Group to fight Ky. marriage ban
By Jeanne Houck
All the arguing about whether Kentucky voters should amend the state constitution in November to outlaw gay marriage is more than theoretical verbal sparring for Brian Schlemmer, a gay man in a long-term relationship.

"Would I marry him? I'd marry him," Schlemmer, a 38-year-old Covington painting contractor, said of his partner, who asked that he not be identified.

"Hello. I've been with him 12 years.

"We pay our taxes like everybody else does. I can be called into the service, but I can't marry the person I choose."

Members of the Northern Kentucky Fairness Alliance and their counterparts statewide plan to campaign aggressively against the proposed constitutional amendment. They draw some encouragement from the fact that they helped convince the Covington City Commission in April 2003 to amend its human rights ordinance to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.


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Rally set in Oshkosh against legislation defining marriage
OSHKOSH — Opponents of a state bill banning same-sex civil unions and defining marriage as only being between a man and a woman are planning an Oshkosh rally that may serve as a prototype for others around the state.

Local supporters and members of Action Wisconsin, a state advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals, is organizing the May 2 event in Oshkosh’s Opera House Square. In a city council park usage request, a local organizer refers to the event as a “peaceful rally.”

The rally targets AJR66, a state bill sponsored by state Rep. Carol Owens, R-Oshkosh, and co-sponsored by state Sen. Carol Roessler, R-Oshkosh, along with other legislators.

A state constitutional amendment, the bill “provides that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state” and that any legal status similar to marriage isn’t valid. The bill requires two successive approvals by the legislature, followed by approval of a statewide citizen referendum. It has one approval already.



1913 statute revives bias
By Adrian Walker, Globe Columnist
David J. Rushford is probably on the right side of history, if not on the right side of Massachusetts law. Rushford is the city clerk of Worcester. He says he has no plans to ask whether gay couples seeking marriage licenses plan to become Massachusetts residents, a question he says is not asked of straight couples seeking to tie the knot. Rushford says clerks should not be asked to function as "the marriage police."

At issue is an odious law dating to 1913 that states couples whose marriages would be invalid in their home states are not eligible to receive marriage licenses in Massachusetts.

After decades of irrelevance, the law has resurfaced as gay couples from other states ponder whether to come to Massachusetts to marry.

The law was meant to block interracial marriages, then illegal in many states. It's been meaningless since 1967, when the US Supreme Court ruled that banning such marriages is unconstitutional