SFGate: BAY AREA/Committed to marriage for the masses/Polyamorists say they relate honestly to multiple partners
New Frontier For SDP? -- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/04/20/BAGIG67LNQ1.DTL - Tuesday, April 20, 2004 (SF Chronicle) BAY AREA/Committed to marriage for the masses/Polyamorists say they relate honestly to multiple partners Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer Unitarians from Boston to Berkeley have opened another front in the liberal crusade to expand the definition of marriage and family in America. It's the new polygamy, and according to the Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness, their relationships are at least as ethical as other marriages -- gay or straight. Polyamory is never having to say you've broken up, said Sally Amsbury of Oakland, whose sex and love life openly includes her husband and two other significant others, known in polyamory parlance as OSOs. Amsbury serves on the national board of directors of the Unitarian Universalist organization, which defines polyamory as the philosophy and practice of loving or relating intimately to more than one other person at a time with honesty and integrity. Polyamory is not an alternative to monogamy. It's an alternative to cheating, said Jasmine Walston, who lives in Louisville, Ky., and is president of the Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness. For some of us, monogamy doesn't work, and cheating was just abhorrent to me, she said. To some, the polyamory movement is reminiscent of the free love, swinging and open marriages of the 1960s and 1970s. AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases dampened that sexual liberation movement in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, Walston said, many people mistakenly believe that polyamorists are careless in their sex lives. When everything is out in the open, and your husband knows what is going on, you're going to be more careful about safe sex, she said. John Hurley, a Boston spokesman for the 183,000-member Association of Unitarian Universalists, says the views of polyamorists are not necessarily endorsed by the denomination's board of trustees. Polyamorists themselves are divided over whether to push for more formal recognition from the Unitarians, or to begin public lobbying for some of the same rights granted to heterosexual couples. We're where the gay rights movement was 30 years ago, Walston said. Amsbury says she favors expanding the legal definition of marriage to include three or more people, but she doesn't expect to see it anytime soon. We're lovers, not fighters, she said. We don't want to get people's backs up. Other polyamorists are concerned that their cause will be used by opponents of same-sex marriage. Just last week, a group of conservative evangelicals asked San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom whether his support of same-sex marriage applied to multiple-partner marriages. What possible reason could you find for discriminating against or denying equal access to threesomes, foursomes, etc.? they asked in a letter to Newsom. Rebecca Parker, the president of Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, says many Christians find polygamy even more sinful than homosexuality. Monogamous heterosexual marriage, she says, is ordained by God through the creation of Adam and Eve. Even though polygamy is practiced by some of the heroes in the Bible -- and in many non-Christian cultures around the world today -- it remains a Judeo-Christian taboo. Starr King is a seminary of the Association of Unitarian Universalists and part of the Graduate Theological Union, a consortium of Protestant and Catholic seminarians in Berkeley and Marin County. Unitarians -- who encourage their members to seek spiritual truth based on human experience, not allegiance to creeds and doctrines -- have been around since 1782. They merged with the Universalists in 1961. Many of the students and faculty at Starr King see the polyamory movement as a threat to gay and lesbian couples. In the Protestant denomination, the movement to accept same-sex couples was built on the idea that they, too, can have lifelong monogamous relationships, Parker said. Gays and lesbians found safety in saying, 'We can have families. We're normal -- just like everyone else.' That became the basis for them asking for social acceptance and equal protection under the law. Very few polyamorous Unitarian Universalist ministers are out of the closet. They fear it will wreck their chances of getting or keeping a job with a congregation. Jim Zacarias, interim minister at the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, recently came out to his congregation as bisexual. People who choose a polyamory lifestyle in our denomination are doing it with an ethic of responsibility in their
11th Circuit Holds RLUIPA unconstitutional
http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200313858.pdf Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue Nova Southeastern UniversityFort Lauderdale, Fl. 33314 Shepard Broad Law Center(954) 262-6151 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chair, ACLU of Florida Legal Panel ___ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
Re: 11th Circuit Holds RLUIPA . . . *constitutional*
