Bad news: Referendum 71 on Washington Ballot

From the Seattle Times:

A referendum that could overturn Washington state's "everything but marriage" domestic partnership law has qualified for the November ballot.

The secretary of state's office said Monday that sponsors of Referendum 71 had 121,486 valid petition signatures - enough to put the newly expanded domestic partnership law to a public vote.

A secondary check of rejected signatures was not complete, so the number could increase.

The new law was supposed to take effect on July 26, but was delayed until the signature count was complete. Now, it won't take effect unless it is approved in the Nov. 3 election.

The measure would expand existing domestic partnerships to give gay and lesbian couples all the state-provided benefits that married heterosexual couples have.

Remember: Vote YES to approve rights for gay couples. Vote YES to protect ALL families. MOre info: http://approvereferendum71.org/

Meanwhile, the Times reports that donors cannot be hidden.

Earlier Thursday, the PDC denied a request by Protect Marriage to redact and seal the names, addresses and occupations of donors. Donor information already had been made public, in accordance with state law.

The group had cited threats of violence against supporters and churches in its request.

Larry Stickney, a key organizer behind R-71, told the PDC he's received death threats and hundreds of "vile, obscene, threatening, nasty" e-mails. He said he found someone in his yard a few weeks ago photographing his house.

But the commission said the group had not proved that disclosure of the information would result in "unreasonable hardship" to contributors, and that keeping the names from the public would thwart the purpose of the public-disclosure law: to avoid secrecy in campaigns.

While Protect Marriage did provide the commission with some threatening e-mails and blog postings, it "provided no evidence from or about donors that have demonstrated that they have received threats of violence against their lives or property," or that they were being targeted for boycotts, PDC Assistant Director Doug Ellis said at the hearing.

That ruling applies only to donors to R-71.

Time to take the white hoods off, finally. The state should not hide people who vote against the rights of their fellow citizens from facing their compatriots.

What about Perry?

Perry vs. Schwarzenegger is challenging Prop8 on Federal grounds. Some questions:

I see three major questions looming, in addition to the specific issues of fact and law presented in the case:

What will the ramifications (if any) be of placing the control of one of the biggest ever lgbt rights lawsuits in the completely private, non-transparent realm of big firms? .....

Will the case be litigated in a way that forces the courts to address the constitutionality of all state law restrictions on same-sex marriage, as the public statements surrounding the case imply? Or will it be litigated on extremely narrow grounds, i.e. as a challenge to a voter rescission by ballot initiative of a right previously declared fundamental by a state's supreme court, affecting a group previously declared a suspect class also by that state's supreme court, when the material components of the right in question continue to exist (through registered domestic partnership), so that the only state interest being served is the expression of animus implicit in limiting access to the preferred label? In other words, will the Perry case ultimately be only about California, litigated in a way that its only possible impact will ever be on California? If the answer is yes, it will be a lot easier to win (although not nearly so important in a strictly legal sense).

Lastly, what will the impact be of Perry on the effort to repeal Prop 8? Emotions are running high and ragged in California about whether to put repeal on the 2010 ballot (a prospect that(a prospect that diminishes in likelihood every day) or whether to wait, presumably until 2012. But how - if at all - will the dynamics change if the trial court rules that Prop 8 is unconstitutional, maybe a year from now, in summer 2010? Or if the Ninth Circuit finds it unconstitutional in 2011? It takes time and money to put a question on the ballot. Will such rulings energize the repeal effort or the retention effort, or maybe both? What will be the impact if the federal courts uphold Prop 8, as the California Supreme Court did?

Obama watch: the view from Chicago (video Sunday)

Bigots attacking Harvey Milk

From EQCA e-update:

On Tuesday, extremists started a coordinated attack on the Harvey Milk Day Bill.

Catholic Exchange, the premier Catholic website, placed an **URGENT** message on their homepage urging their readers to call Governor Schwarzenegger and stop the bill.

The Christian News Wire also carried a story calling Harvey a notorious sexual predator, a public liar, a terrible model for kids and demanded the Governor veto the bill.

Now is the time to take action and show your support for Harvey’s legacy and for our community.

The Governor’s office has dedicated a special, automated phone line for you to express your support.

Phone the Governor right now at 916.445.2841, and call one of his district offices.

