VC: suckable

oh my

What about Japan, how are they coming along?

>>228984
I get the impression yuri is growing in acceptance, but yaoi is still a strict no-no.

>>228987
What a bunch of prudes.

>>228974
Kill all faggots. Every single last one of them. Mental illnesses have no place in society.

>>228989
And yet here you are.

>>228989
I

agree

whole

hearted

ly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5zvYBmSquI

same sax marriage, what took you so long America?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpF_TrNXxH8

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/federal-judge-rejects-oklahomas-gay-marriage-ban.html

an historic moment

>>229032
Except for a few of the socialized European nations, aren't we still miles ahead of the rest of the world?

>>228990

>YOU HATE GAYS THAT MUST MEAN YOU ARE GAY

This is the only "argument" queers ever have.

>>229051 I'm pretty sure he was saying that the poster had a mental illnesses, not that he was gay... The kill all people with mental illnesses statement is crazy considering how much America currently considers abnormal.

Less fighting, more Kaorin x Sakaki.

My heart is beating in a different way
Was it meant to be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7atmhhOZziM

VC: joy

perfect happiness, now available in some parts of the USA

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/opinion/something-happening-here.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Good read to let you know it's finally time for some people to love some people legally.

The law caught up with our love.

Need a fried to pretend your fine
The games we play
you pull me up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovjWHt448u4

Azumanga had a lot of people wanting to find love, but no one ever did. Never realized how sad it was

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11154321/How-America-learned-to-love-gay-marriage.html

Funny how it takes America so long to realise basic stuck like allowing people to love however they want.

Come on America, certainly you have something better to do

>>229076
Ralen has said this before, but isn't America ahead of the rest of the world (barring some socialized European nations) in this regard?

Secondly, it's not illegal to love whomwever you want, it was illegal in some states for gays to marry.

Thirdly, what does "basic stuck" mean?

>>229077
Firstly; Ralen is always right.

Secondly; having sex with the same sex was illegal in America. Trying to use the word "was" because some people still want you not to.

Thirdly;

>>229078

>having sex with the same sex was illegal in America

Only in a handful of states, and even then, not since 2003.

>>229073

>Azumanga had a lot of people wanting to find love, but no one ever did. Never realized how sad it was

false

>>229073

>Azumanga had a lot of people wanting to find love, but no one ever did. Never realized how sad it was

Remember when Osaka asked her friends why they don't have summer memories with their boyfriends? There's an awkward moment and then everyone just left without saying a word.

Probably boys are intimidated with Sakaki

Yomi probably too dense or too serious in studying to have time with boys (Remember when Osaka asked about BF? She's the one who left awkwardly).

Tomo is too stupid to realize love.

No boys can get Osaka, she's an enigma.

No one want to go to jail (you can guess who's the girl).

Kagura probably prefer to focus in swimming.

Kaorin FAIL

Yukari probably going to find someone 2 or 3 years later.

Nyamo probably going to stumble in love again.

>>229083

If you lose a card game, you just might get Osaka.

HUE

And now the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the bans in its jurisdiction. This sets up a "circuit split," which increases the chances the Supreme Court will weigh in. Ongoing cases like Florida will probably be placed on hold, but it's unclear what will happen in places like Kansas, which are ostensibly covered by the cases that struck down bans last month, but which hadn't yet gone through the last bit of legal wrangling to finalize it.

If SCOTUS takes up the case, they will likely issue a ruling in June. Striking down the bans would bring same-sex marriage to the whole country. Upholding them would undo most (but not all) of what last month's cases did, requiring a completely new set of cases to resolve the status of the marriages that were performed in the meantime.

Also, the city of St. Louis is now performing marriages while we wait to see if the rest of Missouri will join them. This is a state court case so nothing the federal courts do will affect it.

This is all getting very confusing. Do any of the Azuverse characters have or plan to get a law degree? At this point even fanart of someone as a lawyer might be helpful.

>>229088

>HUE

I remember a doujinshi when she hooked up with a classmate because he got in a challenge bet and his friends tell him to ask Osaka out. He ended up stuck with her because..... well, this is a doujinshi, you know why. He said that the sex is weird but awesome. I imagine when she got kinky it will involves waffle iron and a rubber ducky and probably a bundle of dynamites.

>>229263

Orthrus Sakaki?

Just finished this. Here's Kaorin overstretching one of those dumb cleavage sweaters and doing snakey things with it while Pac-Man and friends get in the way!

check the link if you didn't get the skull gag in the corner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zntqhRoCNpU

>>229629

Surreal weirdness involving troublesome constrictor snakes? Sounds like the perfect segue to news from Florida.

