Filed under: last green valley | Tags: chris dodd, gay marriage, marriage
Chris Dodd wrote an op-ed for the Meriden Record-Journal detailing why he has changed his mind regarding marriage in the state of Connecticut. Below is an excerpt from that op-ed. Hooray for changing minds!
“…I believe that effective leaders must be able and willing to grow and change over their service. I certainly have during mine – and so has the world. Thirty-five years ago, who could have imagined that we’d have an African-American President of the United States?
My young daughters are growing up in a different reality than I did. Our family knows many same-sex couples – our neighbors in Connecticut, members of my staff, parents of their schoolmates. Some are now married because the Connecticut Supreme Court and our state legislature have made same-sex marriage legal in our state.
But to my daughters, these couples are married simply because they love each other and want to build a life together. That’s what we’ve taught them. The things that make those families different from their own pale in comparison to the commitments that bind those couples together.
And, really, that’s what marriage should be. It’s about rights and responsibilities and, most of all, love.
I believe that, when my daughters grow up, barriers to marriage equality for same-sex couples will seem as archaic, and as unfair, as the laws we once had against inter-racial marriage.
And I want them to know that, even if he was a little late, their dad came down on the right side of history…”
via the blog of Chris Dodd.
Filed under: last green valley | Tags: california, civil union, Connecticut, connecticut constitutional convention, connecticut supreme court, ct vote no, ctvoteno, family institute of connecticut, gay, gay marriage, love makes a family, marriage, New York Times, november 4th, proposition 8, united states
This past Friday the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that civil unions, legalized in 2005, are not constitutional. They were found to be both separate and unequal. Connecticut was the first of the United States to give gay couples some of the rights of straight couples without judicial intervention. Connecticut will be the third state to legalize marriage for all eligible couples.
Although it was a day of joy for dozens of Connecticut couples, especially the eight couples who sued the state, many fear the ruling will have a negative effect on the status of California’s constitution. Many fear that it has further excited the opposition and has led to more funding for a “Yes” on Proposition 8 in California. Millions of Californians are expected to answer “yes,” “eliminate right.” Others fear that marriage equality is a “deathblow” to marriage by a series of cause-effect errors. These people are silly.
Connecticut voters will have the opportunity to call for or object to a “constitutional convention.” Although this sounds patriotic and/or progressive, the Break-Up Families Institute of Connecticut hopes to use the convention to put gay marriage on the ballot. The question will read, “Shall there be a Constitutional Convention to amend or revise the Constitution of the State?” Connecticut based Love Makes a Family and others urges you to VOTE NO ON ONE NOVEMBER 4TH.