Capitol Office: 916.445.2841
Fresno Office: 559.477.1804
Los Angeles Office: 213.897.0322
Riverside Office: 951.680.6860
San Diego Office: 619.525.4641
San Francisco Office: 415.703.2218

You can also tweet @Schwarzenegger with your support.

More news from Wisconsin

I've written a lot recently in how the Bad Guys are attacking even Domestic Partnerships. (See here). In Wisconsin, they have a hate amendment, but recently they passed a domestic partnership policy that allows "dozens" of rights, you know, like hospital visitation?

Naturally the haters jumped in immediately with their anger that this was JUST LIKE MARRIAGE so they have filed suit against it. And the Republican WI Attorney General Van Hollen will not try to defend the law.

As reported by the LA Times

The governor blasted Van Hollen's decision, saying the law is defensible. He released a copy of a memo from University of Wisconsin law professor David Schwartz that found the law did not conflict with the marriage amendment.
....
The governor and lawmakers have expressed confidence that the law will be upheld since the legal benefits granted are a fraction of the more than 150 given to married couples.

Registering will make it easier for same-sex couples to complete legal transactions like transferring property and executing wills and allow partners to obtain health insurance through employers that extend coverage to domestic partners.

Partners also will be guaranteed the right to visit each other in hospitals and care facilities, make end-of-life-decisons and take off work under the Family and Medical Leave Act to care for each other. They will not have the right to jointly file taxes, among others.

The nonpartisan Legislative Council concluded the law should survive a legal challenge because it does not give "comprehensive, core aspects of the legal status of marriage to same-sex couples." Those include the ability to divorce and to share marital property.

Yeah, dangerous stuff there--visiting partners! Insurance benefits!

To quote again that US News article, the Christian Conservatives have to fight the fact that a majority of Americans believe their should be some benefits for same sex couples

I'm not saying religious conservatives are acting purely politically—many do believe that providing benefits to gay couples is a sneaky way of legalizing gay unions. But given those poll numbers, it also makes political sense for religious conservatives to try to reframe the benefits issue as a gay marriage issue.

Gay rights advocates, meanwhile, see benefits and gay marriage as much different issues, since extending some benefits to gay partners still excludes key benefits of marriage.

We must recognize that it isn't marriage these people oppose. They oppose any recognition or respect for gay couples and gay families. Call it what it is: bigotry, pure and simple.

Support FairWisconsin.

More flip-flops than the discount bin at Target...

Time has a column about the flip-flops on marriage equality from the Obama Administration.

[A]s I have pointed out before, Obama loves to raise political donations; he has plainly begun to worry about his standing among the rich homosexuals who used to fawn over him. As the New York Times' Adam Nagourney first reported, the California legal brief was one reason that a prominent gay supporter of Obama's went to the Oval Office in late June to express, for 15 full minutes, the gay community's deep disappointment.

And so this week we get a new legal brief from the Obama Administration in the California case, this one denuded of the execrable incest defense. This time.... Obama flip-flops again - now back to his campaign position. (It must be dizzying to work in the White House these days.) Now the Administration says it opposes DOMA and wants it overturned - but that tradition dictates that it defend the law. And that is why, the White House said in a statement, "the Department of Justice has filed a response to a legal challenge to [DOMA], as it traditionally does when acts of Congress are challenged." ....

Legalistically speaking, the tradition argument is true, but it's yet another Obama dodge.....As Eugene Volokh of UCLA told me Aug. 18, there is nothing in the constitution or the law that would have prevented the Department of Justice from sitting on the sidelines in the DOMA case.

Nothing except politics. Obama's triangulation between left and right has become excruciatingly obvious on this issue, and he's not quite as deft a politician as Bill Clinton at keeping his left flank at bay. I wouldn't be surprised if, next summer at the 32nd Fire Island Pines fundraiser for Lambda, I hear booing when the President's name is mentioned.

Or as the Advocate put it:

When gay people marry: The Horror! The Horror!

Recently, a Chicago Trib writer asked a number of prominent opponents of marriage equality what is it is that they think will happen if gays marry.

At first, none of them answered, although after a while Maggie Gallagher dove in and said that, gasp, if same sex marriage is legalized, then children will learn about gays! And religious people will be persecuted! As Conor Clarke, writing at Andrew Sullivan's blog remarked,

Is this really the best they can do? First, none of these things are "simple, concrete predictions about measurable social indicators." ....Gallagher's list amounts to this: As support for gay marriage grows, the public institutions and sentiments that oppose gay marriage will become increasingly marginalized.