The Supreme Court refused to extend the stay, so same-sex marriages are set to begin next Tuesday. Florida's Attorney General had been insisting that the court ruling only applied to the county where the lawsuit started, but yesterday the judge clarified that it applied statewide.

Several County Clerks have announced that, in response, they will no longer allow any courthouse weddings (gay or straight) in their counties.

Next Friday, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to take up any of several same-sex marriage cases from the Sixth Circuit (where the appeals court let the bans remain). If they do, a nationwide ruling would likely come in June. If they don't, states in different circuits will continue to have different rules. The Fifth and Eighth Circuits will likely also rule against same-sex marriage, while the First and Eleventh would rule for it if the cases in those circuits continue to the top. In the First, all the states already allow it, but there's an active case in Puerto Rico.

Status as of next Tuesday: Same-sex marriage allowed in 36 states (70% of the population)

>>229629
This looks like the kind of thing you would doodle in your notebook during a boring lecture.

And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

Same-sex couples in Florida are getting married as we speak, and the sky continues to not fall.

This image reflects the weather in my current location more than typical Florida weather, however.

>>229655 Looks like a resolution scene for an Azu themed romantic Sci-fi movie that heavily uses Ozzy Osborne for the soundtrack.
Hehe, that'd really be something.

And now South Dakota's ban has been struck down, though the decision is stayed pending appeal.

Google results for "Azumanga Mt. Rushmore" were... eclectic, but I did manage to find this.

The US Supreme Court did not yet decide to take up a same-sex marriage case. They will discuss it again on Friday.

The Supreme Court has decided to take the cases. Arguments are expected in April, with a ruling in June. Unless there's an unexpected defection from one of the other conservatives, this will likely be a 5-4 ruling with Justice Kennedy as the deciding vote.

VC: came

>>229052
Not really. Mental illnesses are mental illnesses. The ones that cause harm to society have no place in it.

Some cases are starting to put things on hold until the Supreme Court rules, but Friday we got a surprise ruling striking down Alabama's ban. Barring intervention by a higher court, marriages will begin February 9th.

Except, again, you have no right to marriage, no matter who you are. That faggotry is a mental illness is actually secondary to the argument of marriage itself. They can't rule on it any differently than it already exists, as the word has an explicit definition. Any (incorrect) change thereto would forcibly allow any marriage of any combination of any persons. That's as delusional as thinking the same gender can love each other.

>>229736
I thought deleting the prior posts arguing over this made things pretty clear, but since you obviously didn't take the hint, I'll just come out and say it.
Knock off the hateful, intolerant remarks, or you'll be banned from posting.

The fact that you're too cowardly to even post using your normal handle makes this all the more nauseating.

vc: slime

>>229737

Worst part is that guys in the closet are usually the ones who post the most vitrol.

In any case, I expect the stacked deck in the Supreme Court to ban it. Right before they rule women can't own property either. Things seem to be going that way, unfortunately it.

>>229738
I'm not so sure. Justice Kennedy, typically regarded as the swing vote, has a long history of voting in favor of gay rights.

From his opinion in the ruling that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act:

DOMA singles out a class of persons deemed by a State entitled to recognition and protection to enhance their own liberty. It imposes a disability on the class by refusing to acknowledge a status the State finds to be dignified and proper. DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others. The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

Had an urge to draw Kaorin holding a record, but the ink from the pens faded a little when I tried to erase the pencils.

I'm pretty tempted to color it soon.

>>229739
>>229738

Justice Kennedy has been the author of several key gay rights rulings. It seems unlikely that he would stop now, especially since the court already effectively voted to allow same-sex marriage in most of the country.

The next battleground will be "religious freedom laws" that aim to protect the rights of businesses to discriminate against gays. Some of these are already being introduced to state legislatures, and more are sure to pop up if marriage goes nationwide. Some states prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, but many do not.

>>229741 I finished it! Done with about 17 different prismacolor pencils, no black pencils involved.

VC: peaff

>>229744
I like how her eyebrows arch outside of her hair.

>>229741

>Had an urge to draw Kaorin holding a record

I get the feeling there's more to this than that.

>>229746 It might be me being a little out of it, but I'm actually not sure where one would fit something sexual in there.

>>229748
I didn't mean it seemed like anything sexual, just that it seems like there's more to this than Kaorin simply holding a record. Unless it's a pun... like she's a record holder. She certainly holds the record for being gay for Sakaki.

>>229750 Ahhhh, my bad. I think I should clarify I wan't bothered by that remark none, I guess I really am just out of it this evening then, ahehe.

