Right wing anti-gay groups merge, with updated hate

A "super group" of conservatives has formed, called the Freedom Federation. It unites many, many conservative religious groups who are opposed to gay rights, choice, or liberal policies. A major plank in their platform is opposition to marriage equality. More from People for the American Way:

[P]retty much every Religious Right group has joined together under the umbrella of something called The Freedom Federation, incuding Renewing American Leadership and Call to Action, which were just recently created - so now you have two new groups created specifically to fill this void joining a new coalition effort ... designed to fill this very same void....Wow - did they put this coalition together by going through our list of right-wing organizations and simply inviting all the groups and individuals we write about most frequently to join?

As Pam Spaulding writes:

This is what you do when the times get tight in bigot world -- you join forces as to ride out the recession and regime change to keep the social conservative agenda viable until a return to power. Of course they are going to lose the war, but they are going to do everything in their power to slow the advancement of anything remotely resembling equality. The groups are holding a press conference today at the National Press Club.

update: While we're on the topic of right-wing wackos, let's point at Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern, notorious for saying that gays are more threatening than terrorists, has a new rant blaming gays for the economic crisis:

WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and
WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery; and
WHEREAS, alarmed that the Government of the United States of America is forsaking the rich Christian heritage upon which this nation was built; ....

Then there's Pennsylvania Sen John Eichelberger, who said,

Why in the world would we allow them to marry?....They’re not being punished. We’re allowing them to exist....

Allowing us to exist, get it? What's next, pink triangles?

Maybe its safer putting all the loonies in one bin.

Colbert on "Stonewalling"

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Stonewalling
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Mark Sanford

Marking Stonewall in the White House

Today, the Obama white house hosted a commemorative event for the GLBT community (or at least its leadership) in honor of Stonewall.

From the NY Times: and Andrew Sullivan who quotes the whole speech .

" And I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that. It's not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago."....

I know that many in this room don’t believe progress has come fast enough, and I understand that,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s not for me to tell you to be patient any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half-century ago.

“We’ve been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration....

Now, even as we take these steps, we must recognize that real progress depends not only on the laws we change but, as I said before, on the hearts we open. For if we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that there are good and decent people in this country who don't yet fully embrace their gay brothers and sisters -- not yet....

The truth is when these folks protested at Stonewall 40 years ago no one could have imagined that you -- or, for that matter, I -- (laughter) -- would be standing here today. (Applause.) So we are all witnesses to monumental changes in this country. That should give us hope, but we cannot rest. We must continue to do our part to make progress -- step by step, law by law, mind by changing mind. And I want you to know that in this task I will not only be your friend, I will continue to be an ally and a champion and a President who fights with you and for you.

It's a great speech. But at this point, I'm of the viewpoint that Talk Is Cheap. From the Times:

Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, an Air Force officer who is facing expulsion proceedings after someone informed his superiors that he is gay, attended the reception as a guest of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which is challenging the policy. Colonel Fehrenbach said he introduced himself to the president after Mr. Obama spoke.

“I explained that I’m being thrown out as we speak, and that there was a sense of urgency for me,” Colonel Fehrenbach said. “He looked me in the eye and he said, ‘We’re going to get this done.’

Frank Rich on Stonewall and gay rights

THis one's another keeper from Frank Rich's Sunday Op/Ed in the NY Times. He writes,

It was typical of my generation, like others before and after, that the issue of gay civil rights wasn’t on our radar screen. Not least because gay people, fearful of harassment, violence and arrest, were often forced into the shadows. As David Carter writes in his book “Stonewall,” at the end of the 1960s homosexual sex was still illegal in every state but Illinois. It was a crime punishable by castration in seven states. No laws — federal, state or local — protected gay people from being denied jobs or housing. If a homosexual character appeared in a movie, his life ended with either murder or suicide.

Rich goes on to note the remarkable strides the GLBT community has made, culminating with the election of our self-described "fierce advocate" to the White House...and the resulting and unexpected "tin ear" on gay rights issues in the Obama White House.

In conversations with gay activists on both coasts last week, I heard several theories as to why Obama has seemed alternately clumsy and foot-dragging in honoring his campaign commitments to dismantle DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The most charitable take had it that he was following a deliberate strategy, given his habit of pursuing his goals through long-term game plans. ....Some speculated that the president is fearful of crossing preachers, especially black preachers, who are adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage. Still others said that the president was tone-deaf on the issue because his inner White House circle lacks any known gay people.

But the most prevalent theory is that Obama, surrounded by Clinton White House alumni with painful memories, doesn’t want to risk gay issues upending his presidency, as they did his predecessor’s in 1993.

Rich continues by noting the cultural changes and increased approval for gay rights. Yet, gay Americans have no further protection and rights federally now, than they did in 1969.

But full gay citizenship is far from complete. .....As anger at White House missteps boiled over this month, the president abruptly staged a ceremony to offer some crumbs. The pretext was the signing of an executive memorandum bestowing benefits to the domestic partners of federal employees. But some of those benefits were already in force, and the most important of them all, health care, was not included because it is forbidden by DOMA.....

And today, there is supposed to be a hastily put-together event commemorating Stonewall attempts to stanch the bleeding. Rich concludes ,

Gay Americans aren’t just another political special interest group. They are Americans who are actively discriminated against by federal laws. If the president is to properly honor the memory of Stonewall, he should get up to speed on what happened there 40 years ago, when courageous kids who had nothing, not even a public acknowledgment of their existence, stood up to make history happen in the least likely of places.

Is anyone listening?

Make sure the read the whole thing!

Stonewall: when we had enough

40 years ago, the police raided a shady bar in the Village.

40 years ago, a group of marginalized gays decided they'd had enough of being harassed.

40 years ago, an angry lesbian hit back.

40 years ago, the street kids rebelled.

40 years ago, the drag queens fought.

40 years ago, the raid sparked days of rioting.

40 years ago, the community discovered itself, threw open the doors, and said "Enough!"

40 years ago, it began.

Resources for Stonewall:

1. Wiki page
   
2. Counterlight's informal history: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V
   
3. New police documents at Outhistory.org (Check out their other exhibits).
   

Teaming up for equality

The Courage Campaign, one of the Main groups in the coalition to repeal 8, has assembled Equality teams throughout the state. Courage Campaign County Equality Teams are creating infrastructure to enable your community to engage in important long-term work -- recruiting an army of marriage equality activists, identifying undecided voters, organizing in your communities, and taking part in coordinated statewide events.

That sounds worthy.

Also, both Courage Campaign and Equality CA are mobilizing volunteers for many tasks from data entry and phone-banking to walking the streets.

Uh, guys, could you please, you know, COORDINATE?

Quotes from the news

From the AP, on the gay community's frustration with the president:

President Barack Obama promised gay and lesbian voters he would repeal a law banning their open service in the military, would do away with a federal marriage law and would champion their causes from the White House. In his first five months, he's taken incremental steps that have little real effect and left some people feeling betrayed.

But he's still willing to take money from a reliably Democratic constituency — he was sending Vice President Joe Biden to a Democratic National Committee fundraiser Thursday evening with gay and lesbian donors.....

"I don't think it's an appropriate time to be raising money. No one is happy now," said Richard Socarides, who advised former President Bill Clinton on gay issues and did not plan to attend the event. "On gay rights, the country is already in the age of Obama, but he's governing from the Clinton era."

Amusingly, in a grim way, this "go slow" approach is managing to alienate both sides at once. Remember, for the conservative right, they claim it's about marriage. But it's not. It's about ANY recognition of gay couples. From US News:

Conservative Christian groups criticizing the president's memorandum extending certain benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees are alleging that the president is approximating the benefits of marriage—that he's basically creating "marriage light." It's an interesting line of argument because polls show that most Americans support benefits for gay partners but oppose gay marriage.

Meannwhile, from the NY Times, a note about transgender recognition:

Lawyers for President Obama are quietly drafting first-of-their kind guidelines barring workplace discrimination against transgender federal employees, officials said Tuesday.

From CNN,, on hate crimes legislation (which is currently going nowhere fast):

Attorney General Eric Holder stepped up his call for the passage of federal hate crimes legislation Thursday, arguing that the federal government needs to take a stronger stand against criminal activity fueled by bias and bigotry.....

He also sought to assure opponents that such a bill would not allow Christian clergy to be prosecuted for outspoken opposition to homosexuality....

"Perpetrators of hate crimes seek to deny the humanity that we all share, regardless of the color of our skin, the God to whom we pray or the person who we choose to love. ...," he said. "The time is now to provide justice to victims of bias-motivated violence and to redouble our efforts to protect our communities from violence based on bigotry and prejudice."

FromRoll Call, evidence that Congress is noticing:

After five months of virtual inaction on the gay rights agenda, House Democratic leaders on Wednesday met privately to chart out a strategy for advancing the constituency group’s priorities in the 111th Congress.

From the National Review (yes, really!), how the Republicans have lost the marriage argument:

As someone who favors gay marriage, I think this Sanford scandal underscores a central truth. The anti-gay-marriage forces are stuck making a slippery-slope argument when, in fact, we’re already at the bottom of the slippery slope. Here’s a guy, Sanford, who has not just not a moral and religious incentive to keep his marriage vows, but also a political-survival incentive. Yet the public sense of the sacredness of marriage has declined to the point that even he couldn’t do it. How much more could this institution be eviscerated, by letting a tiny, tiny minority of same-sexers join it? (Gays are a small fraction of the population, and the percentage of them who want to get married is a small fraction of the small fraction. The issue is, as the lawyers say, de minimis.)

The Traditional marriage question: what tradition?

There have been a lot of claims that the marriage equality movement somehow threatens "traditional" marriage.

Exactly what is the tradition? Upon closer look, we find that our concepts of marriage have changed enormously over time. Marriage as we currently know it, based on the free association and choice of the couple, is really quite modern, maybe 150 years old. And the traditions aren't really what the anti-equality want to admire. Let's review some "traditions".

1. Polygamy Although in Western cultures, we haven't practiced polygamy in some time (except, ironically, for the Mormons), there is a strong tradition of polygamy in many cultures even today. It's quite common in many parts of the world. In fact, if you go back to Biblical times, polygamy is clearly Biblically countenanced. However, it is also associated with inequities (both to women, of course, and the unpartnered men) and is socially destabilizing. And it's clear no one (on either side) is arguing for the return of polygamy!
   
   
2. Then there's the issue of partner choice. Even today, marriage is really a legal contract. Traditionally, that contract was between families. Women were essentially property, to be sold with a bride price or a dowry to form alliances and bring benefits. And, arranged marriages are still very common in many countries today. It wasn't until the 1800's that the concept of marriage between romantic partners really became accepted, that marriage for love was the ideal.
   
   
3. What about the tradition that marriage is for children? That one left us in the 1960s, when sex and marriage became totally decoupled by the "sexual liberation" movement. In fact, around 40% of births in the US are to unwed mothers. Moreover, many couples choose not to have children at all; there's no requirement for fecundity. Since we let the infertile and the elderly marry, we've agreed that marriage ≠ childbearing. So, procreation is no longer the reason for marriage. Another tradition already gone.
   
   
4. Traditionally, marriage is between people of the same race. That tradition was Biblically justified by conservatives. However, in 1948, in Perez v. Sharp, the SCoCal found that
   

   "the essence of the right to marry is the right to join in marriage with the person of one's choice."

   while in 1967, when SCOTUS finally caught up to California, they averred that Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," and

   To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. .....Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

   
   
5. Of course, a huge change to "traditional marriage" comes through women's rights. It really isn't until recently, well within the last century, that women gained rights to property and consideration in their own right. It used to be that a woman had to have her husband's permission to apply for a credit card or to obtain contraception. She had no right to independent property. She could be beaten, or raped, by her husband and this was perfectly legal. In fact, it wasn't until 1993 that the last US state recognized the concept of marital rape. I don't know about you, but I don't find much to celebrate in that kind of tradition.
   
   
6. Lastly, there's the availability of divorce. In our modern society in the US, most states now allow "no-fault" divorce, where blame or fault need not be assigned one partner. Rates of divorce are high, leading to the estimate that approximately 50% of marriages will be dissolved. It's important to remember that this dissolution is a legal event, not done by the church that might have married the couple. However, biblical strictures against divorce abound, far more common than any mention of same-sex relationships. The Roman Catholic church prohibits remarriage following divorce but most other denominations are more (dare I say) liberal. In fact, there is a distinct irony that those protesting most strongly against marriage equality are often those who countenance divorce, or even have themselves divorced (rates are particular high for evangelicals). "Traditional" marriage being "for life" is therefore no longer the case. There is an implicit recognition that with our lengthened lifespans, not every couple will grow in the same way, and there is no longer an expectation that people must remain in unhappy partnership.

So, what we can see is that our modern concept of marriage is constantly evolving. From rejecting polygamy, to allowing the partners to choose one another, to separating marriage from child-bearing, to allowing people to marry across racial lines, to recognizing women as equal partners, and recognizing that marriages may not last a lifetime we've seen an enormous amount of change, and much of it is quite modern (within the last 150 or even the last 25 years). Pro-equality supporters do not want to change anything in our modern understanding of marriage, except a pronoun.

Importantly, we don't want to change one of the most important aspects of marriage: that of fidelity. Let's just look at marital fidelity. Seems the loudest exponents of "traditional marriage" have the hardest time with its most important tradition. Yes, I'm thinking of David Vitter, Larry Craig, John Ensign, and Mark Sanborn, and their ilk. And I'm comparing them to people like Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon and other GLBT couples who have really been together through thick and thin despite every obstacle. Truly, who is a better exponent of "traditional marriage"?

Half of the people in this country already have the right to marry a woman of their choice. Why shouldn't everyone?

Guam considers domestic partnerships

Apparently Guam feels that same sex couples should be protected:

The bill would permit same-sex couples who have lived in Guam for at least five years to receive all benefits granted to heterosexual married couples.....

The bill states, "there exists on Guam a large group of disaffected persons who have been denied one of the basic rights ever given to law abiding citizens; the right to enter into a marriage and to be given the same rights and benefits that have been given to other couples."

The measure also includes protections, stipulating that religious denominations, groups, or government officials that chose not to recognize same-sex marriages cannot be forced to officiate such ceremonies.

Predictably, the Catholic Archdiocese opposes it:

"A fundamental teaching of the church is that homosexuality is wrong. We must however continue to treat one another with great respect, dignity, and compassion in the words we speak and our actions no matter where we stand on this and any issue."

You know, there's precious little respect or compassion in opposition to a civil union.

Stories: Michael and Xavier

From Equality CA and the Jordan/ Rustin Coalition

Sen. Chris Dodd speaks out

From Sen Christopher Dodd:

While I’ve long been for extending every benefit of marriage to same-sex couples, I have in the past drawn a distinction between a marriage-like status (“civil unions”) and full marriage rights.

The reason was simple: I was raised to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. And as many other Americans have realized as they’ve struggled to reconcile the principle of fairness with the lessons they learned early in life, that’s not an easy thing to overcome.

But the fact that I was raised a certain way just isn’t a good enough reason to stand in the way of fairness anymore.

.....

My young daughters are growing up in a different reality from what I did. ..... to my daughters, these couples are married simply because they love each other and want to build a life together. That’s what we’ve taught them. The things that make those families different from their own pale in comparison to the commitments that bind those couples together.