A new scholarly book recently published called When Gay People Get Married addresses the question with actual data. As the publisher's blurb reports,

The evidence shows both that marriage changes gay people more than gay people change marriage, and that it is the most liberal countries and states making the first move to recognize gay couples. In the end, Badgett compellingly shows that allowing gay couples to marry does not destroy the institution of marriage and that many gay couples do benefit, in expected as well as surprising ways, from the legal, social, and political rights that the institution offers.

That certainly agrees with my experience, being married, as I've previously reflected.
And what's happening here in the US? As discussed at Talk2Action (h/t Toujours Dan), Massachusetts still has the lowest divorce rate of any state (data here ). And where are the highest rate of divorce? There's a big cluster in the South, which corresponds very well with the Bible belt. Interestingly born-again Christians reportedly have some of the highest rates of divorce.

So actual data suggest that same sex marriage is good for gay people, does not negatively affect the marriages of straight people, and that those opposed to same sex marriage on faith grounds are no less likely, and may even be more likely, to divorce themselves.

One hopes these data will be used to rebut the lies for the upcoming Federal Prop8 case, and the lies being told in Maine in the run-up to their election.

Anti-PropH8 group going after Iowa

They don't give up, they are like zombies. From the LA Times:

Opponents of same-sex marriage launched a campaign today to re-ban gay marriage in Iowa.

The National Organization for Marriage, which was active in getting Proposition 8 approved by voters in California, sent out an appeal for donations to run advertisements on behalf of political candidates who oppose same-sex marriage.
.....
Brian Brown -- who spearheaded the National Organization for Marriage's efforts in California, and is now the group's executive director -- also wrote supporters that donations could be used nationwide, to “allow us to rapidly intervene … in key races across the country where a handful of House or Senate seats could make the difference between whether a same-sex marriage bill or state marriage amendment passes or fails.”

So, whaddya going to do about it?

Smelt dismissed on a techinicality

From Lawdork:

This was the challenge that led to the now-infamous Department of Justice Motion to Dismiss on June 12, which led to the President’s Oval Office ceremony on June 17 and speech about LGBT equality at a White House reception on June 29. Just this past week, DOJ filed a far-less-overreaching reply brief in the case.

The Smelt case was filed in California state court and then removed to federal court contained claims, among other areas, regarding interstate travel and how DOMA impacted the plaintiffs’ travel. This, of the four federal court marriage challenges, was the weakest, by far. It had the procedural problems that led to today’s dismissal and contained weaker arguments based on less clear areas of the law.

Three other cases remain active in federal court.

Why it's easy for Christians conservatives to be anti-gay

We've commented here before that there's a real conflict between how Chrisitian denominations of all sorts treat divorce, and how they treat homosexuality. The Biblical strictures against divorce are far more numerous, and far less ambiguous, than those against homosexual behavior. And yet, with the conspicuous exception of the Roman Catholics (although even they have an "out" through the annulment process), pretty much everyone allows divorce, allows remarriage, and allows the divorced to be priests and bishops (or pastors and elders, as the case may be). Everyone can find it in themselves to understand and forgive the marriage that didn't work out, or even more, to imagine themselves in a situation where they need that potential relief.

Matthew Yglesias nails it:

I think this explains a lot about the appeal of anti-gay crusades to social conservative leaders. Most of what “traditional values” asks of people is pretty hard. All the infidelity and divorce and premarital sex and bad parenting and whatnot take place because people actually want to do the things traditional values is telling them not to do. And the same goes for most of the rest of the Christian recipe. Acting in a charitable and forgiving manner all the time is hard. Loving your enemies is hard. Turning the other cheek is hard.

Homosexuality is totally different. For a small minority of the population, of course, the injunction “don’t have sex with other men!” (or, as the case may be, other women) is painfully difficult to live up to. But for the vast majority of people this is really, really easy to do. Campaigns against gay rights, gay people, and gay sex thus have a lot of the structural elements of other forms of crusading against sexual excess or immorality, but they’re not really asking most people to do anything other than become self-righteous about their pre-existing preferences.

Human nature being what it is, we can pretty easily imagine the anti-gay crusaders having NO problem with taking up the banner for this cause, probably in a sense of relief that they aren't asked to really address anything that might actually affect them.