I'm a little surprised I didn't come up with any of those puns for the occasion, but at one point, I had a comment from Krubby that the vinyl was just a recording of Sakaki yelling when Kaorin placed a bug in her bag discreetly, so I'm just going with that.

>>229755
The record also says "Bee" on it, so I was thinking there might be a "Bee's wax" joke in there somewhere too.

>>229761 Naw, I just have a bad habit of tacking the word "bees" onto everything. It's gotten to where I habitually type it in half the time there's a search bar in front of me.

But I was actually pretty indecisive on what the record was going to consist of for a while. There's some trending injokes on the youchew forums involving Phil Collins, notably with dewmann making a few poops with/of his songs, popularizing the use of "In Too Deep" in various poops, all these gifs of rapidly screenflipping/panning album covers that involved Phil's face taking up the entire thing, references to the Phil Collins speech from American Psycho, or just poops of his music videos in general, so I was planning on making it a mini vinyl of the Face Value album. However, I kind of disregarded the notion that the record's label was just a plain green and red decoration adorned with copywright jargon, and just felt like drawing Phil's face on it as it appeared on the album's cover. However it was too small of a space to draw it all on, especially since there's a gaping hole in the middle of the record since I decided to draw it as a miniature one for whatever reason, so I decided to go with a generic cover and just write "bees" on it, mostly with Mushroom's "FUCK BEES" video in mind. He's a moderator on the forum I mentioned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KnaFJ953w4

However, it didn't hit me until AFTER I inked it though, that I could've just drawn the record as the Face Value album right there from the start and I wouldn't have had to put up with everything I just did beforehand, so I figured I'd just give the label the same color scheme. So that record's pretty much made up of a bunch of dropped balls in terms of jokes I could've made.

>>229744

Cute pic.

I wonder what kind of music Kaorin listens to? We know she likes astronomy, so maybe she's a dedicated Hearts of Space listener?

This ties more into the discussion in the teachers thread, but I was just thinking the other day about Kaorin's astronomy interest. She's probably the most one-note of all the Azumanga characters (other than background extras), but the establishment of this one characteristic actually goes a long way to making her still feel like a real person. We mostly see the way she interacts with the main characters because they are who the story is about, but she also has a life independent of them.

>>229766

I think Chihiro helps this as well. Maybe there's more to her in the manga, but in the anime she can barely be considered a character. Pretty much all we see is that she's Kaorin's friend, which means that instead of showing up randomly when needed for a gag, we sometimes see Kaorin detach from chatting with people we know nothing about in order to interact with the main characters.

^For all we know, while Kaori was being a horndog for Sakaki, Chihiro probably wanted to munch on Kaori's carpet, too.

>>229768
I always suspected that Chihiro was Kaorin's Kaorin.

Remember when Chihiro urged Kaorin to go into the sportsfest dance? Do ya think that bears any relevance? Also, another characteristic of Kaorin is that she's apparently good at making costumes because she made both of the culture fest outfits in the anime.

>>229770
I dunno, the dance was supposed to be boy/girl, but the only reason Kaorin got to dance with Sakaki was because there weren't enough boys.

And as I recall, the two of them made Chiyo's penguin costume together.

Chihiro seems too smart to fall for Kaorin, who is a neurotic wreck of a human being.

>>229772

The heart wants what it wants. I'd ship it.

Now I want to watch a spinoff miniseries from Chihiro's point of view where she tries to get Kaorin to notice her.

I like Kaorin X Sakaki stuff, but I freely admit there's not a lot of evidence that Sakaki feels the same way. Delve into Sakaki's subtext at your own peril, though- I keep coming up with "furry and/or pedo." I try to assume that any weirdness is just a side effect of her social awkwardness.

>>229741
>>229744
That's a great smile.

>>229773 A lot of people like to theorize that she's asexual, but she seemed pretty interested in the talks about sex in both the first and second summer trip

>>229738

>IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU!

Again, that’s the only response these people ever have when told they’re mentally ill. Guess what, homosexuals: you’re an error.
>>229737
Nah, not gonna “tolerate” untreated mental illnesses. Maybe you’d act the same for people who want to fuck children? Can’t “discriminate” against them, can we? What about polygamists? Maybe that’s the next logical step.

>regular handle

Only ever sage, boyo. The deleted posts just prove doublethink. That’s not MY problem.

>>229777

>Only ever sage, boyo.

Well then my apologies to Tallest Skil for sharing your ban, since the various IPs you post with are identical to the ones he posts with.

Maybe you share a computer lab.

