones removed a large silver-toned bracelet that encircled his left wrist. He called it “my shackle of inequality”.

“I’m elated. Overjoyed that I am finally legally recognised with the man I have loved for 12 years now,” Jones said.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is still pursuing appeals, at both state and federal levels. She wants to uphold the ban voters approved in 2008.

Tellingly, though, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals and then the US Supreme Court refused Bondi’s request to extend an order blocking same-sex marriages beyond Monday. That essentially gave the green light to weddings.

On Friday, US Supreme Court justices will decide in private whether to rule on the merits of gay marriage during their current term.

Bondi shares her position with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who’s considering a Republican run for president: that marriage should be defined by each state.

But even Bush tried to find a middle ground Monday. In a statement, he urged people to “show respect for the good people on all sides of the gay and lesbian marriage issue — including couples making lifetime commitments to each other who are seeking greater legal protections and those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty”.

The remaining political divides hardly bothered the couples celebrating in much of Florida on Monday and Tuesday. Churches held mass weddings for same-sex couples, as did several cities and counties at courthouses or City Halls.

More than 40 couples married Tuesday morning on the red-carpet-draped steps outside Orlando’s City Hall. A four-tiered wedding cake featured a rainbow-colored bottom, and Orlando’s gay chorus sang ‘Over the Rainbow’. Many couples were accompanied by their young children.

“We wanted to marry on this historic day,” said Brandon Walker-Hodge, who held 5-week-old daughter Karaleigh Ruth as he exchanged vows with Josh Walker-Hodge. “And really it’s all about her at this point and everything that comes with the legality of marriage.”

In Palm Beach County, celebrity financial adviser Suze Orman showed up at a mass courthouse wedding to support two friends. Orman, who married wife Kathy Travis a decade ago in South Africa, said she’s happy same-sex couples are finally being recognised legally in Florida, where she lives part time.

“This is an investment in validity,” Orman said.

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Florida ends gay marriage ban

Gully Bop Kissing His Girlfriend Also Talks About Finding True Love And Marriage

Gully Bop Kissing his Girlfriend also talks about finding true love &Marriage They say people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. It turns out that Shauna Chin came into Gully Bop’s life at the right time. Chin, who was heading out of Jamaica when she met the artiste, dropped everything, including her

flight plans and made a 180. Gully Bop confirmed that Chin is not just his manager but she is the love of his life. “She is signed in my heart, “ said Gully Bop in an exclusive interview with Loop News, in which he affectionately kissed Chin. Who knows, the New Year may have wedding bells ringing.

Posted in: Breaking News, Dance-hall, Environment, International. Tags: Gully Bop Kissing His Girlfriend Also Talks About Finding True Love And Marriage.

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Gully Bop Kissing His Girlfriend Also Talks About Finding True Love And Marriage

Henry S. Fraser: Marriage, obesity, health and ageing

Henry S. Fraser

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Sunday September 14, 2014 - Last week’s column on healthy ageing evoked quite a lot of comment, appreciation and the pointing out of one important omission – the value of marriage! How could I omit that, after 44 years of marriage?

This was an unfortunate oversight, of course, because a great deal of data have consistently shown that marriage promotes longevity, but especially in men. Men, marry if you want to live long … but make sure you marry for the right reasons, and living long will be the great big bonus, or “added value” that comes with it, although not in the marriage contract! Of course bad marriages can shorten life dramatically, through suicide or homicide. As the feisty Lady Astor, British MP nearly a hundred years ago, said to Sir Winston Churchill: “Winston, if I was your wife, I’d put poison in your tea.” To which Winston replied, quick as a flash: “And if I was your husband, I’d drink it.”

“Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.” (Proverbs, 31:10)

The fact is, people who never marry are far more likely to die prematurely than those who get hitched or even divorced, according to research reported on the BBC website last month, and therefore readily accessible to everyone. Actually, the report by Kaplan and Kronick was published in 2006, in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, but its implications are of huge importance in today’s dysfunctional society where marriage seems to be seen as old fashioned, and family values and responsibilities increasingly disparaged.