It's very easy to tell someone else to suck it up and carry a cross--as long as you don't have to carry it with them.

My mom used to exhort me to consider "walking a mile in the other person's moccasins" (something I'm still not very good at; BP will tell you that I am an opinionated and fierce partisan). But really, isn't that what we all have to struggle to do before we judge anyone?

Yglesias in turn points us to a column by Ross Douthat in the NY Times:

More than most Westerners, Americans believe — deeply, madly, truly — in the sanctity of marriage. But we also have some of the most liberal divorce laws in the developed world, and one of the highest divorce rates. We sentimentalize the family, but boast one of the highest rates of unwed births. We’re more pro-life than Europeans, but we tolerate a much more permissive abortion regime than countries like Germany or France. We wring our hands over stem cell research, but our fertility clinics are among the least regulated in the world.

In other words, we’re conservative right up until the moment that it costs us.

Message from Maine (video Sunday)

Curing the variant

Periodically, a story pops up in the news about a child near death from a treatable disease, because her family doesn't believe in antibiotics, or other forms of modern medicine. I have no doubt that the parents in these cases genuinely love their children, but they earnestly interpret their Bible as preventing them from using modern interventions. "It's God's will", they say. "Who are we to go against it?"

Most of us in our modern society tut-tut when we hear this, dismayed over this clear mis-use of religion in a way that results in unnecessary pain, grave harm or even death to a child. We simply don't understand how the parents can be so willfully anti-modern, especially where their child is concerned. After all, what is more precious than a child? Wouldn't any parent do anything to save their child? How can they resist modern knowledge and understanding, knowing that their child will die? What they see as "normal" and "natural", the vast majority of us see as abuse.

So this led me to the broader question of how we define "normal" and when we pathologize it. For example, most of us consider left-handedness "normal" and unremarkable, a minor human variant that doesn't affect the predominant right-handed culture. Most hearing people consider congenital deafness a defect to be treated (e.g., by cochlear implants); however, Deaf people often resent their deafness being pathologized, and many forcibly resist being absorbed into a dominant hearing culture. Or consider cleft palate: this is a "naturally occurring" birth defect that we do our best to treat surgically and heal. All of these conditions are "normal", all of them are "natural". So how do we decided what to pathologize as a defect to be treated, as opposed to a variant to be accepted?

Our example of the child denied antibiotics gives one clue. Some people turn to their Bible to determine what is normal, natural, and acceptable to their concept of God. But for them to say they do this outside of the context of modern knowledge is disingenuous. For centuries, left-handedness was pathologized on religious grounds (and still is in some cultures); the efforts to "convert" the left handed led to serious psychological trauma in some cases. We know better now.

Or do we?

Let's consider our GLBT brothers and sisters. Western medicine and science accepts homosexuality as a natural variant, not a pathology, that occurs across cultures and ethnic groups at a fairly consistent rate. Some people are closer to viewing the GLBT community as the Deaf community: one that rejects being identified as a pathology that is imposed upon it by a dominant culture. And, finally, there are those who, as the parents using the Bible to reject antibiotics, similarly use the Bible to reject their gay children in the face of knowledge and science. I argue that there is a distinct parallel between the parents who point to a few texts in the Bible about promiscuous sex, and those who point to the Bible to justify killing their child by withholding treatment. We reject the one. We should reject both.

Finally, I want to draw your attention to a particularly "nasty" form of "treatment" directed at lesbian women in particular: the concept of "curative rape". This has hit the press and the internet numerous times recently.

• Item: In South Africa, men are encouraged to rape women to cure them of their lesbianism. Some of their victims are brutally murdered.
  
  
• Item: A woman in Utah , devoutly Mormon, hires a man to rape her lesbian daughter, reasoning that the only reason her daughter is gay is that she hasn't "known" a man.
  
  
• Item: A lesbian woman is raped in Richmond CA as the perpetrators use sexually derogatory terms.

We all know (I hope) that rape isn't about sex. It's about violence. And rape directed at lesbian women is violence that treats homosexuality as a pathology, rather than a variant. How dare these lesbians reject men! It is the flip side of a "gay panic" defense: she needs to know a "real" man. It's sick, disgusting, and frightening.

And it comes from treating a variant as a pathology: something to be rejected, feared and "cured". It's why many GLBT people view Christians as people intent on harming them. Rather like denying a treatment to a dying child.