And now Alabama joins the party! Well, sort of. The chief justice of Alabama's state Supreme Court put out a memo telling other judges to ignore the federal courts, so now some counties are issuing licenses and some are not.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/tokyo-district-to-issue-japan-first-gay-partnership-certificate/

News from Japan: The Sibuya district in Tokyo has announced plans to offer civil unions to same-sex couples. These won't be recognized as marriages by the national government, but they will make it easier for couples to rent apartments together and visit each other in the hospital.

Apparently many committed same-sex couples currently use adoption to secure such rights.

>>229909

>The certificate will only carry symbolic significance

>“We will call on local bodies like businesses and hospitals to honour the wishes of these couples,” (the mayor) told AFP.

So basically, the mayor of Shibuya is saying "Hey, hospitals and landlords... Don't be dicks."

I guess it's better than nothing, but it sounds like this is really nothing more than a publicity stunt.

>>229913

There's a fine line between "publicity stunt" and "raising awareness," and while I don't claim any knowledge of Japanese politics, this seems like it falls on the side of the latter. It could also be seen as "low-level government using its limited power to do what it can to help its people."

Only time will tell if this is a flash in the pan or a sign of things to come. Legal recognition of same-sex relationships in America began with fairly limited rights, though unless I'm forgetting something, it has always been at the state level rather than at the city or ward level.

I don't have any news updates, I just wanted to post this picture.

The artist is Korean. What's the status of gay rights in Korea?

>Post-zombie apocalypse Virginia is apparently gay-friendly.
>Current U.S. is not.

So it takes the utter and long-term collapse of civilization to recognize gay marriage?

Good to know.

>>229958
I thought gay marriage was going to bring about the end of civilization as we know it, not the other way around.

Although, to be fair, there's probably a lot of stuff that flies after the apocalypse.

They can't marry and have official recognition by the government, no protection against discrimination, and it's rather taboo, but gay sex isn't criminal and if you're trans, you can switch genders officially without much trouble and these days, you don't even need to have surgery first. Something is better than nothing I guess. At least the tide is changing somewhat nowadays.

>>229961
Was that in response to >>229955?

>>229962
Yeah, the reply didn't show up in the post and i didn't notice until I posted it.

>>229958
Man, I feel so ahead of everyone. They were introduced back in like 2010 in the comics.

Don't get attached.

>>229968
The TV show is so terrible at trying to do its own thing while trying to keep major plot points from the comic at the same time. It makes the storylines and characters seem so schizophrenic because they're trying to do two things at once.

Also, no spoilers. I don't have AMC, so I haven't seen any of season 5, and I haven't caught up on the comic in about a year (it moves so slow I binge-read it about once a year).

And now Nebraska's ban is overturned, effective next Monday (unless a higher court steps in). The interesting thing about this case is that the same judge actually struck down the ban in 2006, but his decision was reversed by the higher court. Now that judge was chosen at random for this case.

The Alabama Supreme Court has now weighed in and ordered the probate judges (officials who issue marriage licenses) to stop issuing them to same-sex couples. Only the US Supreme Court can directly overrule a state Supreme Court, but it's less clear what will happen to the probate judges, who are now under two contradictory court orders and could be punished for failing to comply with either.

VC:inofe

The Nebraska case has now been stayed by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

For those of you keeping score at home, here's the current situation:

35 states (and DC) allow same-sex marriage.

Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee had their bans upheld by the Sixth Circuit. These are the cases that will be reviewed by the US Supreme Court.

Puerto Rico had its ban upheld; this will be reviewed by the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

In the Fifth Circuit, Texas and Mississippi have federal rulings in favor of same-sex marriage, and Louisiana has one against. The Court of Appeals held hearings two months ago and could rule at any time.

Georgia and North Dakota have cases where all action has been put on hold until the Supreme Court rules.

South Dakota, Nebraska, and Arkansas have federal rulings against their bans, but they are stayed by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hold hearings in May.

Missouri also has a stayed ruling, but due to an independent case the state recognizes marriages performed elsewhere, and a couple of counties are issuing licenses.

Kansas is in one of the circuits where all bans were struck down, but the state government is still refusing to recognize marriages, and only some counties are issuing licenses.

Alabama is a mess with contradictory federal and state court orders. The state seems to still be recognizing marriages, but not issuing licenses.

>>229767 I was just looking at some of the earlier stuff in the manga and there's a lot of times where Yomi and Chihiro are chatting together or eating lunch together. It's most likely that Azuma was still figuring out the characters and who would be the main ones- after all Yomi didn't get a name until over 100 pages in, but it is interesting to think that all of the girls likely have some friends outside of their main group.

Well, probably not Tomo.

oops that was me but my name was removed