Kaplan and Kronick looked at the relationship between marital status and survival, using the US 1989 National Health Interview Survey and the 1997 National death index, providing follow up over eight years. Their results are summarised in simpler form as follows:

“Among the 1997 respondents, almost 6,000 (9 %) died before 1997 and 61,000 (91%) were known to be alive. Controlling for demographic and socioeconomic factors, the death rate for people who were unmarried was significantly higher than it was for those who were married and living with their spouses. Although the effect was significant for all categories of unmarried, it was strongest for those who had never married. The effect was seen for both sexes, and was significantly stronger for men than for women. For the youngest age group (19–44), the chief causes of early death among adults who had never married were infectious disease (presumably HIV) and external causes. In the middle aged and older men and women, the predominant causes were cardiovascular and other chronic diseases.

It has been postulated that loneliness, including lack of intimate social and family support is an important contributor to the phenomenon. And in our study of Centenarians in Barbados at the CDRC, led by Dr. Susan Archer, while religiosity and a physically active life were the key factors in their longevity, strong family and social support were almost as strong.

As the Bible says: “A virtuous woman is worth more than rubies” and today’s science lends strong support to that other famous biblical injunction: “If they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.” (1 Corinthians, 7:9)

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But a good marriage is so much more than good sex: it is the union of like minds, generous spirits and souls of good conscience – leading to love that lasts, and like good wine improves with age. These aspects of human nature and behaviour are harder to study objectively, but not marrying is so much more frequently associated with superficial relationships and “greater isolation from children and other family.”

The other major factor affecting life expectancy is that of obesity and the related chronic diseases – high blood pressure, diabetes and high blood lipids (fats), otherwise known as the metabolic syndrome – that is so common in Barbados and in other populations of the African diaspora. Again the BBC has recently highlighted an important aspect of the obesity phenomenon – that of discrimination and the personal perception of discrimination. Overweight and obesity have now captured three quarters of many western adult populations, including the British, Barbadians and African Americans, with obesity (a body mass index of greater than 30, or what the lay person would simply describe as fat) accounting for one third of these populations. In the Caribbean the men are significantly leaner, as are the young British men, but by middle age they’ve almost caught up with their lady folk. What this means is that overweight and obesity are now the new norm, with all the dangerous health consequences, while leanness is seen only in the minority of adults. Yet discrimination and the perception of discrimination persists, and the world does not cater either on airplanes, trains or in many other places, for the obese.

The recent study reported by the BBC, in which 3,000 people in an ageing study were questioned about their perception of discrimination or harassment on the basis of their weight, found that 1 in 20 felt they had experienced such discrimination, but among the morbidly obese (very fat or BMI greater than 40 and associated with multiple problems) the figure was one in three. A valuable outcome of the study, one hopes, is the emphasis by Sarah Jackson, lead author of the study at University College London, that discrimination of any kind is counterproductive, causes stress and comfort eating. Physicians in particular must be strongly supportive, giving facts but working in very positive ways to address the problem and especially to encourage healthy life styles to prevent it in the first place. This is especially important with our children, most of whom are now obsessed with (and often over-indulged with) cell phones, game boys, ipads and all things computerised, substituting thumb exercise for healthy physical activity and are becoming obese teenagers, with increasing incidence of maturity type diabetes occurring in their teens!

Brickbat: To Alex Salmond and his emotional Scottish National Party for following the lead of so many other petty power-playing politicians in trying to break Scotland away from the United Kingdom, to the clear likely detriment of both.

Professor Fraser is past Dean of Medical Sciences, UWI and Professor Emeritus of Medicine. Website:  profhenryfraser.com

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Henry S. Fraser: Marriage, obesity, health and ageing

States deal with gay marriage aftermath

31 July 2013 Last updated at 19:16 ET By Kate Dailey BBC News, Washington DC The Supreme Court ruled in June that Edie Windsor should not have had to pay tax on property she inherited after her wife’s death In June, the Supreme Court issued two rulings favourable to marriage equity for gay couples. Now, US states must work through the consequences of those rulings.

For US gay rights advocates, it’s been a good summer.

In June the Supreme Court allowed for federal recognition of same-sex marriages in states where such unions are legal. They also declined to challenge a lower court decision invalidating California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

But the fight for marriage equity is far from over. In the aftermath of the court decisions, battles have raged on a state level as advocates for gay marriage try to push ahead, while those who oppose it try to stand their ground.

