TresSugar

Connecticut Court Grants Gay Marriage Rights

LibertySugar — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:03:00 -0700

Same-sex couples now have a right to marry in Connecticut. The state's Supreme Court ruled today that under the equal protection clause of Connecticut's constitution, civil unions discriminate against same-sex couples. Thus, gay couples must have the same rights as straight couples.

In a close 4-3 decision, the majority held:

Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same-sex partner of their choice. To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others.

Essentially arguing that the constitution must stay relevant to the times, the court said Connecticut's "understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection."

California's Supreme Court came to a similar conclusion this year, but voters will have a chance to amend the constitution to make same-sex marriage explicitly unconstitutional. To find out how religious people from out of state are working to pass the ban, read more.

Elders of the Mormon church went on church broadcasted-TV Wednesday to share a week-by-week plan to pass the California ban on same-sex marriage, including increased efforts to call Californians, and register like-minded voters. The message aired in California, Utah, Hawaii, and Idaho. The outcome of the California initiative may reveal whether the people share these state courts' tendencies toward marriage equality.

Source

Answer to Crime? Keep People Off the Streets With Curfews?

CitizenSugar — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:00:30 -0700

It's just like being a teenager, except your parents are the police! And instead of grounding, they can put you in jail! Curfews are popping up in tons of places, aimed at controlling crime. With goals similar to the police checkpoints in Washington DC, the newest towns getting an early bedtime: Helena, Arkansas and Hartford, Connecticut.

Sparked by violence, Helena, AR has implemented a 24-hour curfew in a troubled neighborhood, questioning all passers by. The city council voted unanimously to allow police to expand the program to any area of the city, despite ACLU claims that the police action is unconstitutional. The patrols have resulted in 32 arrests since they locked down the 10-block radius. The council acknowledges the hardship of the curfew but says those living in the city want the random and drug-fueled shootings to stop, regardless of what it takes.

To see what's happening in Hartford, and whether it actually works, read more.

Hartford, CT has a youth curfew scheduled to begin today, aimed at stopping gang violence. For one month, all juveniles have to be in by 9 p.m. After a parade Saturday left one dead, a 7-year-old shot in the head, and a 15-month-old shot in the leg, Hartford's mayor says, "we must do this because we cannot and will not tolerate innocent people, especially children, to be victims." The ACLU says the curfew blatantly violates the civil rights of minors.

With similar youth rules in Rochester, NY, and the rule's efficacy being questioned in Philadelphia, PA, (more crime happens right after school) is a curfew a good way to combat crime - or a crime against civil rights?

Source

Bad Samaritans: Witnesses Stand By as Elderly Man Hit by Car

LibertySugar — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:00:56 -0700

A graphic and shocking surveillance video shows a 78-year-old man struck by a hit-and-run driver in Hartford, Connecticut. In the minute and a half that followed, before the police passed by, witnesses refused to come to the man's aid.

The video shows cars passing, and dodging the motionless body. A scooter circles the body, and then drives off. Those on the sidewalk continue about their business, or eventually join a circle of gawkers, standing feet from the man but refusing to do anything but stare. Officials did say that four people called 911.

Other countries, aware that common decency is apparently not enough to help a fellow human in need, impose criminal penalties for failing to reasonably help a person in danger.

How would you react in this situation? Should the United States adopt a duty to rescue, holding uninvolved by-passers liable for not helping a person in danger if they are not at risk themselves? Or do citizens have a right to be a Good Samaritan only if they want to? Does dialing 911 count?

Source

Flashback: What If You Had to Ask Permission to Get Married?

TresSugar — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:00:00 -0700

Sometimes empathy is the most powerful way of moving civil rights forward, which is why this PSA from 2005 is so effective. It depicts what it must feel like for gay people who are barred from legally marrying by showing a man walking from house to house asking strangers if can have his girlfriend's hand in marriage. Wow. (As of today, five states - New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa - have made gay marriage legal.)

Cop Poses as Twin, Rapes Woman

TresSugar — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:00:00 -0700

A Connecticut police officer found himself on the wrong side of the law when he posed as his twin brother in order to have sex with an unsuspecting woman - who not incidentally was romantically involved with his brother. Jared Rohrig has now resigned from his law-enforcement job after being charged with first-degree sexual assault and criminal impersonation.

The woman realized that Jared was not his twin brother after they started having sex and she noticed that Jared didn't have a tattoo on his backside like his brother does. She tried to get away from Jared, but he allegedly restrained her and continued to rape her.

If the allegations are true, Jared managed to mess up one woman's life and probably destroy his relationship with his brother. At least now that he's resigned, this man is no longer in a place of authority.

Stranger Than Fiction: "Nurse of the Year" Not a Nurse

TresSugar — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 06:00:00 -0700

Next time you feel underappreciated, just make up an organization and give yourself a fake award! That's what Betty Lichtenstein did. The Connecticut "nurse" spent more than $2,000 for a dinner honoring herself as the Connecticut Nursing Association's "Nurse of the Year." But there were only two problems: First, there's no Connecticut Nursing Association, she made it up. And second, she's not even a nurse!

Lichtenstein, 56, is now being charged with reckless endangerment and criminal impersonation after a patient complained about her. She faces five years in prison for pretending to be a nurse. Maybe she'll award herself the "Fraud of the Year" award!

