We are the 60%: Marriage inequality in TN and our options

ThinkProgress takes a look at a New York Times editorial lauding the recent Senate Judiciary Committee vote to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, which would overturn the Defense of Marriage Act.  The title of their post says it all:  "60 Percent of Americans Live in Places That Don't Offer Protections For Gay Couples."  29 states, including Tennessee, bar same-sex marriage via

Image from the Repeal Tennessee's Marriage

Amendment Facebook page

constitutional amendment.  They also include a map ominously called "The Geography of Discrimination."  Again, that's about as clear as it gets.

What can we do in Tennessee?  That's where things ain't so clear.   Here are our options for advancing marriage equality.  Nothing is easy or likely about any of them.

1.  Move our current Congressional delegation on DOMA.  We have a couple of Congressmen who might be persuaded to back repeal of DOMA--Cohen and Cooper.  I wouldn't take such a move for granted.  Our two U.S. Senators aren't fire-breathing Right wingers, but it would be an extremely heavy lift to move either one of them on DOMA.  Senator Alexander is starting to show more of his trademark moderation and independence.  And it's always good for more constituents to let him and Senator Corker, for that matter, know that they oppose DOMA, but don't hold your breath.

2.  Elect new anti-DOMA members to our Congressional delegation.  Defeating any of the decidedly pro-DOMA Senators or Congressmen with an anti-DOMA opponent also seems unlikely.  If Congressman DesJarlais goes down in defeat, it will likely be in the primary to another Right winger.  Tea Partiers talk about challenging Senator Corker, but we still don't know whether a viable Democrat will get in the race.  And even if one does, the odds are low that such a candidate would oppose DOMA--a lesson we learned in 2006.  Could the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community raise the $25,000+ in a House race or the $50,000+ needed to get the attention of a candidate in one of these races?  Yes, it could be done.  It seems unlikely to happen, though.  And even if it did, the anti-DOMA candidate has to win and stick to his or her position. 

3. Repeal Tennessee's amendment.  I'll offer the warning again:  Don't hold your breath.  To repeal a constitutional amendment is to amend the TN Constitution again.  That takes passing a resolution in two consecutive sessions and the second time you have to have two thirds of each House.  So we've got to elect, reelect, or persuade 33 Senators and 66 Representatives.  Are we willing to raise (and this is a conservative estimate) $10,000 for each of the 66 House races and $25,000 for each of the 33 Senate races?  First, I want to say that it could be done.  But I don't think it would happen because our community has shown more willingness to invest our political dollars out of state.  Additionally, all our candidates would have to win and then vote with us in two consecutive sessions.  If a miracle happened and the resolution passed, we would still have to win at the ballot.  Oh, and one last thing, we'd still have to repeal a state statute defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.  They spent over $3 Million in New York on ads designed to move Republicans in their legislative efforts.  Daunting!

4.  See you in court.  If DOMA is struck down in a court challenge, that would help ease another court challenge to Tennessee's state constitutional amendment and statute.  I'm not an attorney, but my hunch is that it is through the courts that Tennessee will achieve marriage equality.  But I'll let the legal experts weigh in on that one.

The deck is definitely stacked against us, but it's always up to us to decide what to do. There's no doubt in my mind that we could raise the money and volunteer army needed to make a move in 1 to 4 federal races.  That would increase the odds for desperately needed votes out of Tennessee's congressional delegation to pass the Respect for Marriage Act.  As I said, my doubts hinge on our ability to get that kind of agreement and focus statewide. 

I may very well have missed an option.  If so, let's get it out there on the table and discuss it.  Maybe that would help contribute to a statewide consensus so we could develop a plan of action to make our contribution to the movement for marriage equality in Tennessee. 

I'm in.  Are you?

-Chris Sanders

Memphis to celebrate Women's History Month by remembering Freda Ward & Alice Mitchell

Why would we want to remember two teens at the center of a lesbian murder/love tryst during Women’s History Month? 

At 12:30 PM on Saturday, March 5,  Meristem Book Club will sponsor a commemoration of Memphians Freda Ward and Alice Michell at Elmwood Cemetery, where both are buried.  March 5 will be the 137th anniversary of Freda’s birth.  

Freda Ward and Alice Mitchell were at the center of one of the most infamous trials of the nineteenth century.  Their tragic story has relevance for us today in light of bullying of LGBT teens and the continuing controversy over gay marriage. 


Freda and Alice were high school sweethearts who  planned to run away to St. Louis and be married.  Their plans were discovered by family who separated them until, in January of 1892, Alice killed Freda at the riverfront.   The resulting insanity trial made newspaper headlines across the country, and was written up in numerous psychological journals.  Plays and a song were written about the duo - but few Memphians have heard of them today.    

Alice was found guilty of insanity, in part because she believed that she and another young woman could marry and live independent lives as man and wife.  She was committed to the Western State Hospital for the Insane at Bolivar, where she died several years later.  

Meet at the Cottage in Elmwood
Cemetery in Memphis

The public is invited to join members of the Meristem Book Club to commemorate the tragedy of Freda and Alice and reflect on how their lives inform our own choices today.  The commemorative group will meet at the Cottage at Elmwood Cemetery  at 12:30 pm and proceed to Freda Ward’s burial site for a brief program.  Elmwood  is located at 824 South Dudley.


For questions about the Meristem Book Club commemorative event, contact Audrey May at 662-202-7757.  Meristem Book Club is a women’s book club which meets regularly at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center to discuss books by women and LGBT writers.  Recently, the group has added events of relevance to women’s history and culture..  For more information about the Meristem Book Club see http://www.mglcc.org/meristem.


For information about or directions to Elmwood Cemetery, see http://www.elmwoodcemetery.org/ .

For more information contact:

Audrey May

Meristem Book Club
662-202-7757 cell phone
maya3621@gmail.com

Politics of Ignorance: Marriage Rhetoric in TN Elections

A quick comment on the appearance of rhetoric about marriage in the upcoming August primary in Tennessee and the need for protections against job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in our state. Video link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpb5lKAi2iU . Best of all, you get to push (or punch, if you prefer) my nose to play the video.

-Chris Sanders

Is Herenton using the Gay community?

Former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton -- who frequently supported the gay community while in office – is now trying to use the gay community to score political points in the race for the 9th Congressional District.

In a March 1 letter to pastors in Shelby County, Herenton wrote, “As pastors, I hope you will join me in my opposition to same-sex marriage and the legalization of marijuana,”

With these words, Herenton casts a dark shadow over his previous record of supporting the GLBT community in Memphis.

On September 25, 2000, Herenton appeared at Calvary Church in Memphis beside Judy Shepard (the mother of slain hate crime victim Matthew Shepard) to proclaim the day “Memphis Against Hate Crimes Day". During his proclamation, Herenton said:

"I'm here tonight because this great city of Memphis ought to stand tall and protest vehemently against hate crimes . . . . This should be a city where people don't have fear because of the color of our skin or the religion we practice or the person we choose to love."

Within the same year, Mayor Herenton participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the grand opening of the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center in the Cooper-Young Neighborhood.

In January 2009, Herenton pledged his support for a Non-Discrimination Ordinance that would protect employees of the City of Memphis and City contractors from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression to leaders of the Tennessee Equality Project’s Shelby County Committee.

Voters in the 9th Congressional District should hold Herenton to his own words:

This should be a city where people don't have fear because of the color of our skin or the religion we practice or the person we choose to love.

It sounds like fear is all Herenton has to offer the intended audience of his March 1 letter.

-Jonathan Cole

This is what happens when lesbian and gay couples marry

From GraphJam

Proposition 8 creates a legal gray area for gay couples married in CA

Since the passage of Proposition 8 in California, I've been wondering about the status of all those couples who were married after the California Supreme Court ruling in May and before Election Day on Nov. 4. According to Kenji Yoshino of Slate, Prop. 8 has created a legal gray area:

The effects of Prop 8 on the more than 16,000 gay couples in California who got married after the state high court authorized them to do so is much less clear. California Attorney General Jerry Brown has opined that he believes those marriages will not get washed out by Prop 8. His position comports with the general intuition that retroactive legislation should not deprive people of vested rights like marriage.

However, that intuition will not necessarily be vindicated. As I have pointed out elsewhere, there is a surprising dearth of federal constitutional authority that would protect existing same-sex marriages from retroactive attempts to undo them. It may well be, as California constitutional-law professor Grace Blumberg of UCLA has argued, that the California Constitution would preclude the retroactive application of Prop 8. But as most experts agree, the outcome here is uncertain.

This is in part because a court might find that Prop 8 does not even constitute retroactive legislation. The amendment states that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." A court could find that the pre-election marriages remain in existence but that California cannot recognize their validity going forward. Under that interpretation, a California same-sex marriage that was valid before today could be recognized by another state but not in the Golden State itself. Indeed, a state like New York that recognizes out-of-state same-sex marriages—even though it doesn't yet grant same-sex marriages—might be required to recognize a pre-election California marriage because of a state court decision that ordered the recognition of same-sex and cross-sex marriages.

Victory for Chicken Rights

On November 5, Californians found chickens to be more deserving of freedom than gays and lesbians.

Some evangelicals shifting attention from gay marriage to other issues

A piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution mentions a recent Pew Forum poll on the views of evangelical voters in Tennessee: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/03/23/evanvote_0324.html .

Leslie Jordan "...growing up gay in...Chattanooga, Tenn"

Palm Springs paper profiles comedian and Tennessee native Leslie Jordan: http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080322/LIFESTYLES01/803220306/-1/lifestylesfront

Jordan did a benefit for TEP's Vote No on 1 campaign against the marriage amendment a few years ago.

Judge who overturned TN sodomy law retiring

The Tennessean featured a profile today of 5th Circuit Judge Walter Kurtz, who is retiring. http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008803240349 .

Judge Kurtz recalls being told he would burn in Hell for his ruling that overturned the TN sodomy statute. He's taken a number of tough cases in his time, but says that public opinion really hasn't played a large role in his decisions: "People may think judges are more sensitive to public opinion than I believe we are," he said. "We took oaths. We are legally bound and committed to carry out our obligations."

He is married to Ellen Hobbs Lyle, a Davidson County chancery judge. If you remember, she is the judge who ruled against the challenge brought to the marriage amendment by the ACLU.