H/T Madpriest for the Utah story. Cross posted at Friends of Jake. and Daily Kos WGLB Friday

Maine needs our help

In less than 80 days, Maine's version of Prop8 (called Prop1) will be on the ballot.

Frank Schubert, who ran the Yes on Prop 8 campaign, is leading the attack on our northeastern brothers and sisters.

They have raised more money than the good guys.

Time to support Equality Maine, folks! Let's prove we can WIN.

And Mainers: VOTE NO ON 1!

Census 2010: Stand up and be counted

The 2010 census will for the first time count married gay couples. In the past, it seems they either re-categorized us as straight, or recategorized us as unmarried. However, the Advocate rports tht they claim that they can only count us in the raw data, because the software that processes the data can't handle same sex marriage, and will recode us as "unmarried". To address this,

Although the Obama administration announced in June that officials would look for ways to accurately count same-sex marriages, the coding process and the software that reads the forms when they come back still reflect the former policy.

A Commerce Department aide said Census preparation takes almost 10 years and the software would not be able to be altered in time for the once-a-decade count......

As a fix, officials decided to release the raw data on married same-sex couples before that data is processed and tabulated by the software.
.....
"Later in 2011, the Census Bureau will release detailed tabulations from the 2010 Census, including counts from the relationship question," said a statement from the Commerce Department. "A footnote will indicate that there are no same-sex couples included in the husband/wife relationship category. At the same time, the Census Bureau will release counts from the relationship question, by state, that show the unedited data [that is, which do not recode same-sex couples who report themselves as husband/wife].

"The Bureau will start producing reports on the data in 2012, and according to the statement, "the Director has determined that one of these special reports will focus on the question of how same-sex couples report their relationships and what the unedited data reveal about this issue."

There was a booth at our local pride parade that encouraged us to be accurate: only if you are legally married (not DP'd or unioned), make sure you tick off the box for "married".

DPs and Unions do not appear on the form.

How can it take 10 years to build software????

As the LA TImes commented :

The Obama administration has delivered a logic-defying interpretation of the act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage: It does not stop the Census Bureau from reporting the number of married gay couples, the president's lawyers said. Yet isn't counting these marriages the purest form of recognizing them?.....

Neither the census nor the survey will differentiate between same-sex couples who are legally married and those who consider themselves so. In the 2000 census, before any states recognized gay marriage, one-third of the people in same-sex households identified their partners as spouses. But the census already takes the word of heterosexual couples as to whether they're married, so the new count will be fair. It just won't be very informative.

The 13-year-old Defense of Marriage Act has always been discriminatory, and now it is out of sync with the realities of a changing society. With same-sex marriage legalized in six states, the District of Columbia recognizing such marriages performed elsewhere and an estimated 18,000 married gay couples living in California, what's needed aren't convoluted interpretations of the federal law but a push from President Obama for Congress to repeal it.

We'll see how those DOMA cases go....

Bad guys celebrate Perry hearing

JoeMyGod tells us that the Protect Marriage gang are exultant:

As the only party to Perry v Schwarzenegger that has consistently fought to preserve Prop.8, we are pleased with Judge Walker's decision to deny intervenor status to Campaign for California Families, the Our Family Coalition, Lambda Legal, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The motions for intervenor status clearly demonstrate the discord and disagreement that exists among gay activists as they continue to run roughshod in their efforts to overturn the will of the people in regards to upholding traditional marriage in California.

They are also cackling over the 2010 vs 2012 shenanigans.

Geoff Kors, Rick Jacobs, are you listening?

January 2010

That's when Perry v. Schwarzeneggerwill be heard. And the gay groups who were opposed to it before they were for it, were denied status as interveners. More from LawDork and Pam's House Blend.

The new DoJ brief and the argument about children

We've talked here (or rather, I've talked into the vaccuum) about the fact that gay families are raising children, and I've argued that the ability of the opposition to exploit "protecting the children" as a reason to opposed equality is based on fallacies.