Prep Talk: Justifying Hazing at Boarding School

TresSugar — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:00:00 -0700

High school girls have many ways of punishing each other, the silent treatment being a classic tactic. But what about seniors marching through dorms with the precision of the gestapo, lining up freshmen, yelling at them, making them perform chores, and forcing them to count to 100 in German? It's not reform school - it's an annual ritual at Miss Porter’s, an all-girls boarding and day school in Connecticut where Gossip Girl-sounding names are as common as class rings.

Since Miss Porter's students, graduates, and even the administration are a secretive brood, it’s hard to know which rituals continue today, but we do know traditions die hard on the leafy-green campus. The school even has its own Skull and Bones group named the Oprichniki, after Ivan the Terrible’s secret police. And while Miss Porter's denied its existence in a March New York Times article, 2007 graduate Blair Clarke confirmed it in July's Vanity Fair when she said she “crash-studied German” to join the Oprichniki.

While we can let our imaginations go wild trying to figure out what really goes on at Miss Porter's, we do know this: Tatum Bass, a former student who was expelled, is suing the school for not intervening when she was harassed by the Oprichniki. Why would an otherwise popular senior in student government earn the infamous group's ire? According to Tatum, it started after she suggested the school participate in a multischool prom. As a breach in Miss Porter’s tradition, it was a major faux pas. The taunting, she claims, led to her skipping class and cheating on a test, which led to her expulsion.

What’s shocking is not that she was expelled or that a secret society exists, but that the reaction of students and alumni was, more or less, "Buck up, Bass!" To find out how they reacted, read more.

The ability to tough it out and not go crying to parents is a quality the school proudly instills in girls. So it's no surprise that students and alumni were appalled that Bass used taunting by classmates as an excuse to cheat. Cheating aside, how is it that adults justify teens abusing teens? I found my answer in both the Vanity Fair and New York Times pieces.

Blair Clarke, the confirmed Oprichniki member, said the group never inflicts real pain, just the anticipatory fear of it. Sarah Hart Hansen, a 1974 graduate, told the New York Times, “Maybe there’s nervousness in the beginning, but it’s a bonding moment.” Ah-ha! So it’s not hazing if there’s no physical pain? What a great definition that will create loopholes for underground societies, sororities, and fraternities everywhere.

Gender, Law, and Marriage: We've Got a Ways to Go

TresSugar — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:00:00 -0700

"How do we define legal gender? By chromosomes? By genitalia? By spirit? By whether one asks directions when lost?"

A fascinating essay written by a transgendered woman underscores the complexity of gender identities in the US along with analysis of how the arbitrariness of marriage laws ignores that reality.

Jennifer Boyland and Deirdre Finney got married in 1988, at which point Boyland identified as male. By 2000, Boyland had begun transitioning to female. Deirdre remained married to her, which meant that, technically, they were in a same-sex marriage in a state that didn't recognize them at the time. (Maine has since became the fifth state in the US recently to recognize same-sex marriages.)

Imagine, if you will, basically being unrecognized by a government you elect and pay taxes to. To find out some of the more absurd cases, read more.

Some states don't recognize sex changes. So if Boyland moved to such a state, she would only be able to wed another woman. (Try getting your head around that for a moment.)
J’noel Gardiner in Kansas, a postoperative transsexual woman, married her husband, Marshall Gardiner, in 1998. When he died in 1999, she was denied her share of his $2.5 million estate by the Kansas Supreme Court on the grounds that her marriage was invalid.
A 1999 ruling in San Antonio (Littleton v. Prange) allowed marriages only if the parties had different chromosomes. This meant that a lesbian could marry a transgendered male-to-female or a woman with androgen insensitivity syndrome. (People with AIS are genetically male, with one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each cell, but because their bodies are unable to respond to certain male sex hormones, they may have mostly female sex characteristics or signs of both male and female sexual development.)
Her lawyer drew up this dizzying hypothetical regarding the law's absurdity with respect to her identity: ". . . Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, TX," he mused, "is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, TX, and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”

It seems about time that citizens with gender identities that don't fit into the rigid binary male or female are recognized with respect by the law. Here's to hoping we get there soon!

Source

DearSugar Needs Your Help: Should I Follow My Dreams or My Heart?

DearSugar — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 10:00:00 -0800

DearSugar and Needy in New York need your help. She has a great job in the fashion industry, but her boyfriend of a year and a half just asked her to move to Connecticut with him so he can attend his first choice law school. She loves him dearly, but isn't sure if giving up her dream job for the man she loves is worth the risk. Do you have any advice for her?

Dear Sugar,

I have been in a wonderful, healthy relationship for about a year and a half. I am 25 years old, living in New York, and working hard to accomplish my dreams. My boyfriend is my biggest supporter, but he is also working hard to accomplish his goals.

He recently took the LSAT and got into some great law schools in New York, but just yesterday, he got accepted to his first choice school which is in Connecticut. He starts in the Fall and has asked me to move there with him.

Though I love my job in New York, I could probably find a fashion editorial job in Connecticut, on a smaller scale of course, but should I make the move with him in hopes that our relationship will continue to grow? Should I stick to my dreams and ambitions here in New York and hope we can withstand the distance? I always said my career would come before anything, but I feel that my priorities have shifted over the years. What should I do? - Needy in New York

Source

Funny or Die Gets Caught Up in Gay-Marriage Storm

TresSugar — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:00:00 -0700

K, I thought this was getting old (what with this and this and, oh, that's it) and that Funny or Die's take on the gay-marriage storm was more deadly than funny. But then a Connecticut weatherman comes on and says "there's a cold front coming in and it's gay people," and gay people start falling from the sky, and I laughed. OK, I laughed. But, really, Internet, this is it; the storm is over.