gay marriage licenses in oregon!

and nyack, a second town in new york, plans to start officiating same-sex marriages as well! that makes 4 chains!

but also in new york, state attorney general eliot spitzer is interpreting law to mean same-sex marriage is prohibited.

Mr. Spitzer made his decision based on the language of the Domestic Relations Law's references to "bride and groom" and "husband and wife." But he said New York's marriage laws raise constitutional questions involving equal protection, and that any uncertainty in that regard must be decided by the courts.

the end result of this is that new paltz's mayor jason west now faces 19 criminal charges against him. west is accused of performing weddings without marriage licenses.

Mr. West said he was upholding the state constitution's equal protection requirement by conducting the ceremonies.

Asked about the article of the state law that describes marriages as between a husband and a wife, Mr. West said that the law also had a list of types of marriages that were "voidable," such as any between "close relatives."

"That is a section that explicitly lays out who cannot be married," Mr. West said in the CNN interview. "Same-sex couples are not on that list."

He added, "We have over 1,200 couples on our waiting list."

Mayor West could be fined up to $500 and sentenced to up to a year in jail for each count. Ulster County District Attorney Donald A. Williams, who brought the charges, said a jail term was not being contemplated.  ¶ 3:20 PM

"a modern way to have a modern kidnapping"

no matter how adamantly colin powell insists the allegations are "absurd", the idea that aristide was forced out of office by the US will not die. in fact, aristide himself is now the one saying he was "kidnapped":

Aristide alleged in telephone interviews Monday with CNN and The Associated Press that he was ''forced to leave'' Haiti by U.S. military forces who said they would ''start shooting and killing'' if he refused.

''I was forced to leave,'' he said. ``They were telling me that if I don't leave they would start shooting.''

When asked who ''they'' were, he responded, ''White American, white military.'' He added: ``They came at night. . . . There were too many. I couldn't count them.''

yet another case of whitey trying to keep a brother down? that's a definite contrast to the understated version of events put forth by us ambassador luis moreno:

Moreno, who has known Aristide for a decade, described their conversations early Sunday as ''amicable, but somber.'' He said at no time was there any pressure nor was Aristide physically forced to flee.

Moreno said he told Aristide that it was too bad he had to abandon his presidency. He said Aristide responded in English: ``Sometimes, life goes like that.''

i can just picture them both politely sipping tea through this conversation... too bad your career is in shambles, old chum, wot wot? moreno says, dipping his scone as he skims over the resignation letter. right spot of bad luck, aristide replies, now could you pass the milk?

according to the la times, some congressmen & some in the un tell a different story:

But in statements throughout Monday, Aristide and supporters including Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) — who spoke to him by phone — insisted that the story was quite different.

Rangel, after meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and five other members of the Congressional Black Caucus at the United Nations in New York, said Aristide's resignation letter had been dictated to him by American officials.

Asked if Aristide was kidnapped, Rangel replied: "That's subjective. You can either stay and get shot, or leave with the military. He chose to leave with the military. So I suspect that you may have a hard time prosecuting the kidnapping. But it was against his will."

Waters, in a news conference in Los Angeles, said, "I'm convinced that our country has been involved in a regime change." In the same way that the U.S. has sought to undermine leaders such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, she said, Aristide was pushed out because "these are leaders of governments who are not considered to be puppets of our country."

A Haitian diplomat said Monday that a copy of the resignation letter was faxed to him by the U.S. State Department. The diplomat said that led him to believe that Aristide did not write the letter and lent credence, he believed, to Aristide's claim that his departure was coerced. In his CNN interview, Aristide said that his resignation letter had been doctored.

obviously someone is lying.   ¶ 9:58 AM

good news! there is at least one principled republican in indiana: or at least there was. maybe it would be more accurate to say there is now one fewer principled republican here:

The President's support of banning gay marriage is causing a Bloomington Republican Bloomington Precinct Committeeman to quit.

Mark Brostoff says he could no longer be a Republican after President Bush announced his support last week for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Brostoff says " I think gay rights is too important of an issue personally as an openly gay person to stand by when a party I've spent many many hours and financially to support, turns around and says we're going to try to amend the constitution and put you down to a second class citizen."

that "he could no longer be a Republican" sounds like there's a chance he isn't leaving the party, but i think it was just poor word choice. check the wrtv wording for a comparison:

Mark Brostoff said he decided he could no longer be a Republican after Bush announced his support last week for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.  ¶ 1:39 PM

as an editor, i hope we hire a bunch of iranian authors soon. because then, it would be illegal for me to edit those books. according to the nytimes:

Anyone who publishes material from a country under a trade embargo is forbidden to reorder paragraphs or sentences, correct syntax or grammar, or replace "inappropriate words," according to several advisory letters from the Treasury Department in recent months.

Adding illustrations is prohibited, too. To the baffled dismay of publishers, editors and translators who have been briefed about the policy, only publication of "camera-ready copies of manuscripts" is allowed.

The Treasury letters concerned Iran. But the logic, experts said, would seem to extend to Cuba, Libya, North Korea and other nations with which most trade is banned without a government license.  ¶ 1:06 PM

speaking of us-backed coups against democratically elected officials, hugo chavez thinks the us is still trying to oust him (after a failed us-backed coup against him in 2002).

chavez also calls bush an asshole. if only he'd said major league asshole...  ¶ 11:36 AM

arisitide has fled hait, & us marines & french troops are on their way in. but how big a role is the us actually playing in this? the nytimes claims that aristide called up the american ambassador asking for ideas of where he could flee to.

but an alleged eyewitness says differently. he says aristide was forced out at gunpoint by american soldiers. (before anyone points out that this report is from a french news agency, also keep in mind that french troops are going to haiti too, so spreading false rumors about this story would not be doing france any favors)

could this be yet another us-led coup? we haven't had one of those in... well... months. or is this man alleging to be aristide's caretaker just an opportunist?

why did the us refuse to send troops until aristide quit? lots of people are suspicious, like according to the kansas city star/knight ridder, several congressmen & foreign diplomats think bushco was trying to force out aristide all along:

But Rep. Charles Rangel, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who was deeply involved in restoring Aristide to power in 1994, said the United States must shoulder much of the blame for Aristide's fall and the chaos that brought it on.

"I don't know what's going on, but we are just as much a part of this coup d'etat as the rebels, looters or anyone else," Rangel, D-N.Y., said on ABC's "This Week."

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., echoed the sentiment. "Obviously the Bush administration had a plan from the beginning and it's played out now. Unfortunately so many Haitians had to lose their lives in that plan."

and also

At least one foreign diplomat who was part of the recent negotiations between Aristide and the opposition said it was clear that Washington had its own agenda during the mediation, when the United States refused to talk about sending in peacekeepers to help thwart the gunmen's uprising in the countryside as part of a peace plan.

"When they were refusing to address the security concerns, it was clear they had other things in mind," the diplomat said. "It was clear to me two weeks ago that Aristide was a goner."  ¶ 10:49 AM