NATION/WORLD
Saturday, November 28, 2015
East Oregonian
Page 9A
Gay marriage is legal but not on tribal lands
Associated Press
AP Photo/Francois Mori
Guests, right, attend during a ceremony in the
courtyard of the Invalides in Paris, Friday.
France honors attack victims
in city subdued by mourning
PARIS (AP) — A subdued
France paid homage Friday
to those killed two weeks ago
in the attacks that gripped
Paris in fear and mourning,
honoring each of the 130
dead by name as the president
pledged to “destroy the army
of fanatics” who claimed so
many young lives.
With each name and age
read aloud inside the Inva-
lides national monument,
the toll gained new force.
Most, as French President
Francois Hollande noted,
were younger than 35, killed
while enjoying a mild Friday
night of music, food, drinks
or sports. The youngest was
17. The oldest, 68.
Meanwhile, in Belgium,
authorities charged a man
with “terrorist attacks” as
investigators worked to
hone in on culprits. The
federal prosecutor’s of¿ce
said the man was arrested a
day earlier in Brussels and
was “charged with terrorist
attacks and taking part in
the activities of a terrorist
group.” He was not identi¿ed
and it was not immediately
clear if he was one of two
fugitives authorities have
been seeking.
France’s somber homage
to the victims bespoke the
horrors of Nov. 13.
Throughout Paris, French
Àags Àuttered in windows
and on buses in uncharacter-
istic displays of patriotism
in response to Paris’ second
deadly terror attack this year.
But the mood was grim, and
the locked-down ceremony at
the Invalides national monu-
ment lacked the de¿ance
of January, when a million
people poured through the
streets to honor those killed
by Islamic extremist gunmen.
Hollande, who in January
locked arms with world
leaders in a show of global
unity against terrorism, sat
alone in a hard-backed chair
in the cavernous Invalides
courtyard, the assembled
mourners behind him as
victims’ names were recited.
France’s military provided
the only images of Friday’s
ceremony, and no one
without an invitation was
permitted inside.
The night of Nov. 13, three
teams of suicide bombers and
gunmen struck across Paris,
beginning at the national
stadium — where Hollande
was among the spectators —
and ending in the storming of
the Bataclan concert venue.
In all, 130 people died and
hundreds were injured. The
crowd at the stadium shakily
sang
France’s
national
anthem as they ¿led outside
that night; a military band
played the Marseillaise again
on Friday, lingering slightly
on the refrain: “Aux armes,
citoyens!”
The courtyard went silent
after the reading of the names
¿nished, broken ¿nally by a
mournful cello. Hollande
stared straight ahead, before
¿nally rising to speak.
“To all of you, I solemnly
promise that France will
do everything to destroy
the army of fanatics who
committed these crimes,”
Hollande said.
The speech was dedicated
above all to the dead and
France’s young.
“The ordeal has scarred
us all, but it will make us
stronger. I have con¿dence
in the generation to come.
Generations before have
also had their identity forged
in the Àower of youth. The
attack of Nov. 13 will remain
in the memory of today’s
youth as a terrible initiation
in the hardness of the world.
But also as an invitation to
combat it by creating a new
commitment,” he said.
Hollande noted that many
of the dead, especially those
at the Eagles of Death Metal
show at the Bataclan, had
careers in music — a music
he said the attackers found
intolerable.
“It was this harmony
that they wanted to break,
shatter. It was this joy that
they wanted to bury with the
blast of their bombs. Well,
they will not stop it. We
will multiply the songs, the
concerts, the shows. We will
keep going to the stadiums,
and especially our beloved
national stadium in Saint-
Denis. We will participate in
sports gatherings great and
small,” Hollande said.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Cleo
Pablo married her longtime partner
when gay weddings became legal in
Arizona and looked forward to the
day when her wife and their children
could move into her home in the small
Native American community outside
Phoenix where she grew up.
That day never came. The Ak-Chin
Indian Community doesn’t recognize
same-sex marriages and has a law
that prohibits unmarried couples from
living together. So Pablo voluntarily
gave up her tribal home and now is
suing the tribe in tribal court to have
her marriage validated.
“I want equal opportunity,” Pablo
said. “I want what every married
couple has.”
Pablo’s situation reÀects an over-
looked story line following the U.S.
Supreme Court’s historic decision
this year that legalized gay marriages
nationwide: American Indian reser-
vations are not bound by the decision
and many continue to forbid gay
marriages and deny insurance and
other bene¿ts.
The reasons vary and to some
extent depend on cultural recognition
of gender identi¿cation and roles,
and the inÀuence of outside religions,
legal experts say.
Other issues like high unemploy-
ment, alcoholism and suicides on
reservations also could be higher on
the priority list, said Ann Tweedy, an
associate professor at the Hamline
University School of Law in St. Paul,
Minnesota, who has studied tribes’
marriage laws.
Advocacy groups largely have
stayed away from pushing tribes for
change, recognizing that tribes have
the inherent right to regulate domestic
relations within their boundaries.
“Tribal sovereignty is very
important to tribes,” Tweedy said.
“They don’t want to just adopt what
the U.S. does.”
Pablo follows in the footsteps of
a handful of other tribal members in
Oregon, Washington state and Mich-
igan who lobbied their governments
for marriage equality.
