Spain Ok's Gay Marriage

Spain OK's gay marriage, defying opponents
By MAR ROMAN Associated Press Writer

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Parliament legalized gay marriage Thursday, defying conservatives and clergy who opposed making traditionally Roman Catholic Spain the third country to allow same-sex unions nationwide. Jubilant gay activists blew kisses to lawmakers after the vote.
The measure passed the 350-seat Congress of Deputies by a vote of 187-147. The bill, part of the ruling Socialists' aggressive agenda for social reform, also lets gay couples adopt children and inherit each others' property. The bill is now law. The Senate, where conservatives hold the largest number of seats, rejected the bill last week. But it is an advisory body and final say on legislation rests with the Congress of Deputies. Opposition conservatives said they will consider challenging the law before Spain's highest tribunal, the Constitutional Court.

The Spanish Bishops Conference criticized the new law and urged resistance to it. The group said the bill, along with another passed Wednesday making it easier for Spaniards to divorce, mean that "marriage, understood as the union of a man and a woman, is no longer provided for in our laws." "It is necessary to oppose these unfair laws through all legitimate means," the bishops said, apparently alluding to a previous call for town hall officials who oppose gay marriage to refuse to preside at such ceremonies.

After the final tally was announced, gay and lesbian activists watching from the spectator section of the ornate chamber cried, cheered, hugged, waved to lawmakers and blew them kisses.
Several members of the conservative opposition Popular Party, which was vehemently opposed to the bill, shouted: "This is a disgrace." Those in favor stood and clapped.

The Netherlands and Belgium are the only other two countries that allow gay marriage nationwide. Canada's House of Commons passed legislation Tuesday that would legalize gay marriage; its Senate is expected to pass the bill into law by the end of July.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero noted this in debate before the vote.
"We were not the first, but I am sure we will not be the last. After us will come many other countries, driven, ladies and gentlemen, by two unstoppable forces: freedom and equality," he told the chamber.
Zapatero said the reform of Spanish legal code simply adds one dry paragraph of legalese but means much more.
He called it "a small change in wording that means an immense change in the lives of thousands of citizens. We are not legislating, ladies and gentlemen, for remote unknown people. We are expanding opportunities for the happiness of our neighbors, our work colleagues, our friends, our relatives."
Zapatero lacks a majority in the chamber but got help from small regional-based parties that tend to be his allies.
Spanish gay couples can get married as soon as the law is published in the official government registry. This could come as early as Friday, or within two weeks at the latest, parliament's press office said.
Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy said after the vote that Zapatero has deeply divided Spain and should have sought a consensus in parliament that recognized same-sex unions but didn't call them marriage. Rajoy said that if the vast majority of countries in the world don't accept gay marriage, including some run by Socialists, there must be a reason.
"I think the prime minister has committed a grave act of irresponsibility," Rajoy told reporters.
Beatriz Gimeno, a longtime leader of the gay rights movement in Spain, held back tears as she hugged her partner Boti after the vote.
"It is a historic day for the world's homosexuals. We have been fighting for many years," Gimeno said. "Now comes the hardest part, which is changing society's mentality."
The gay marriage bill was the boldest and most divisive initiative of the liberal social agenda Zapatero has embarked on since taking office in April 2004. Parliament overhauled Spain's 25-year-old divorce law Wednesday by letting couples end their marriage without a mandatory separation or having to state a reason, as required under the old law.
He has also pushed through legislation allowing stem-cell research and wants to loosen Spain's restrictive abortion law.
The Roman Catholic Church, which held much sway over the government just a generation ago when Gen. Francisco Franco was in power, had adamantly opposed gay marriage. In its first display of anti-government activism in 20 years, it endorsed a June 18 rally in which hundreds of thousands marched through Madrid in opposition to the bill. Some 20 bishops took part in the June 18 rally.
On Wednesday, a Catholic lay group called the Spanish Family Forum presented lawmakers with a petition bearing 600,000 signatures as a last-minute protest.
Late last year, the spokesman for the Spanish Bishops Conference, Antonio Martinez Camino said that allowing gay marriage was like "imposing a virus on society - something false that will have negative consequences for social life."
Despite the street protests in Madrid and elsewhere and the petition drive, polls suggest Spaniards supported gay marriage.
A survey released in May by pollster Instituto Opina said 62 percent of Spaniards support the government's action on this issue, and 30 percent oppose it. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. But surveys show Spaniards about evenly split over whether gay couples should be allowed to adopt children.
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Congratulations to Jamie and Travis

Congratulations Jamie and Travis on your engagement. I wish you two a
lifetime of joy and happiness. I know great things will happen for
you both.