And, really, that’s what marriage should be. It’s about rights and responsibilities and, most of all, love.

I believe that, when my daughters grow up, barriers to marriage equality for same-sex couples will seem as archaic, and as unfair, as the laws we once had against inter-racial marriage.

And I want them to know that, even if he was a little late, their dad came down on the right side of history.
.....

I understand that even those who oppose discrimination might continue to find it hard to re-think the definition of marriage they grew up with. I know it was for me.

But many of the things we must do to make our union more perfect – whether it’s fighting for decades to reform our health care system or struggling with a difficult moral question – are hard. They take time. And they require that, when you come to realize that something is right, you be unafraid to stand up and say it.

That’s the only way our history will progress along that long arc towards justice.

Sen. Dodd now joins Iowa Sen Tom Harkin who also changed his views and now is an advocate for marriage equality:

“We all grow as we get older, and we learn things and we become more sensitive to people and people’s lives,” Harkin said. “And the more I’ve looked at that, I’ve grown to think differently about how people — how we should live. And I guess I’m at the point that, you know — I’m to that point of live and let live,” Harkin said.

Do we need a leader? Reflections on Stonewall

This is the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. 40 years! For an historical view of this almost accidental event that changed our world, please see this terrific series by my blog-friend Counterlight: Part I, the mystery of Stonewall, followed by Part II, the Riots, and Part III, who rioted at Stonewall? and most relevant to this discussion Part IV, on the post-Stonewall movement.

Counterlight writes,

What both groups did, together and separately, was create a new confrontational gay politics sharply different from the ever-so-polite accommodation and influence peddling of the old New York Mattachine society. It was a participatory politics in which everyone had a part in the decision-making process and everyone participated in political activity. This was no longer the leadership driven politics of the old New York Mattachine. It was political action that was frequently very loud, angry, vulgar, messy and conflict-ridden, but it was also surprisingly effective and quickly got the attention of city politicos who never before took seriously anything gay.

In contrast to other civil rights movements, there was no clear leader or symbol for the gays: no one who could galvanize the movement or symbolize it like a Martin Luther King Jr or a Betty Friedan. The NY Times agrees with Counterlight,

Even in the movement’s earliest days following the violent uprising at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village 40 years ago this week, no singular leader emerged. Some historians believe this is in part because it was — and still is — difficult for the average American to empathize with the struggles of gay people......
By contrast, the moral authority that leaders like Dr. King, Ms. Friedan and Ms. Steinem could claim — and the fact that Americans did not look at them and imagine their sex lives — made it easier to build respectability with the public.

Another reason for the absence of a nationally prominent gay leader is the highly local nature of the movement. Unlike the civil rights and the feminist movements, the gay movement lacked a galvanizing national issue.

Of course, a generation of potential leaders was decimated by the AIDS/HIV crisis in the 1980s. The TImes goes on,

As the AIDS crisis was contained, gay activists shifted their focus in the late 1990s and early 2000s to laws about discrimination, hate crimes and domestic partnerships. Successes on those issues were due in large part to gay rights groups that rose up at the local level and learned to work with local lawmakers....Activists on the state and local levels were already well in place and found themselves positioned to wage the campaigns for same-sex marriage — as the recent successes in the Northeast have shown.

“They see dispersal as a great thing, that it’s better not to have a concentration or too much attention overinvested in one individual,” said David J. Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who has written about the civil rights and women’s rights movements.“The speed and breadth of change has been just breathtaking,” he added. “But it’s happened without a Martin Luther King.”

The downside of this is the upset we've seen in the last week and a half, of course. There is a huge variety of opinion in the community, from the more stately "go slow" of the classic gay right groups like HRC, to the scrappy bloggers demanding action. On a conference call on Monday with the White House, everyone is confused about how to deal with the bloggers. Meanwhile, the WHite House is having a "secret celebration" of Stonewall that they haven't told anyone about.

Whether Mr. Obama will address the complaints at Monday’s reception is unclear. One person who received the invitation said the White House was billing the event as a celebration, akin to the festive affairs the administration holds on St. Patrick’s Day or Cinco de Mayo. Another said the invitation included an offer to bring a guest. “They want people to understand that their partners are welcome,’’ said this person, speaking anonymously because the White House has not announced the event.

The bloggers are stewing at the secrecy and the lack of movement.
To me, this seems to be very similar to the events after Stonewall, when the rabble on the streets, not the professional organizers, finally had enough and said so.

Counterlight notes,

We see in the new leaders that emerged in the weeks and months following the riots a real change, especially in their public image. Gone are the suits and dresses and the anxious politeness.....The suits and the dresses were gone forever, along with the fear and the isolation.

Maybe that's what's happening now, with a new change in our leaderless, evolving movement. We'll see!

The voices of religious hate

I try to work to promote understanding between progressive people of faith and progressive people without faith. And, much of what I emphasize on this site is the unified goals of many faithful people, gay and straight, and the GLBT community.

But let us not forget that there are people of faith are filled with hate. In the recent hearings trying to overturn Washington DC's decision to recognize same sex marriage, an ostensible man of faith spat out the most vile lies. And the tragedy is that he got away with it. The HRC Backstory reports:

Minister Leroy linked gays and lesbians to pedophilia. He also suggested that LGBT families are “anti-Christ” and flatly stated that gay and lesbian people cannot have human rights because they are simply not human. He charged that sex between people of the same sex is “a form of bestiality” – not that it is like bestiality or could lead to the legalization of bestiality, but that it is conduct involving beasts, not human beings. He also claimed that “homosexuality would be the extinction of the human race.”

This is, quite literally, dehumanizing rhetoric. When one claims that LGBT people are not human and threaten to make the human race extinct, one is laying the groundwork not only for denying equal rights but also for far more dangerous action.

Mr. Swailes’ testimony was greeted with scattered applause. Not one supporter of the referendum rose to disclaim his words. No one stood up and said “this man does not speak for those of us who oppose marriage by same-sex couples.”

No one can control someone else’s actions, and our point is not that those who use over the top rhetoric, or who condone it, are directly responsible for violence. However, responsible leaders have a duty to speak up when those who stand beside them – advocating for the same goals – cross the line. We call on Rev. Jackson to make clear that he does not agree with Leroy Swailes, and that he believes Mr. Swailes’ words crossed a line. Rev. Jackson sat quietly at the hearing when Mr. Swailes spoke his hateful words. A responsible leader would have rushed to the witness table to make clear that Mr. Swailes does not speak for those who oppose recognition of marriages by same-sex couples. Rev. Jackson did nothing.

Indeed. By their silence, those who do not call out Mr Swailes implicitly agree. So they can't tell us they don't hate us. Because this is the voice of hate. And silence = consent.

Won't Back Down (video)

Jesus and the gays

A Rabbi writes:

Here's a glimpse of religion in America. All gays all the time. It seems that there is nothing else that can capture the spiritual imagination of this nation. Jesus came to the world to stop the damned gays. He had precious little else to say.....

The foremost danger to marriage in our time is the wholesale degradation of women in popular culture. In magazines, on TV, and especially on Internet porn, women are portrayed as the libidinous man's plaything, not an equal to be respected but a subordinate to be used. ...

How any of this congruent with Christian values is beyond me, but it seems that we've entered some weird Twilight Zone where opposition to gay marriage alone makes one into a Christian in good standing.

Look. I'm not here to condemn Carrie Prejean and I can of course be just as religiously inconsistent. But my point is that America has real problems and can really use an authentic spiritual voice to lead us out of the shallowness, greed, divorce, and teen sex that are plaguing our country. And so long as we make gay marriage the only issue of importance we abscond our moral responsibility to provide spiritual leadership to a starving generation. Most of all we shift our focus away from combating the misogyny that has become such a central staple of American culture.