The Navajo Nation is one of a
few of the country’s 567 federally
recognized tribes that have outright
bans on gay marriage. Some tribes
expressly allow it, while others tie
marriage laws to those of states or
have gender-neutral laws that typi-
cally create confusion for gay couples
on whether they can marry.
The mish-mash occurs because
tribes are sovereign lands where the
U.S. Constitution does not apply.
But Pablo argues in her lawsuit
that members of the Tribal Council
AP Photo/Matt York
In this Nov. 9 photo, Cleo Pablo and her wife, Tara Roy-Pablo, stand
outside their home in Phoenix.
“Tribal sovereignty is very important to tribes.
They don’t want to just adopt what the U.S. does.”
— Ann Tweedy,
Hamline University professor who has studied tribes’ marriage laws
are violating the Ak-Chin constitution
by denying her equal protection and
due process — rights also guaranteed
under the federal Indian Civil Rights
Act. Her lawyer, Sonia Martinez, said
tribal members could have a persua-
sive argument against gay-marriage
bans if their tribe incorporated federal
constitutional rights into tribal laws,
which she says is the case on the
Ak-Chin reservation.
The Ak-Chin Indian Community
wouldn’t comment directly on Pablo’s
lawsuit but said marriage laws are a
matter for the tribe to decide, not the
U.S. Supreme Court.
“Whether our current law stays
the same or needs to change, it
must still be addressed in a manner
that best promotes and protects the
community’s sovereignty and right
of self-governance, and best reÀects
the culture, tradition, and morals of
the community and all of its members
within the con¿nes of our laws,” read
a statement provided to The Associ-
ated Press.
Change for some tribes came
easily.
The Central Council Tlingit &
Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska enacted
a marriage statute in March to expand
court services. Chief Justice Debra
O’Gara said leaders talked more
about whether to allow members of
the same clan to marry than members
of the same sex.
“There was very little controversy
over the same gender aspect because
everybody believed it should be
open,” she said. “Whoever our citi-
zens are should have the same rights
as everyone else.”
Navajo Nation lawmaker Otto
Tso said he would expect a heated
debate on the tribe’s marriage laws
that likely will be brought forth by
tribal members. One of them, Alray
Nelson, has been outspoken about the
Navajo Nation’s ban on gay marriage,
but he knows he doesn’t have support
from enough lawmakers to get it
overturned.
“They’re going to get our attention,
and I’m all about listening, hearing
them out, hear the concerns,” Tso
said.
Fred Urbina, general counsel for
the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in southern
Arizona, said he suspects the tribe’s
laws that are silent on gay marriage
will be questioned in the context of
bene¿ts and insurance for spouses.
Pablo and her son moved in with
Tara Roy-Pablo and her children in
Phoenix after she discovered the tribe
wouldn’t provide insurance to her
entire family and she risked arrest if
they stayed in her tribal home. Pablo
said she has never felt unwelcome.
“As Native people in the commu-
nity, we’re taught to stand in the back-
ground, not create waves,” she said.
“I’ve done the opposite. People know
who I am, who I was. I wouldn’t rock
the boat. It gets to the point if you
don’t say anything, nothing is going
to change.”
BRIEFLY
Strikes on IS
city, focus of
international
campaign, kill 8
BEIRUT (AP) — A new
wave of airstrikes targeting
the Syrian city of Raqqa, the
headquarters of the extremist
Islamic State group and the
focus of an international
military campaign, killed at
least eight people, including
¿ve children, Syrian
opposition groups said.
The strikes came
as France’s foreign
minister, Laurent Fabius,
declared that destroying
the IS headquarters
and “neutralizing and
eradicating” the extremist
group is the main objective
of the international
campaign.
It wasn’t immediately
clear who carried out the
latest airstrikes. The city
in northern Syria is the
group’s de facto capital and
has become the focus of
international airstrikes in
the wake of the Paris terror
attacks and the bombing of a
Russian jetliner over Egypt’s
Sinai Peninsula. IS has said
it was behind both attacks.
Those developments
have turned the world’s
attention to the ¿ght against
IS at a time when the
international community is
trying to engage Syrians in
a diplomatic process that
would lead to a political
transition in the war-ravaged
country.
That process faces
enormous hurdles, including
the fate of President Bashar
Assad and agreeing on
which armed factions in
Syria should be allowed to
take part in negotiations.
$4,600,000
Hundreds
protest jailing of
2 journalists in
Turkey
ISTANBUL (AP) —
Hundreds of protesters
gathered outside the Istanbul
of¿ce of an opposition
newspaper Friday, accusing
the government of silencing
critics and attempting to
cover-up a scandal after two
journalists were jailed on
terror and espionage charges
for their reports on alleged
Turkish arms smuggling to
Syria.
Cumhuriyet newspaper’s
editor-in-chief Can Dundar
and the paper’s Ankara
representative Erdem Gul,
were sent to a prison in
Istanbul late on Thursday,
accused of willingly aiding
a terror organization and
revealing state secrets.
The incident comes amid
deepening concerns over
media freedoms in Turkey,
which aspires to join the
European Union.
In May, the paper
published what it said were
images of Turkish trucks
carrying ammunition to
Syrian militants. The images
reportedly date back to
January 2014.
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