The new DoJ reply brief (discussed here) may have actually helped expose those fallacies. As reported in the Volokh Conspiracy

Much more significantly, and to me surprisingly, it now appears to be the view of the executive branch that the social interests in child-rearing and procreation do not even rationally justify the exclusion of gay couples from marriage:

Unlike the intervenors here, the government does not contend that there are legitimate government interests in "creating a legal structure that promotes the raising of children by both of their biological parents" or that the government's interest in "responsible procreation" justifies Congress's decision to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

This new position is a gift to the gay-marriage movement, since it was not necessary to support the government's position. It will be cited by litigants in state and federal litigation, and will no doubt make its way into judicial opinions. Indeed, some state court decisions have relied very heavily on procreation and child-rearing rationales to reject SSM claims. The DOJ is helping knock out a leg from under the opposition to gay marriage.

Next comes this passage, suggesting that empirical learning has bolstered the case for gay and lesbian parenting:

Since DOMA was enacted, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, and the Child Welfare League of America have issued policies opposing restrictions on lesbian and gay parenting because they concluded, based on numerous studies, that children raised by gay and lesbian parents are as likely to be well-adjusted as children raised by heterosexual parents.

The idea that same-sex parents are inadequate or at least sub-optimal has been a major point in the public-policy opposition to SSM, and was used to support passage of DOMA. The DOJ now implies that DOMA is anachronistic, a holdover from a benighted time when we didn't know so much about the quality of gay parenting. The parenting concern has also been a reason for deference by state courts: as long as there was still a legitimate debate over the quality of same-sex parenting, courts ought to defer to states' judgments that traditional families are best. While the DOJ hasn't exactly endorsed the view that the parenting debate is over, this passage certainly points us in that direction.

LawDork agrees, and wonders if this DoJ brief will affect ongoing litigation, including a gay adoption case in Florida:

The immediate question this raised for me was whether this language could find its way down to Florida, where the court of appeals will soon be hearing the appeal of In re: Gill, a challenge to Florida’s ban on adoption by gay people. As I discussed in a preview of the case last month:

....Notably, the case included extensive presentation of evidence about the foster children’s circumstances and, more generally, expert witness evidence regarding children raised in families headed by lesbian or gay parents .

Wouldn't it be a divine irony that a brief ostensibly defending DOMA can be cited to eliminate one of the most pervasive lies used against us?

Mormon watch

The Mormons bankrolled Prop8, at the behest of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco (formerly of Salt Lake City). This unholy alliance has damaged both faith communities. The Mormons have found themselves holding the bag, and their arrest of a gay couple for kissing in Salt Lake City has added to the insult. The press isn't good.

[O]bservers say the church's heavy-handed intervention into California politics will linger and has left the faith's image tarnished.

"What I hear from my community and from straight progressive individuals is that they now see the church as a force for evil and as an enemy of fairness and equality," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights. Kendell grew up Mormon in Utah. "To have the church's very deep and noble history telescoped down into this very nasty little image is as painful for me as for any faithful Mormon."

Meanwhile, Pam's House Blend reports that the Mormons are fighting a civil equality bill in the UK.

Speculation is rife on the blogs that they are also underwriting NOM and the attack on marriage equality in Maine.

Helping to pass Proposition H8 in California: $43 million
Permanently being linked to anti-gay bigotry: priceless.

Lots of Mormons and Mormon families have split over this. The cost for the LDS church may be very high indeed and the injury to their own communities may run very deep. Is attempting to eliminate my civil marriage worth it, do you think?

I know many Mormons oppose their church's official stance on this. I hope they continue to raise their voices to support civil equality for all loving couples.

Anti-DOMA suits update

You may remember a great kerfuffle a while back, over the release of a DoJ brief about DOMA. That case, Smelt, was not viewed as a particularly good one to challenge DOMA but the unnecessary harshness of the brief caused a firestorm in the blogs for days (go here for a list of all my posts on this topic).

On Monday, the DoJ released a reply brief to Smelt. Pam' s House Blend has the backstory on this AP report:

The Obama administration filed court papers Monday claiming a federal marriage law discriminates against gays, even as government lawyers continued to defend it......

In court papers, the administration said it supports repeal of the law. Yet the same filing says the Justice Department will defend the statute in this case because a reasonable argument can be made that the law is constitutional.....

"The United States does not believe that DOMA is rationally related to any legitimate government interests in procreation and child-rearing and is therefore not relying upon any such interests to defend DOMA's constitutionality," lawyers argued in the filing.

Okay, so they are still defending it....but they now have put in writing that they believe DOMA is wrong.

I can't help believe that this is an improvement. I expect the usual suspects will be up in arms about any defense, but it's typical of the Obama approach of softly softly. The law needs to be defended on principle, even if they believe it should be repealed through appropriate channels.