Faith leaders as allies in marriage equality fight

Two studies analyze the interface of religion and marriage equality and the role of faith leaders in the fight. From NGLTF, a discussion of the common issues identified:

#Anti-LGBT ballot initiatives are often rooted in conservative religious rhetoric. Effective responses require faith voices and messages to counteract these claims in order to show religious diversity in support of marriage equality and to disprove the notion that conservative religious voices are the sole guardians of morality on these issues.

#Secular-religious partnerships are crucial to the success of legislative campaigns and to the broader goals of social justice and equal rights under the law for LGBT people.

#Advocates should not write off certain religious communities as impossible to win nor overlook any "unlikely" allies, be it the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church or African-American churches. While some communities may have official pronouncements against marriage equality and campaign against it, almost always there are members within that community who by conscience have different views.

#A narrow political campaign frame hinders effective collaboration with religious communities. LGBT faith advocates and supporters must work within their denominations for full support of LGBT rights, including marriage equality and adoption by same-sex couples.

#Media work that takes seriously the language and culture of religious people is critical. It is crucial to quickly rebut inaccurate religious arguments and misleading statements from anti-equality forces. Furthermore, the message of LGBT rights should be framed in a mainstream way so that people feel connected to the issue. In addition, non-LGBT organizations, such as civil and human rights and faith groups, should be sought as campaign allies.

Another issue is defending religious rights explicitly. Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson comments

"I do think that inclusion of language protecting religious institutions was key to our success here in New Hampshire. While those protections technically, already existed in the law, the restatement of those protections in the new marriage equality law undercut most of the opposition's arguments based on religion."

....same-sex marriage supporters "were very careful to teach the public about the difference between civil marriage and religious marriage." He noted that, "When a divorce is sought, you don't go back to the church or synagogue" where the marriage was performed.

Additionally, other faith leaders have spoken out to describe gay marriage as a "theological necessity".

How do we get it across in DC?

I'm not sure I agree with a march on DC. I'm of the view that the money and effort could be better spent in the states, fighting for our rights.

On the other hand, after a grueling weekend where we learn exactly how Washington is going to treat us, maybe I should. What do you think?

The difference between liberals and conservatives

In a recent column, Nick Kristoff reports on a study that looks at reactions of liberals and conservatives to various (non-political) stimuli:

The larger point is that liberals and conservatives often form judgments through flash intuitions that aren’t a result of a deliberative process. ....

One of the main divides between left and right is the dependence on different moral values. For liberals, morality derives mostly from fairness and prevention of harm. For conservatives, morality also involves upholding authority and loyalty — and revulsion at disgust....

“Minds are very hard things to open, and the best way to open the mind is through the heart,” Professor Haidt says. “Our minds were not designed by evolution to discover the truth; they were designed to play social games.”

Thus persuasion may be most effective when built on human interactions. Gay rights were probably advanced largely by the public’s growing awareness of friends and family members who were gay.

Basically this argues that the "ick factor" IS a huge problem for conservatives to get over with respect to GLBT rights, and stresses the importance of coming out to everyone . Because when their "ick response" conflicts with their knowledge of you as a good person, maybe....just maybe....we'll start making progress.

Nation's mayors support equality.

From The Advocate:The U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution supporting marriage equality.

Conference president and mayor of Seattle Greg Nickels said, “The nation’s mayors are proud to take the lead in recognizing the importance of protecting all our citizens equally. It is now time for state legislatures and our federal government to enact the same protections for all our nation’s citizens.”

The resolution, titled Equality and Civil Rights for Gay and Lesbian Americans, also endorsed federal bills including the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, the Uniting American Families Act, and the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

The resolution read that the conference of mayors “opposes the enshrinement of discrimination in the federal and state constitutions.”

Will the census count the gays?

The Wall Street Journal reports,

The White House said Thursday it was seeking ways to include same-sex marriages, unions and partnerships in 2010 Census data, the second time in a week the administration has signaled a policy change of interest to the gay community.

This would appear to be a no-brainer, but apparently, the previous administrations refused to count us. It's almost Orwellian:

The Census Bureau has long collected data on same-sex marriages when people chose to report it. White House officials said the previous administration interpreted the federal Defense of Marriage Act as prohibiting the release of the data.

Am I the only one who finds that really bizarre? They collected the data but couldn't release it?

Following procedures employed in 2000, the bureau had planned to use a computer program that recategorized spouses in same-sex marriages as unmarried partners. For the 1990 count, the bureau simply altered the gender designation of one partner.

Thus, in 1990, committed gay couples were designated straight. You know, you simply cannot make up this stuff.

Hey, census! Over here on the left coast! I'm a Gay, Married Californian!

Becoming a gay marriage supporter in NY

From the NY Times, NY politician Tom Suozzi speaks out:

I have listened to many well-reasoned and well-intentioned arguments both for and against same-sex marriage. And as I talked to gays and lesbians and heard their stories of pain, discrimination and love, my platitudes about civil unions began to ring hollow. I have struggled to find the solution that best serves the common good.

I now support same-sex marriage. ....

Under current New York State law, same-sex couples are deprived of access to the employment benefits, life and health insurance and inheritance laws that heterosexual couples have. If the state were to institute civil unions for same-sex couples, that discrimination would end, but we’d still be creating a separate and unequal system..... We must see that civil marriage, which has always been separate from religious marriage, will remain so.

But most important, gays and lesbians have suffered too long from legal discrimination, social marginalization and even violence. They are entitled to clear recognition of their equal status as citizens of a country that is founded on the principle that we are all inherently worthy. By delivering a clear message that same-sex couples can no longer be treated as separate and unequal in New York, we will also reduce discrimination in everyday life. We will all be better for that.

Equal civil marriage should, and likely will, pass because of the public’s growing unwillingness to sustain inequality. Society will also be strengthened as more people take responsibility for one another in marriage. I now encourage others who oppose gay marriage to re-examine the reasons they do so, and to consider changing their minds too.

Massive shift in Michigan

The Detroit Free Press reports,

In what Glengariff Group pollster Richard Czuba describes as a seismic shift in public opinion, even support for gay marriage has nearly doubled since a similar poll in 2004. That poll was conducted before voters approved an amendment to the Michigan Constitution defining marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman.

In October 2004, a Glengariff poll showed 24% of Michiganders supported marriage rights for same-sex partners, and only 42% supported legal recognition of civil unions. In the new poll, support for same sex marriage was 46.5% and for civil unions 63.7%. Forty-eight percent of state voters said they opposed adding marriage rights, the only one of nine gay rights issues not winning majority support....

Czuba said a shift in opinion was evident in almost every demographic group, including self-identified Republicans. He attributed much of the change to the sharply higher number of poll respondents who said they know a gay or lesbian person in 2009 (80.2%) compared with in 2004 (56%).

Well, that's just marvelous, isn't it? The problem is that before they had their equal rights epiphany, the voters of Michigan passed a broadly-worded Constitutional Amendment against same-sex marriage, which the court has interpreted to say bars civil unions, health benefits for same-sex partners, and other fundamental protections. Which, some believe, has further damaged the economy of a badly damaged state, by making it inhospitable to the "creative class".

So now what, Michigan?

Seems a Michigan lawmaker is making the first move:

The proposal announced by State Rep. Pam Byrnes faces an uphill climb. Michigan voters in 2004 passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, effectively banning the legal recognition of same-sex marriage.....The joint resolution by the Democrat from Washtenaw County's Lyndon Township would have to be approved by two-thirds of the Michigan Legislature before it would be put to voters in the 2010 election.

Good luck with that. Chances are pretty bad.

So, HAS the momentum changed?