Uh, that should be constitutional.And it's a section 2(b)(1) case, too -- probably the mostdifficult subsection to justify under section 5. - Original Message - From: "Michael MASINTER" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Law Religion issues for Law Academics" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 5:12 PM Subject: http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200313858.pdf Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue Nova Southeastern University Fort Lauderdale, Fl. 33314 Shepard Broad Law Center (954) 262-6151 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chair, ACLU of Florida Legal Panel ___ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw ___ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
Re: 11th Circuit Holds RLUIPA . . . *constitutional*
Whoops; I forgot the first rule of proofreading (Proofread before sending) Sorry. Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue Nova Southeastern UniversityFort Lauderdale, Fl. 33314 Shepard Broad Law Center(954) 262-6151 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chair, ACLU of Florida Legal Panel On Wed, 21 Apr 2004, Marty Lederman wrote: Uh, that should be constitutional. And it's a section 2(b)(1) case, too -- probably the most difficult subsection to justify under section 5. - Original Message - From: Michael MASINTER [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 5:12 PM Subject: http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200313858.pdf Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue Nova Southeastern University Fort Lauderdale, Fl. 33314 Shepard Broad Law Center (954) 262-6151 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chair, ACLU of Florida Legal Panel ___ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw ___ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
Re: HAnsen v. Ann Arbor Public Schools 293 FSupp2d 780
As I noted in my initial post, it's of course true that the ACLU was not directly involved in this litigation, and that the Pioneers' beef is with the school district, not the ACLU. The question that prompted my response, however, was whether the ACLU supported a tendentious view of the Establishment Clause in this case simply because it disagreed with the substantive beliefs of the Catholic student plaintiff. While your phone call to the Michigan ACLU no doubt elicited some post hoc minimization of its role, a defendant's sworn deposition testimony indicates that the ACLU's involvement went beyond the one general conversation you heard about, and that the group was clearly well aware of the religious nature of the program. In other words, the Michigan ACLU had all the facts; it nonetheless supported the government's strained reading of the first amendment as against a student group called, as it happens, the Pioneers for Christ. Back to lurking for me -- Kim Daniels Associate Counsel Thomas More Law Center 3475 Plymouth Rd. Suite 100 Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2550 (734) 827-2001 (main office) (301) 907-3925 (direct dial) [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Michael MASINTER [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 19:06:49 -0400 (EDT) To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: HAnsen v. Ann Arbor Public Schools 293 FSupp2d 780 The point, which should have been obvious, is that on the facts presented, the ACLU attorney got the first amendment right. The Michigan ACLU was not counsel for the Ann Arbor Public Schools or its employees and did not represent them in any aspect of this dispute. The Pioneers' beef is with the school district, not the ACLU. Michael R. Masinter3305 College Avenue Nova Southeastern UniversityFort Lauderdale, Fl. 33314 Shepard Broad Law Center(954) 262-6151 [EMAIL PROTECTED]Chair, ACLU of Florida Legal Panel On Wed, 21 Apr 2004, Kim Daniels wrote: Rather than provide my second-hand view of events, I went ahead and forwarded Mr. Masinter's e-mail to Rob Muise, the Thomas More Law Center attorney who represents the plaintiff in the Hansen case. Here's his response: So what's the point? That the ACLU didn't know the facts of the case, so the advice it gave in support of the school's position was a mistake? The ACLU attorney not only spoke with a GSA advisor, he also spoke with the school's equity officer (we successfully sued the equity officer as well). The equity officer testified during her deposition that she did speak with an ACLU attorney, giving him the factual, talking over with him the factual scenario of what had happened with the panel and Pioneers for Christ wanting to be represented and listening to what he thought with regard to that particular fact scenario. Is the ACLU now saying that the school was wrong? They certainly have been very quiet about it if that is the case. The reality is that the ACLU was fully aware of the facts of this case, and they advised the GSA and a school official that excluding my client and holding a diversity week panel on homosexuality and religion, such as the school did, was constitutional. Kim Daniels Associate Counsel Thomas More Law Center 3475 Plymouth Rd. Suite 100 Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2550 (734) 827-2001 (main office) (301) 907-3925 (direct dial) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
