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April 10, 2009
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
5
newsbriefs
Zurich elects lesbian mayor
Zurich Switzerland's largest city elected a new mayor at the end of March, the first woman to hold the position and one of the few openly LGBT mayors of a major city.
Corine Mauch, a member of the center-left Social Democrats, beat her only opponent, Marthrin Martelli of the center-right Radicals, by a margin of 11,000 votes.
The election was necessitated by the surprise announcement in late 2008 that Mayor Elmar Ledergerber would be stepping down at the end of April, which is when Mauch will assume the post.
The position is largely ceremonial, and the mayor presides over the Zurich cultural department and serves as an ambassador for the city.
Mauch joins Bertrand Delanoë in Paris and Klaus Wowereit in Berlin in the ranks of out mayors in major European cities.
Sweden is seventh with full marriage
Stockholm-Sweden became the seventh country with full marriage equality on April 1 when Parliament adopted a law giving same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual ones.
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Continued from page 1
"While heterosexual marriage does lead to procreation, the argument by the county fails to address the real issue in our required analysis of the objective: whether exclusion of gay and lesbian individuals from the institution of civil marriage will result in more procreation? If procreation is the true objective, then the proffered classification must work to achieve that objective," Cady
wrote.
"Gay and lesbian persons are capable of procreation. Thus, the sole conceivable avenue by which exclusion of gay and lesbian people from civil marriage could promote more procreation is if the unavailability of civil marriage for same-sex partners caused homosexual individuals to 'become' heterosexual in order to procreate within the present traditional institution of civil marriage," he continued. "The briefs, the record, our research, and common sense do not suggest such an outcome . . .”
The ruling, unlike those in New Jersey and Vermont, specifically required that marriage, not civil union, be extended to all couples.
"A new distinction based on sexual orientation would be equally suspect and difficult to square with the fundamental principles of equal protection embodied in our constitution," Cady concluded.
While opponents of same-sex marriage are already bemoaning "activist judges" who "legislating from the bench," Cady himself was appointed by conservative Republican Gov. Fred Grandy.
The Democratic leadership of both houses of the state legislature expressed their support of the decision. Iowa's constitution does not allow constitutional amend-
Sweden has recognized civil unions between same-sex couples since 1994. The old law stopped short of calling. them marriages, which gay civil rights activists said was discriminatory. It will still be up to individual churches to decide whether they want to wed gay couples.
The Lutheran Church, which was the official state church until 2000 and to which 74 percent of Swedes belong, has already expressed its support of the new law. The synod will officially decide in October whether or not to perform same-sex marriages, although it already holds union ceremonies for same-sex couples.
The vote was 261-22, with 50 lawmakers absent and 16 abstaining.
Parliament's web site said the law would take effect May 1. Canada, South Africa, Norway, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands also have full same-sex marriage, as do the U.S. states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa (on April 27) and Vermont (on Sept. 1). ✓
Compiled from wire reports by Brian DeWitt, Anthony Glassman and Patti Harris.
ments to be introduced through a petition drive, so same-sex marriage in the state cannot be negated by a ballot initiative, as was the case in California last year.
"Thanks to today's decision, Iowa continues to be a leader in guaranteeing all of our citizens' equal rights," said the release by Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal and House Speaker Pat Murphy. “When all is said and done, we believe the only lasting question about today's events will be why it took us so long. It is a tough question to answer because treating everyone fairly is really a matter of Iowa common sense and Iowa common decency."
The leaders pointed to the state's history of ground-breaking legal decisions, dating back to a ruling from 1839 that slavery was unconstitutional, over 20 years before the Civil War, and another case striking segregated schools a century before the U.S. Supreme Court reached the same conclusion.
Gronstal has also said that he will not allow a vote in the Iowa Senate on a constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriage.
Iowa's is the last of ten marriage cases brought in state high courts over the past 11 years. Since Hawaii's supreme court declared a marriage case moot in 1998 after voters passed the nation's first ban amendment, top courts in Massachusetts, Connecticut and California have ruled for full marriage equality, and those in Vermont and New Jersey have allowed civil unions. High courts have let opposite-sex-only laws stand in New York, Maryland and Washington.
Chiropractic Health Services, Inc.
From the top
ANTHONY GLASSMAN
Gay singer-songwriter Tom Goss leads a group of around 75 people in rehearsing his song "Till the End" on April 6 at the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland.
Goss and the chorus, made up of people from around the Cleveland area, were filmed to create a video for the song, the first single on Goss' third album, Back to Love.
The video will support the domestic partner registry passed by city council in December, which is the target of a petition drive to force a vote in the November election.
It is the song's second video, made to be event-specific. After it is edited and posted online, participants will be e-mailed a link to its location.
AIDS Taskforce executive director Earl Pike expressed his hope that each person would forward it to 100 friends, who would then send it on to 100 of their friends, spreading the message of support for same-sex couples.
Goss was in town to perform at the Barking Spider, near the Case Western Reserve University campus, and Pike convinced him to lend his name and voice to the effort to keep the registry intact.
For more information about Tom Goss, go to www.tomgossmusic.com. Information about the domestic partner registry and the efforts to defend it are online at www.askcleveland.org and www.lgbtcleveland.org.
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