Love,
Adam

Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival

It's that time folks. The Blues Festival is upon us again. Check out the link below for a list of acts. This is the second largest blues festival in the United States. Admission is $5.00 plus two canned goods. All proceeds go to benefit the Oregon Food bank. The headliners are Monday, with the 4th of July Fireworks scheduled for 10 PM.

Last years Blues Festival was fabulous!!!

Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival

Now You Can Post Your Comments

I have now updated my blog so that you may post your comments. Feel free to add your thoughts and ideas. I can't wait to read them.

Last Night I Had A Dream

Last Night I Had A Dream...

I was at some sort of festival. It must have been an Oregon festival
as it was very comfortable outside. I decided I had to use the
port-a-potty. So off I went. While taking care of business, my
little brother came and pushed my port-a-potty over. In a
Matrix-esque maneuver, I was able to avoid most of the...junk...but
still got wet.

Then I woke up. Strange...strange indeed.

@

For Fruit Flies, Gene Shift Tilts Sex Orientation - New York Times

For Fruit Flies, Gene Shift Tilts Sex Orientation
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL,
International Herald Tribune
When the genetically altered fruit fly was released into the observation chamber, it did what these breeders par excellence tend to do. It pursued a waiting virgin female. It gently tapped the girl with its leg, played her a song (using wings as instruments) and, only then, dared to lick her - all part of standard fruit fly seduction.

The observing scientist looked with disbelief at the show, for the suitor in this case was not a male, but a female that researchers had artificially endowed with a single male-type gene.

That one gene, the researchers are announcing today in the journal Cell, is apparently by itself enough to create patterns of sexual behavior - a kind of master sexual gene that normally exists in two distinct male and female variants.

In a series of experiments, the researchers found that females given the male variant of the gene acted exactly like males in courtship, madly pursuing other females. Males that were artificially given the female version of the gene became more passive and turned their sexual attention to other males.

"We have shown that a single gene in the fruit fly is sufficient to determine all aspects of the flies' sexual orientation and behavior," said the paper's lead author, Dr. Barry Dickson, senior scientist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. "It's very surprising.

"What it tells us is that instinctive behaviors can be specified by genetic programs, just like the morphologic development of an organ or a nose."

The results are certain to prove influential in debates about whether genes or environment determine who we are, how we act and, especially, our sexual orientation, although it is not clear now if there is a similar master sexual gene for humans.

Still, experts said they were both awed and shocked by the findings. "The results are so clean and compelling, the whole field of the genetic roots of behavior is moved forward tremendously by this work," said Dr. Michael Weiss, chairman of the department of biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University. "Hopefully this will take the discussion about sexual preferences out of the realm of morality and put it in the realm of science."

He added: "I never chose to be heterosexual; it just happened. But humans are complicated. With the flies we can see in a simple and elegant way how a gene can influence and determine behavior."

The finding supports scientific evidence accumulating over the past decade that sexual orientation may be innately programmed into the brains of men and women. Equally intriguing, the researchers say, is the possibility that a number of behaviors - hitting back when feeling threatened, fleeing when scared or laughing when amused - may also be programmed into human brains, a product of genetic heritage.

"This is a first - a superb demonstration that a single gene can serve as a switch for complex behaviors," said Dr. Gero Miesenboeck, a professor of cell biology at Yale.

Dr. Dickson, the lead author, said he ran into the laboratory when an assistant called him on a Sunday night with the results. "This really makes you think about how much of our behavior, perhaps especially sexual behaviors, has a strong genetic component," he said.

All the researchers cautioned that any of these wired behaviors set by master genes will probably be modified by experience. Though male fruit flies are programmed to pursue females, Dr. Dickson said, those that are frequently rejected over time become less aggressive in their mating behavior.

When a normal male fruit fly is introduced to a virgin female, they almost immediately begin foreplay and then copulate for 20 minutes. In fact, Dr. Dickson and his co-author, Dr. Ebru Demir of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, specifically chose to look for the genetic basis of fly sexual behavior precisely because it seemed so strong and instinctive and, therefore, predictable.

Scientists have known for several years that the master sexual gene, known as fru, was central to mating, coordinating a network of neurons that were involved in the male fly's courtship ritual. Last year, Dr. Bruce Baker of Stanford University discovered that the mating circuit controlled by the gene involved 60 nerve cells and that if any of these were damaged or destroyed by the scientists, the animal could not mate properly. Both male and female flies have the same genetic material as well as the neural circuitry required for the mating ritual, but different parts of the genes are turned on in the two sexes. But no one dreamed that simply activating the normally dormant male portion of the gene in a female fly could cause a genetic female to display the whole elaborate panoply of male fruit fly foreplay.

For Fruit Flies, Gene Shift Tilts Sex Orientation - New York Times