In a decision just handed down to lawyers for both sides, Walker ruled in that Proposition 8 is “unconstitutional under both the due process and equal protection clauses.” The court, therefore, “orders entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement.” We’re staying tuned for more updates and details on the 136-page decision, but these two sentences from the conclusion are critical:

“Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same sex couples.”

The supporters of Proposition 8 will of course appeal the decision.

Prop 8 “Day of Decision” rallies are occurring through out the nation later today. A list of them can be found here.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God’s family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.

Uganda’s parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.

These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.

Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.

And they are living in hiding — away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said “Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones.” Gay people, too, are made in my God’s image. I would never worship a homophobic God.

Archbishop Tutu has a long standing record supporting LGBT human rights. In 2008 he was honored in San Francisco by the International Gay and Lesbian Rights Commission for that support. Watch:

Bishops issued angry statements slamming the Valentine’s Day distribution as immoral and called for the resignation of Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral, who ordered the campaign. One archbishop said that Cabral already “has one foot in hell.”

The bishops called for a ban on condom advertisements last week.

“The condom business is a multimillion dollar industry that heavily targets the adolescent market at the expense of morality and family life,” said Bishop Nereo Odchimar, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. He called fidelity and premarital chastity “the only effective way to curb the spread of AIDS.”

…

Cabral, the health secretary, said she doesn’t take the church’s word lightly. “They are very powerful and they can sometimes be vicious,” she said.

But the Harvard-trained cardiologist, who was reshuffled to the Health Department from the Social Welfare Department in January, shrugged off the flak as something that comes with the territory.
“I feel it is just a job that I have to do because as the secretary of health I know that it is going to be very difficult for our country if we let … (AIDS) become an epidemic,” she told The Associated Press.

The church is also opposed to a reproductive health bill introduced in 2008 which would permit the distribution of contraceptives in government hospitals and allow public schools to teach sex education classes. This bill has yet to leave the House of Representatives.

The original comic strip which promoted gay-bashing below.

Paul Nathanson a Canadian religious scholar who just happens to be gay (duh!) was also trotted out in Varnum v. Brien which ultimately led to the Iowa Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage. In the document Defending Faith, Family and Freedom by the Family Research Council Nathanson is quoted as saying that cultures can only survive and thrive via opposite-sex marriage.

“Because heterosexuality is directly related to both reproduction and survival … every human society has had to promote it actively … Heterosexuality is always fostered by a cultural norm” that limits marriage to unions of men and women. He adds that people “are wrong in assuming that any society can do without it.”

Not surprisingly marriage scholar Maggie Gallagher also surfaces in said document.

Nathanson and Young also co-authored  Marriage à la mode: Answering the Advocates of Gay Marriage in 2003 which attempts to dissect and tear down many marriage equality positions. Some of their arguments below.

Argument 7: Children would be no worse off with happily married gay parents than they are with unhappily married straight ones: This comparison is false, because it involves the best of one scenario with the worst of another. A legitimate comparison would compare either the best of both or the worst of both. Once again, we suggest that the best of marriage (providing at least one parent or other adult of each sex) is better than the best of gay marriage (which provides two parents of the same sex and none of the other one).

Argument 15: Anyone who opposes same-sex marriage is homophobic: This argument amounts to verbal terrorism. By “homophobic” is meant prejudice and hostility, although this word actually connotes the neuroticism of a phobia. The implication is that only evil or sick people can possibly disagree with any claim made by gay people. So much for the possibility of rational debate. (Never mind that not even all gay people are in favor of gay marriage.)

Moreover, this is an ad hominem argument. It is easy to trivialize arguments by attacking the personal integrity of those who make them. That way, you need not deal with the argument itself.

It’s a lengthy document but a good source for “verbal terrorists” such as myself in developing counter arguments.

Believe me Pat, what the Haitians need right now more than anything is food, water, shelter and medicine. Not the word or your god.

The bill recommends penalties both for the applicants for marriage and the solemnizing officer.

Under the bill, the would-be partners face 15 years imprisonment and a P150,000 fine.

Likewise, anybody caught faking or trying to mis-declare his/her gender in order to secure a marriage license may be meted a 12-year jail term and a P100,000 fine.

If the offender is a public officer or employee, he/she shall be dismissed from government service and banned from re-employment in any public office.

Former Baptist minister turned lawmaker Bienvenido Abante Jr. introduced the bill last December saying that without the measure same sex unions would  “snap the remaining strand of our moral values.”

When serving as chairman of the Human Rights committee back in 2006 Abante rejected a bill prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, calling it a “culture of death” and reverse discrimination against heterosexuals.

Really.

My husband who was born and raised in the Philippines chimes in…

Why am I not surprised about this, especially coming from a very religious country like the Philippines. This is just another example of the power and control organized religion has in poor countries like this one.

It is safe to conclude that Bienvenido Abante, Jr. has the strong backing of the church, so I am not at all surprised with what he is doing right now. It is sad if not laughable to have him as the chairman of the Human Rights committee. Seriously, how can you be the chairman of the Human Rights committee and try to pass a bill that violates the core meaning of your position. Really, can somebody please tell this man what his job is all about?

I believe that it is inhumane to discriminate against another group of people just because of their sexual orientation and I think this is a reaction to what is going on in Western countires like the United States. I hope that the Filipino people, and not only the LGBT pinoys, will wake up and rise up against this reprehensible bill.

“Huwag matakot mga kapatid. Magkaisa tayo laban sa mga masasama.” (Don’t be afraid my brothers and sisters to unite against all that is evil and bad.)

More on homophobic pastor Miles McPherson here.

Warren had sent out the appeal via an online communication to Saddleback Church members Dec. 30. The money was needed, he said, to offset a deficit resulting from hard economic times. Giving among church members had declined at a time of greater need for church’s aid.

Now, the church will enter the year with an unanticipated surplus, officials said.

“I wasn’t surprised by this offering, as Saddleback is famous for radical generosity,” Warren said during tonight’s service.

…

Warren launched the appeal online with these words: “This is an urgent letter,” he wrote in all capital letters, “unlike any I’ve written in 30 years. Please read all of it and get back to me in the next 48 hours.”

Not just a peddler of hate but a great fundraiser too! Just snap your fingers Pastor Warren and the sheep come willingly to the trough to empty their pockets. Just remember while you’re bleeding them dry to gently remind them to “Bow! Yield! Kneel!” before they “Bend over.”

Fenty signed in front of 150 activists and same-sex couples — many of whom say they plan to marry — in the sanctuary of All Souls Unitarian in Mount Pleasant.

“We knew this day would come,” Fenty said. “I say to the world: An era of struggle ends for thousands in Washington, D.C. . . . Our city is taking a leap forward.”

Before he signed the bill, Fenty spoke of his interracial upbringing, noting it was illegal for his parents to get married 40 years ago.

“This is one of the churches my parents would have brought me to when I was a boy,” he said as his parents sat among advocates in a second pew. “Things have a way of coming full circle. When you’re mayor.”

It is widely expected that the law will pass a congressional review, despite the best efforts of  Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz, who pledges to block the bill.

Video from the signing below: