Organizations Rally against Gay Marriage Amendment

One of the issues on the ballot for the entire state is an amendment to the Mississippi Constitution banning gay marriage. The ACLU and gay and lesbian organizations are rallying against the amendment that says marriage may take place only between a man and woman. The measure also states that Mississippi won't recognize same-sex marriages in other states.

"I don't need government permission to spend the rest of my life with someone I'm in love with. However, the government decided to make marriage a government issue. So, therefore, I want that same recognition," said Jody Renaldo of Equality Mississippi.


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Keep law out of gays' bedrooms, says Harding
BY DWIGHT BELLANFANTE Observer staff reporter


THE law has no business in the private bedrooms of consenting adults, such as homosexuals and prostitutes, former attorney-general and justice minister, Dr Oswald Harding is insisting.

Harding remains unconvinced by the argument that the law should be used to enforce moral codes, and argued that the private activities of consenting homosexuals and prostitutes should not be criminalised.

Harding, who was attorney-general and justice minister and later foreign minister in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration of the 1980s, is basing his argument on the findings of the Wolfden Committee in Britain in 1954. He noted that the report recommended by a majority of 12 to one that homosexual practices between consenting adults in private should no longer be a crime. And it unanimously recommended, he said, that in the case of prostitution, though it should not itself be made illegal, there should be legislation "to take it off the streets" on the grounds that public soliciting was an offensive nuisance to ordinary citizens.