Writing in the Advocate, Michelangelo Signorile says

All of this is further evidence that we are winning -- and that we need to act like we’re winning and take the offensive. It’s true that, for the most part, we’re only starting to win the debate and have yet to win many of those all-important tangible rights, as a vast majority of the states still don’t recognize marriage equality. We don’t yet have federal protections against hate crimes or antidiscrimination laws safeguarding the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in housing, employment, and public accommodations. And discrimination is still written into federal law, as the largest employer in the country -- the American military -- legally prohibits us from serving openly. Some people have suggested that marriage equality will usher in these other rights -- and that may be true. But it will be a very long time before marriage for gay men and lesbians arrives in all 50 states, so we’ve got to fight for all of these basic rights too. We have lots of battles on many fronts, and no doubt we’ll have some big losses as well as some wins.

Still, 40 years ago the Stonewall rioters couldn’t have imagined that on this day there’d be gay people getting married in the heartland or that a legislature would override a governor in standing up for marriage equality. Iowa and Vermont, perhaps more than Prop. 8 and the protests that followed, will likely be looked back on as a major turning point, yet another Stonewall moment.

Yeah? And then we have a weekend of the DoJ defending DOMA with the most egregious language imaginable. What's that they say about 2 steps forward, one step back?

Update An article at the conservative Independent Gay Forum rightly comments,

DOMA and DADT are federal laws that explicitly require the government to discriminate based on a person's sexual orientation. Discrimination is the considered policy of the U.S. government when it comes to lesbians and gay men.

Seems to me the claim of victory is a tad premature.

Stories: Paul and Kevin

From the LA Times:

Paul Waters and Kevin Voecks will celebrate their first wedding anniversary Wednesday. Marriage has added 'a deeper dimension' to their 16-year relationship, they say.

Two days after the wedding ....a friend left a message on their answering machine.

Fighting back tears, Jim Hacket exalted in how their wedding was "so normal, something that happens every day in the United States. . . . That was the way it was supposed to be, a wedding that was . . . just a wedding."

Read the whole thing!

Federal employee benefits: married people need not apply

Obama signed today a memorandum for partner benefits that federal employees already had. In his remarks, Obama says the right words:

I stand by my long-standing commitment to work with Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. It's discriminatory, it interferes with States' rights, and it's time we overturned it.

"I am also proud to announce my support for an important piece of legislation introduced in both Houses of Congress last month -- the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009. This legislation will extend to the same-sex partners of Federal employees the same benefits already enjoyed by the opposite-sex spouses of Federal employees. ....

"Extending equal benefits to the same-sex partners of Federal employees is the right thing to do. It is also sound economic policy. Many top employers in the private sector already offer benefits to the same-sex partners of their employees; those companies recognize that offering partner benefits helps them compete for and retain the brightest and most talented employees. The Federal Government is at a disadvantage on that score right now, and change is long overdue.

"As Americans, we are all affected when our promises of equality go unfulfilled. Through measures like the Presidential Memorandum I am issuing today and the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009, we will advance the principles upon which our Nation was founded and continue to perfect our Union."

Meanwhile, Aravosis counters that DOMA did NOT prevent actual benefits (you know, like health care?)

Here's why: DOMA prohibits granting benefits based on marriage, it does not prohibit granting benefits overall. Thus, you define a standard that isn't marriage, such as domestic partnerships as defined by, say, the amount of time spent dating, living together, comingling funds, etc. Had Obama simply said we will give health benefits to the domestic partners, straight and gay, of all federal employees, and given a definition of domestic partner that does not include marriage of civil unions, he could have done it.

Interesting theory. THere is some support to this because Federal judges have found (although not by court ruling) that two gay justice department employees are entitled to health benefits; the rulings implied that since the employees weren't married, they could be eligible. Even if it's not true that Obama could have done it NOW, under DOMA and the pending DP act, it sounds like gay couples who legally married in their home states are the only ones that will be ineligible for proper benefits. Inotherwords, marriage will DEPRIVE people of benefits.

I'm afraid at this point, though, talk is cheap. An executive memo (that will expire when he leaves office) that gives people sick leave and long term care insurance, doesn't really count as significant movement. I am expecting some fierce advocating, here, that will make ALL Americans full citizens.

Update: The NY Times has an editorial.

Why the GLBT community is mad at Obama

This comment from Daily Kos user craigkg enumerates the numerous mis-steps of the Obama administration with respect to the GLBT community. Let's just look at the recent ones:

*The Windy City Times revealed it had found a 1996 candidate questionnaire from Obama's run for the Illinois state Senate in which then Prof Obama stated his unequivocal support for same sex marriage meaning that his position on the issue has devolved from one of full equality to one of opposing equality opting for a segregationist institution instead.

*After the Iowa Supreme Court decision, the Obama White House released a statement on the ruling reiterating Obama's opposition to marriage equality and failed to even use the word "equal" at all. After a mini-blogosphere storm started to form, a "corrected" release was sent out changing the clause "he believes that committed gay and lesbian couples should receive protection under the law" to "he believes that committed gay and lesbian couples should receive equal rights under the law."

*After Vermont successfully overrode Gov Douglas' veto of the marriage equality bill and after Maine and New Hampshire's bills were signed into law, the White House's response was: " "

*The White House started deleting pro-GLBT language on the White House website. The outcry over the removal of the items prompted some of the material to be put back, but with much weaker, softer language forcing yet another revision of the language to placate the outrage.

*While appoint some GLBT persons to his administration, none of the appointments have been very high positions, the highest being the Director of Personnel Management. Obama passed on selecting an openly GLBT nominee to the Supreme Court and none of his other judicial appointments have been GLBT meaning there is still but one GLBT judge out of approximately 860 federal judgeships (0.12%).

*Obama has passed up several high profile opportunities to suspend separations under Don't Ask, Don't Tell when the discharges of 2nd Lt. Sandy Tsao, Lt. Dan Choi and Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach became publicly notable. GLBT servicemembers continue to be discharged at a rate of approximately two per day.

*The Obama administration successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to deny a hearing on Lt. Col. Fehrehbach's challenge to the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

*Obama's DOJ files an incendiary brief in a challenge to DOMA that relies on analogies to incest and pedophilia (or more correctly ebophilia) and goes well beyond what was necessary to secure that the petition in question is not granted a writ of certiorari.

Add to that a publicity stunt over "benefits" for gay employees that doesn't even include health care. The pattern here is one where he actually doesn't support our families or our equality. What happened to the guy I elected?

Update craigkg turned his original comment into a longer diary post at Daily Kos.

UpdateWockner reviews the "gay tsunami" that hit Obama

Partner benefits for gay federal employees: no health care?

The White House has announced that, as expected, President Obama will offer gay federal employees domestic partner benefits.

President Barack Obama will be signing a presidential memorandum Wednesday to provide benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. The signing is scheduled for 5:45 p.m. in the Oval Office, and the president is scheduled to make brief remarks.

But I want you to realize there is less in this than you think.
The big issue is that because of DOMA, these "benefits" will not include health care. They will not include retirement. As the Advocate reports,

The White House press office declined to detail which benefits would be included, but people familiar with the legal obstacles posed by the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, said health benefits are not likely to be a part of the package. The Lieberman-Baldwin Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, a bi-cameral bill that was introduced last month, will still need to be passed by Congress in order for full benefits to be extended to domestic partners of federal workers

"...it will take an act of Congress for the full suite of benefits such as health benefits and retirement benefits to be provided for same-sex couples and families," said Leonard Hirsch, president of Federal Globe: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Employees of the Federal Government. Hirsch said the executive branch has the authority to extend certain other benefits through departments and agencies, such as providing relocation costs for partners of federal employees.

Read that again. No health care. No retirement. Because of DOMA, which the president's DoJ supports. So they may get some relocation expenses. So what?

