Zhoosh Magazine - February 2009 - (Page 3) Anything to declare? The historic day that Obama won, but the LGBT community lost The USA is thought of as the most powerful and modern country in the western world, with a constitution based on freedom and the separation of church and state. However, as the nation progressively elected a black president, putting their slavery past behind them, other ballots took place that wrote discrimination into their state constitutions by defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman in California (Proposition 8) in order to specifically exclude same sex marriage. Ballots in other states also targeting the LBGT community were doing the same by banning civil unions in Florida, limiting marriage to between a man and a woman in Arizona, even though the state had previously rejected this in 2006 and limiting the fostering and adoption of children to married couples only in Arkansas, which naturally excludes same-sex couples. Here in the UK, the LGBT community can have Civil Partnerships, which give many rights to get equal treatment with married couples, such as tax benefits, recognition for immigration and nationality purposes, the list goes on. We can also foster and adopt children, have equality in the workplace and even the Army is working to promote gay rights. provide fewer rights than heterosexual marriages or same sex civil partnerships. However, whatever any state does individually, it is only legal in that state. In May this year, the Supreme Court of California ruled that excluding same-sex couples from marriage was unconstitutional, after which an estimated 18,000 couples married. The LGBT community hoped that this ruling would open up same-sex marriage to the USA as a whole because it was tied to the equal protection clause in the US Constitution. However, it led to much opposition and 1 million signatures were gathered to place Proposition 8 on the November ballot to create a California constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The funding for the ballot reached over $70 million, with churches giving a lot of money to the for Proposition 8 campaign. Words: Sally Hunter Proposition 8 was passed by 52.2% to 47.8%, throwing the same-sex marriage campaign into a state of disarray and confusion. As of now, legal challenges to this decision are being raised and it is unclear what will happen to those 18,000 who have married. With other states passing similar anti gay ballots on the same day, the USA has been seen to be Under the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal homophobic and led by the church. This is all US government specifically limits marriage to that very personal to me. In 2003, I fell in love with an between one man and one woman and does not American woman, Tammy, who I met online. recognise same-sex marriage. On a state level sameLike most people, I believed that the USA sex marriage is legal in California (if Proposition 8 is was ahead of the rest of the world with LGBT not upheld) Connecticut and Massachusetts. New rights. Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermont have created legal same-sex unions, which give similar rights as civil partnerships. Five other states have created I soon found out the truth, when I realised that similar recognition of same sex unions, but they if I stated the reason for my visits to her to the Page 3 Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Zhoosh Magazine - February 2009 Zhoosh Magazine - February 2009 Contents Features LGBT America What are You Reading? New Goth on the Block The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill Congestion, the Debate Continues... Sugar and Spice Genesis Wherefore ART Thou? LGBT History Month Zhoosh Magazine - February 2009 http://www.nxtbookMEDIA.com
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