“Thirty-seven states still have marriage restrictions, but there’s no question that it feels different this time,” says Jennifer Pizer, director of the law and legal project at Lambda Legal, a gay rights organisation.

“This is happening with a much bigger head of steam and a much stronger sense that while there’s much more work to be done, it’s just a matter of getting it done.”

Signs of hope Continue reading the main story

Though marriage equity was signed into law in England and Wales, there is still work to be done, says Andy Wasley, a spokesperson for Stonewall UK.

“The campaign for marriage equality is still very much continuing in Scotland,” he says. “The journey isn’t over.”

And while some countries, like the Netherlands, have seen support for gay-rights groups drop once marriage equity is achieved, Mr Walsey says marriage is not the only issue at hand.

“Thousands of LGBT people are still subjected to hate crime every year,” he says.

“Most people recognise that gay people deserve the exact same rights and opportunities of everyone else. What remains is a hard core of people that don’t get that. That’s something we’ll continue to battle.”

Much of that work is being done in the courtroom.

In Virginia, Lambda Legal is pairing with the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the state’s ban on gay marriage, while a couple in Kentucky has filed suit against their state’s ban. A couple in Oklahoma did the same, citing the Supreme Court decisions.

Other activists are working through the legislative system. In Oregon, which banned same-sex marriage in 2004, gay marriage supporters are working to have the ban reconsidered through a 2014 ballot initiative.

“There are efforts in some states to put repeal measures on the ballots, and discussions in state legislatures to allow voters to remove some of the amendments” banning gay marriage, says Ms Pizer.

There have been signs of hope for those who favour same-sex marriage rights.

A couple who married in Maryland, where gay marriage is legal, appealed to a federal judge to have their union recognised in their home state, Ohio, despite that state’s gay marriage ban.

The judge agreed, ruling that the marriage should be recognised on the death certificate of John Arthur, who is ill and expects to die soon.

A ‘crafty’ decision

Not doing so, the judge ruled, would result in grievous harm to Mr Arthur’s spouse, Jim Obergefell. The judge noted that while his decision was limited to that couple, the state’s law denied to same-sex couples the “dignity and recognition” afforded to heterosexual ones.

These challenges, says John Aravosis, who runs the website AmericaBlog, will become more frequent in the wake of the Supreme Court case United States v Windsor.

In that case, the Supreme Court ruled Edie Windsor should not have had to pay tax on property she inherited after her wife’s death. She would not be subject to such tax had she married a man.

The ruling stated that the federal government needed to recognise marriages performed in states where same-sex marriage is legal.

“Looking at the decision, it almost is a very crafty way of legalising gay marriage,” Mr Aravosis says. “It didn’t legalise it nationwide, but the way they wrote it sounds like they are trying to say ‘good luck not recognising it’.

“In a way the court helped us, but it is still requiring us to go state-by-state through the process.”

To that end, some are testing the limits of the law and the new judicial tolerance for gay marriage in other ways.

‘Untenable’

In Pennsylvania, for instance, a local official has begun issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples despite such marriages being illegal in the state. Montgomery County Register of Wills D Bruce Hanes says the state’s constitution guaranteed gay residents of Pennsylvania equal protection under the law.

“When a statute is in opposition to the constitution, I’m going to follow the constitution,” Mr Hanes said on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Since then, Mr Hanes has been sued by the state’s department of health, which demands he cease issuing licences. But Pennsylvania’s attorney general says she will not defend the state’s gay marriage ban in court.

In Cincinnati, home of Mr Arthur and Mr Obergefell, the city’s solicitor also declined to defend the state’s same-sex marriage ban.

For those who oppose gay marriage, these decisions by state officials represent a dangerous encroachment.

“It’s not a case of overstepping their bounds,” says Chris Plante, a regional director for the National Organization for Marriage. “It’s a case of lawlessness.”

It is neither appropriate nor tenable for state officials to disregard laws on the books based on their own personal beliefs, he says.

“It’s not your job to be on the ‘right side of history’,” he says. “Your job is to be on the right side of the law.”

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States deal with gay marriage aftermath