(There is some disagreement in the media whether health care is covered or not. The White House isn't saying "on the record" whether it is; the Advocate's legal experts and the GLOBE president say they can't be, because of DOMA. The NY Times confirms that no health benefits are included.)

Partner benefits have been provided by many employers to gay couples around the country for a long time. In fact, the HRC has a corporate equality index that ranks employers. Such benefits are not all they are cracked up to be, however. For same sex partners, they are fully taxable as income. So if your plan costs your employer say an extra $800 a month for your partner, that $9600 a year will be considered additional taxable income from the IRS. Something that they DON'T do if you are husband and wife. But Thanks to DOMA,, the Fed can't even match hundreds of private employers who already provide this option, imperfect as it is.

But you have to hand it to them, it's a very canny move. It appears in response to the DoJ debacle (it wasn't, we've heard about this for a while). They manage to deflect the gay ire by a masterful bit of legerdemain . "Look! shiny!" They spend relatively little political capital on something that affects relatively few people and gives them basically NOTHING. They manage not to address any of the Big Issues that the community cares about, those 8 promises they made about everything from DOMA to ENDA. Remember they promised to repeal DOMA? Did you know that is no longer part of their agenda. As we could tell from the DoJ brief.

Still, they have deflected the firestorm. Everyone will quiet down, and if they don't, they will be pointed at as the whiny gays. Relocation expenses! You should consider yourselves blessed! And true equality is a can that just got kicked down the road.

Update: White House Press release enumerates benefits:

For civil service employees, domestic partners of federal employees can be added to the long-term care insurance program; supervisors can also be required to allow employees to use their sick leave to take care of domestic partners and non-biological, non-adopted children. For foreign service employees, a number of benefits were identified, including the use of medical facilities at posts abroad, medical evacuation from posts abroad, and inclusion in family size for housing allocations.

This does not include health insurance benefits, only long-term care. And as if this isn't pathetic enough, it has been suggested that these rights herein enumerated already have been given to gay federal employees--or at least are permissible, if not mandatory.

Update Good overview from The LA Times.

The Main Stream Media finally notices the DOMA brief

The news about the DOMA brief heated up the blogs, but didn't get much traction with the MSM until yesterday. There was a fair story from CBS on their website. Even the Wall Street Journal noticed the letter from HRC that I excerpted below. But the best one is the NY Times editorial.

The Obama administration, which came to office promising to protect gay rights but so far has not done much, actually struck a blow for the other side last week. It submitted a disturbing brief in support of the Defense of Marriage Act,

...The brief insists it is reasonable for states to favor heterosexual marriages because they are the “traditional and universally recognized form of marriage.” In arguing that other states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages under the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause, the Justice Department cites decades-old cases ruling that states do not have to recognize marriages between cousins or an uncle and a niece.

These are comparisons that understandably rankle many gay people....

The brief also maintains that the Defense of Marriage Act represents a “cautious policy of federal neutrality” — an odd assertion since the law clearly discriminates against gay couples. Under the act, same-sex married couples who pay their taxes are ineligible for the sort of federal benefits — such as Social Security survivors’ payments and joint tax returns — that heterosexual married couples receive.....

If the administration does feel compelled to defend the act, it should do so in a less hurtful way. It could have crafted its legal arguments in general terms, as a simple description of where it believes the law now stands. There was no need to resort to specious arguments and inflammatory language to impugn same-sex marriage as an institution....

In times like these, issues like repealing the marriage act can seem like a distraction — or a political liability. But busy calendars and political expediency are no excuse for making one group of Americans wait any longer for equal rights.

Good Op/Ed.

Meanwhile, over on Rachel Maddow's show, former DNC chair Howard Dean explains the likely political fallout.

“The language in this brief is really offensive and it really is a terrible mistake,” said Dean. “I doubt very much the president knew this was coming. I don’t think for a minute this represents the president’s position. But he is now going to have to dig himself out of this, because people are really upset about this, not just in the gay and lesbian community, but in the community of people who are interested in equal rights,” he said.

Update: The LA Times joins in

On Sunday, the administration's top-ranking openly gay official offered a less-than-stellar prognosis for gay rights. Obama remains committed to banning employment discrimination against gays, along with repealing the marriage act and "don't ask, don't tell," said John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, and that will happen "before the sun sets on this administration." The implication was that much of this agenda might wait until a second term.

The gap between Obama and gay rights activists appears to be growing. True, the current federal lawsuits against the marriage act and Proposition 8 fail to recognize that a hasty march can be damaging to gay rights. The current composition of the U.S. Supreme Court makes it highly unlikely that such lawsuits will succeed, and adverse decisions could set the same-sex marriage movement back by years. From an ideological viewpoint, gays and lesbians are entitled to their rights now. But well-planned timing gives them the best chance of securing those rights soon. Obama, though, has shown a dishearteningly pragmatic willingness to allow the issue of gay rights to languish. The many Americans who support these rights expect better of him.

By the numbers

Nate Silver over at the polling site FiveThirtyEight discusses how to get people to support marriage equality. It turns out that how you frame the question matters. Should the government allow gay marriage, or should the government prohibit gay marriage?

In fact if you ask the question as to whether marriage between two people of the same sex should be a private decision, or whether it should be subject to government intervention about 63% of Americans think it should be a private decision. For comparison, about 95% think marriage between two people of different races should be a private decision not regulated by the government, while only 18% think the same applies to marriage between minors.

If you ask the question in the more typical framing of "should the government permit gay marriage?" the numbers are more around 42% in favor. The difference is that the traditional framing sees marriage as something the government bestows. The less-traditional framing sees it in a more libertarian light, that the government has no business in the private matters between two consenting adults.

Nate argues that framing the argument in future battles will help.

[A]dvocates for same-sex marriage can do a better job of framing their argument. Generally speaking, appeals to government noninterference are fairly popular; people don't like government telling them what they do and they don't have the right to do. Posit equal treatment under the law as the default -- how dare the government make a law that abridges this right on the basis of something as trivial as sexual orientation.

Meanwhile, in a review of a study of gay marriage views state-by-state, Andrew Gelman of Columbia argues for the idea of a tipping point. It seems that

In the past fifteen years, gay marriage has increased in popularity in all fifty states. No news there, but what was a surprise to me is where the largest changes have occurred. The popularity of gay marriage has increased fastest in the states where gay rights were already relatively popular in the 1990s.

.
That is, rather than seeing a general shift towards more favorable views, the rate of approval accelerates faster when there is already a certain threshold.

In the graph, you can see a huge increase of approval rates in states at the top of the list, which were already pretty positive in 1994. On the other hand, at the bottom of the list, there is much less change and in the religious theocracy of Utah, support has actually declined.

Is this because there are more gay people in the friendlier states, or more "out" gay people? Thus people in friendlier states are more likely to know gay people and understand how deeply injuring the marriage bans are. It's harder to discriminate when you can picture the victim of that treatment. Or is it because, once you reach a certain threshold, anti-gay views become more socially unacceptable, the way overt racism or other prejudices are unacceptable? Whatever the case, it's clear that a 50-state recognition of marriage equality is a long way away, and, as in many other aspects of social progress, including racism and women's rights, there is a rump of states that will lag behind. Sadly, they are mostly the same states in all these issues: the deep South evangelical-land.

Meanwhile, despite the changes in momentum, we've seen no progress federally, and if anything a regression this last week.

(Click the graph for a closer view).

DOMA backlash continues

John Aravosis notes, the White House may plan to throw us a bone.

[We] got an email the other day from a well-connected gay friend, and he said he was hearing rumors that the Obama administration, in an effort to woo back the gays, was thinking of possibly announcing the following this month:

1. Something on Hate Crimes.
2. Federal benefits for partners of gay federal employees.
3. A gay ambassador.

Let me explain something. All of that is very sweet and nice. But it's all very 1990s. Bill Clinton and George W Bush both appointed gay ambassadors, so you get no kudos there. Federal benefits for partners of gay federal employees is, again, nice, and will certainly benefit the handful of gays who work in the government. But again, it's very 1990s, in terms of issues on the gay community's radar. And finally, Hate Crimes. Nice bill, important, but totally bottom of the barrel in terms of its importance compared to DOMA, ENDA, and DADT. Not to mention, Hate Crimes already passed the Senate and House in the last Congress - we expect more with a Democratic president who has promised to be our "fierce advocate."

Aravosis notes some potential problems with it as well, because based on the now-notorious DoJ brief supporting DOMA, those gay state employees can't get any benefits if they are married or civil-unioned in their home states. Because Federal Law prohibts any such recognition of their status. Sad irony, don't you think?

Meanwhile, the HRC actually wrote a letter. A good one, that actually challenges the statements in the brief:

The government goes on to say that DOMA reasonably protects other taxpayers from having to subsidize families like ours. ....These arguments completely disregard the fact that LGBT citizens pay taxes ourselves. We contribute into Social Security equally and receive the same statement in the mail every year. But for us, several of the benefits listed in the statement are irrelevant—our spouses and children will never benefit from them. The parent who asserts that her payments into Social Security should ensure her child’s financial future should she die is not seeking a subsidy. The gay White House employee who works as hard as the person in the next office is not seeking a “subsidy” for his partner’s federal health benefits. He is earning the same compensation without receiving it. And the person who cannot even afford to insure her family because the federal government would treat her partner’s benefits as taxable income—she is not seeking a subsidy.

The government again ignores our experiences when it argues that DOMA § 2 does not impair same-sex couples’ right to move freely about our country as other families can....This example shows the fallacy of that argument: a same-sex couple and their child drives cross-country for a vacation. On the way, they are in a terrible car accident. One partner is rushed into the ICU while the other, and their child, begs to be let in to see her, presenting the signed power of attorney that they carry wherever they go. They are told that only “family” may enter, and the woman dies alone while her spouse waits outside. This family was not “welcome.”....

I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones....

As an American, a civil rights advocate, and a human being, I hold this administration to a higher standard than this brief..... this brief should not be good enough for you. The question is, Mr. President—do you believe that it’s good enough for us?

If we are your equals, if you recognize that our families live the same, love the same, and contribute as much as yours, then the answer must be no.

We call on you to put your principles into action and send legislation repealing DOMA to Congress.

I'm not holding my breath. I suspect Aravosis is right: they will throw us a couple of bones but will not grapple with any serious matters. And we will continue to be told to shut up, that our issues are not important enough, that our lives are not important enough. So terribly inconvenient, we homosexuals.

Cartoon from the Washington Blade

No chance to fix ENDA, DADT, or DOMA: Obama admin spokesman

Both Pamshouseblend and AmericaBlog quote John Berry, the highest profile gay appointee in the White House (and the openly gay head of the Office of Personnel Management), as saying that ENDA, DADT, and DOMA cannot (or will not) be dealt with by Obama any time soon.

ENDA is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Basically it says you can't fire someone simply for being gay.

DADT is Don't Ask Don't Tell. It's how the military fires gay people. It says that you can serve in the military as long as you don't tell anyone (or they don't pursue, but they do).

DOMA is the egregious Defense of Marriage Act , that means my valid California marriage evaporates the minute I drive over the border. BTW, Berry apparently says that Obama "owns" the hate-filled, insulting brief that was filed to defend DOMA.

Berry: We don’t have the votes to do Hate Crimes right now, we don’t have the votes to do ENDA, how are we going [to get “don’t ask, don’t tell?

Well, we aren't if you don't try to help, are we?

That is our "fierce advocate" for change.

Now, who wants to join me in the back of the bus? looks like we'll be there for a while.

DOMA defense worse than we think

While it can be argued that the DoJ has to defend DOMA, which (like it or not) is the law of the land right now, much of the fuss and bother over the DoJ's brief is in its savage depiction of gays and lesbians. It's every awful right-wing talking point. Just imagine what it will cost us in the political struggle to have THESE words thrown back at us as "Obama's DoJ says..."

John Culhane writes it's even worst than we think.

.... once that strategy matter is decided, there are all sorts of briefs one might write. The simplest, and least harmful, would have been to challenge the case on standing (since the plaintiffs hadn’t “applied” for federal benefits); to the extent a more substantive argument were thought advisable, a standard-issue argument about judicial deference would have sufficed. At the other end of the spectrum is the brief that was actually written.....The brief is a jaw-dropping assault on gays and lesbians. Instead of the kind of measured and careful response I was expecting (despite the jeremiads I was reading), I got a brief that seems to have been intended to set the course of judicial progress on gay rights back many years. I wish I were exaggerating.

Another lawyer at Lawdork:

Even if one argues, as I often have, that a government lawyer — from the Department of Justice to state attorneys general — must defend even those laws with which one disagrees*, such a lawyer needn’t overstate his or her case. The government lawyer defending a statute with which she disagrees needn’t add gratuitous demeaning statements into the legal brief she files.

Lawdork notes with some sarcasm in a related post,

It’s good to know that as Obama Department of Justice was putting the finishing touches on its pro-DOMA Motion to Dismiss in Smelt v. United States, it sent its highest-ranked openly gay Administration official to praise the President at an LGBT event at the DOJ....Although he didn’t realize, Berry’s question is best posed to the president or Holder themselves: “Where do you stand? Honoring love as precious and true wherever you find it, or with those who would demean or deny it?” In its DOMA filing, the Justice Department both demeaned LGBT people and denied our love.

Others are also gobsmacked. From The Independent Gay Forum:

It is gratuitously insulting to lesbians and gay men, referring (unnecessarily) to same-sex marriage as a “form” of marriage, approving of congressional comparisons between same-sex marriages and loving relationships between siblings, or grandparents and grandchildren, and arguing (with a straight face, I can only assume) that discrimination against same-sex couples is rational because it saves the federal government money. There are some respectable arguments in this motion, and this kind of disrespect is offensive.

Andrew Sullivan:

The deployment of arguments that refer to our relationships as equivalent to incest, that demand that we simply marry someone of the opposite sex if we want our civil rights, that implies federal recognition of our civil marriages would mean taxing some Americans to pay for something they abhor: this is simply salt in the wound, and it will be deployed and used by every far right gay-hater in the future, and cited as endorsed by the Obama administration.

The mainstream gay groups say (including ACLU, GLAD, Lambda Legal, NCLR, HRC and NGLTF)

When President Obama was courting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, he said that he believed that DOMA should be repealed. We ask him to live up to his emphatic campaign promises, to stop making false and damaging legal arguments, and immediately to introduce a bill to repeal DOMA and ensure that every married couple in America has the same access to federal protections.

The Justice department scrambled to defend themselves.

As it generally does with existing statute, the Justice Department is defending the law on the books,” said Justice Department spokesperson Tracy Schmaler. “As you know, the president has said he wants to see a legislative repeal of DOMA, but until Congress passes legislation repealing the law, the administration will continue to defend the statute when it’s challenged.

The president, that "fierce advocate"? Sullivan again:

I also understand the need to defend existing law. But the zealous defense of DOMA - including repeating countless spurious and unnecessary slurs against gay people - need not be a lawyer's duty. It is a choice by his political superiors. It is not the fact of this brief, it is its contents and rhetoric that sting. They did not have to go this far.....The more I learn the clearer it is that this was a conscious decision by Obama's DOJ to use evey conceivable argument to kill any constitutional attack on DOMA. At the same time, they are clearly committed to doing nothing in the foreseeable future to enact any redress for those couples currently denied their civil rights. On top of this, they obviously did nothing to prepare gay couples or any gay leaders for this swipe at them. Why? Are relations that broken? Some judicious explanation ahead of time would surely have been in everyone's interest. But again, one gets the impression that for the Obama administration, gay people are a burden, a distraction and a bore.

This brief goes beyond narrow definitions and legal parsing. It's brutalizing. And for an administration that is supposed to be so on the ball, so talented, so on-message, it's hard to believe that no one reviewed this. Knowing how the GLBT community has been feeling, it's absolutely remarkable that a brief straight out of the Bush era got though with these kinds of arguments. So, I see several possibilities. (1) Sullivan is right, and the White House doesn't care. (2) it has made a calculating decision to make the GLBT community the whipping boy, to show the right-wingers in this quest for bi-partisanship that they can all agree on the icky gays, or (3) it is hoping this thing gets refute forcefully in court. But wouldn't possibility (3) be against legal ethics? Lawyers don't write briefs intending to lose. So sadly, regretfully, I can't see much likelihood in (3).

And this vicious hurtful brief was ironically released on June 12, the 42nd anniversary of Loving v. Virginia.

Update From Joe Sudbay

Yesterday, a Democratic President of the United States of America, in the year 2009, and an African-American child of inter-racial parents no less, gave his lawyers the go ahead to compare our marriages to incest on the same day that 42 years ago the Supreme Court ruled in his parents' favor in Loving v. Virginia. And these people, along with our President, are suggesting that the appropriate response is to shrug our shoulders and go home, since, after all, the law is the law?

Update from gay activist David Mixner:

You fully need to understand the ramifications of this brief: it undercuts every conceivable argument that the LGBT community would use to fight for the repeal of DOMA. Right-wing nut cases can now just simply quote horrible stuff from this hateful brief and proclaim loudly it was filed by the Obama Justice Department. The President and his team have not only undercut this community but have damaged his own ability to repeal this hideous law given to us by President Clinton. With Democratic friends like these, God helps us.

Same Sex Marriage good for the economy

A new study(pdf) tests the proposition that same sex marriage helps attract young, mobile and highly educated people (the "creative class"). They explain,

one of the most provocative conclusions to come out of Richard Florida’s best-selling book The Rise of the Creative Class (Basic Books, 2002) was his assertion that a vibrant and visible lesbian and gay community marks one of the best predictors of a region’s ability to attract a group of workers that he dubs the creative class. Florida argues that the creative class (comprised of an eclectic mix of individuals in occupations including artists, teachers, financiers, software engineers, and scientists) represents a key to regional economic development in today’s post-industrial and global economy. The creative class is a relatively young, highly educated, and mobile workforce that values innovation and diversity as keys to creating stimulating work environments.

So they tested this by analyzing the people who migrated to Massachusetts in the wake of marriage equality and found

evidence that marriage equality may have an impact on the migration of creative class workers among same-sex couples in the United States. They were 2.5 times more likely to move to the state after marriage equality than before. This positions Massachusetts as a leader within the Northeast region in attracting this segment of the workforce.

Findings also offer evidence that marriage equality played a broader role in the migration decision of many married same-sex couples. Women may see marriage protections as more salient since they are more likely to have children than are gay men. Notably, they comprise a much larger portion of individuals in same-sex couples who moved to Massachusetts after marriage equality.....

The evidence that marriage equality may enhance the ability of Massachusetts to attract highly-skilled creative class workers among those in same-sex couples offers some support that the policy has the potential to have a long-term positive economic impact.

And let's not forget that there is a substantial boost to the economy simply by providing marriage services. As reported by Boston.com,

A study says the over 12,000 same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts since 2004 have pumped over $111 million into the state's economy.

Not bad!

Marriage Equality a Theological Necessity

From the HuffPo

As Christians, we believe it is crucial for us to support the freedom to marry for loving and committed gay couples. In fact, we believe it is a theological necessity, and we call on our state legislators to take action to end inequality now.

Our support for marriage equality is motivated by our religious commitments, not in spite of them. .... As religious communities continue to wrestle with interpretation of sacred texts about the meaning and ordinance of marriage, our gay brothers and sisters deserve the same dignity, respect, and protections under the law as different sex couples receive in our state and our country.

Marriage equality and religious freedom are not in conflict. When states grant the civil rights of marriage to gay couples, religious communities still maintain their right to recognize whichever relationships they see fit as a religious community. ....

In a land of true equality, civil marriage contracts must be open to all loving couples who seek to undertake the promises and responsibilities of life-long partnership.

....We've also learned from nearly five years of marriage equality in Massachusetts that religious freedoms are not endangered because civil equality has been upheld. In Massachusetts the institution of marriage is being strengthened by loving and committed gay couples receiving marriage licenses from the state. ....

Attacks will come, cloaked in the language of religion, from those who oppose equality. But speaking as committed Christian leaders in New York, we support the promise of civil freedom and equality. We cannot abandon civil rights protected by the state without endangering the very ground for religious freedom. .....As people of faith we call for full marriage equality and give thanks to God for the civil government that will allow it.

Obama's DoJ defends DOMA

We've been talking for sometime about whether Obama will do anything about DOMA.

Well, his DOJ will actively SUPPORT it. The DoJ has filed a brief defending DOMA in California, with every right-wing anti-gay talking point you would expect from a Bush Administration.

The SF Chronicle reports

This case does not call upon the Court to pass judgment ... on the legal or moral right of same-sex couples, such as plaintiffs here, to be married," the motion states. "Plaintiffs are married, and their challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act ("DOMA") poses a different set of questions.

"It's a different case from a recent federal lawsuit by two unmarried gay couples in California who claim a civil right to marry under the U.S. Constitution.

The government said Smelt and Hammer seek a ruling on "whether by virtue of their marital status they are constitutionally entitled to acknowledgment of their union by states that do not recognize same-sex marriage, and whether they are similarly entitled to certain federal benefits.

"Under the law binding on this Court, the answer to these questions must be no," the motion states.

Americablog quotes the brief, which cites incest as a justification for denying marriage recognition. A big part of it claims DOMA is good for the federal budget, because if you deprive people of rights, it's cheaper. Now remember, this is OBAMA'S Department of Justice.

Likewise, Section 3 of DOMA merely clarifies that federal policy is to make certain benefits available only to those persons united in heterosexual marriage, as opposed to any other possible relationship defined by law, family, or affection. As a result, gay and lesbian individuals who unite in matrimony are denied no federal benefits to which they were entitled prior to their marriage; they remain eligible for every benefit they enjoyed beforehand. DOMA simply provides, in effect, that as a result of their same-sex marriage they will not become eligible for the set of benefits that Congress has reserved exclusively to those who are related by the bonds of heterosexual marriage. In short, then, the failure in this manner to recognize a certain subset of marriages that are recognized by a certain subset of States cannot be taken as an infringement on plaintiffs' rights, even if same-sex marriage were accepted as a fundamental right under the Constitution.

The whole brief is here. (This is not the high-profile case recently filed by Boies and Olson. This is an earlier case.)

I posted this originally at Daily Kos, where many commenters pointed out that the DoJ has to defend a legal statute. After all, one of the complaints about the Bush administration was their politicization of the DoJ, which is supposed to function independently. DOMA is legal, like it or not, until the spineless Congresscritters repeal it. But the language in the brief is incendiary. My marriage is not to be recognized for the same reason incestuous marriages are not recognized? It's vastly insulting. And there is a strong defense of DOMA for purely BUDGETARY reasons.

Which leads me back to a diary I wrote a few days ago. Is Obama really moving slowly on gay rights, or is he being very subtle? Is comparing our marriages to incest and supporting DOMA by citing the budget meant to be so ridiculous an argument that any sane person would dismiss it? I wish I knew.