LawDork comments,

From the brief itself to Obama’s statement and in light of the other changes being advanced by the Administration, I continue to believe that the original DOJ Smelt filing was made without the full appreciation (or knowledge) by higher-ups. I do think that the uproar following its filing has changed the approach of the Administration, and, for that, the debate was worthwhile. This filing and statement show an awareness of and sensitivity to that impact, while maintaining a clear principle to defend a law that repeatedly has been found to be constitutional.

Meanwhile, there's another case against DOMA making its way through the courts, Gill which is generally viewed as a stronger one. It challenges the distinctly different treatment of married couples in MA in dealing with federal agencies. Because these couples are being actively discriminated against now (as legally married) this is viewed as a very strong argument against DOMA, or at least against the part of it that prevents Federal Recognition of legal same sex marriage.

As highlighted by LawDork, the plaintiffs have amended their complaint with some more powerful language, particularly around the tax inequities. Here are some choice quotes from the amended brief.

Although each of the plaintiffs is similarly situated to all other married or widowed persons in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, DOMA, 1 U.S.C. § 7, requires the plaintiffs to deny the existence of their families and the nature of their familial relationships. DOMA, 1 U.S.C. § 7, thereby causes confusion and complexity in a culture where people are expected to have one familial and marital status, whether dealing with private, state or federal entities.

The federal government’s refusal to recognize the plaintiffs’ marriages does not nurture, improve, stabilize or enhance the marriages of other married couples. Nor would the federal government’s recognition of plaintiffs’ marriages degrade, destabilize or have any other deleterious effect on the marriages of other married couples.

Congress has yet to identify a reason why gay and lesbian individuals who have met their obligations as taxpaying citizens and who are married to someone of the same sex must be denied protections available to persons who are married to someone of a different sex. Singling out same-sex couples who are married among all married persons is simply an expression of the intent to discriminate against gay people.

I wonder whether the DoJ "tipped its hand" in the Smelt case enough to allow more targeted arguments here. And what difference the new filing will make.

So to sum up: THREE cases underway in Federal Court. TWO anti-DOMA cases (Smelt, and Gill) plus ONE anti-Prop8 case also in federal court (Perry v. Schwarzenegger). The DOMA cases are defended by the DoJ as they apply to existing federal law. The Prop8 case is against the state of California but under Federal Constitutional grounds (the previous challenge was to the State Supreme Court under California constitution issues). It is defended by the pro-H8 folks, since the State of California agrees that Prop8 offends the equal protection clause of the US Constitution.

Judge requires more info for PropH8 case.

In Perry v. Schwarzenegger the judge is Not Happy. As reported by LawDork,

In a brief, pointed order, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker on Wednesday made clear that he did not get what he wanted from the parties’ most recent filing in the Perry v. Schwarzenegger Proposition 8 court challenge. The order calls on “all parties, including all government defendants” to provide a more detailed case management filing to him by noon Monday. Judge Walker’s order directs the parties to include:

(1) The specific elements of the claims plaintiffs assert and the defenses, if any, defendants and intervenors contend apply;

(2) Admissions and stipulations that the parties are prepared to enter with respect to the foregoing elements and applicable defenses at issue;

(3) Discovery that the parties seek that may lead to the discovery of admissible evidence with reference to:
(a) Level of scrutiny relevant to plaintiffs’ claims;
(b) The campaign by which Proposition 8 was adopted;
(c) Character of the rights plaintiffs contend are infringed or violated;
(d) Effect of Proposition 8 upon plaintiffs and similarly situated individuals;
(e) Effect of Proposition 8 on opposite-sex couples and others not in same-sex relationships in California; and
(f) Other issues pertinent to the parties’ claims or defenses;
.....

(4) Subject matter (by discipline or expertise) of the opinion/expert evidence that the parties intend to present.

The CA Attorney General has agreed with the plaintiffs that Prop8 violates the Equal Protection Clause. And the judge is requiring that the defendants produce compelling evidence that same-sex marriage weakens traditional marriage and that children should be raised only in opposite-sex households.

And all this laid out by Wednesday.

This case is being fast-tracked in the Federal System. It has a make-or-break potential for marriage equality.

Update more about the case and lead attorney Ted Olson in the NY Times

Harvey Milk and the Medal of Freedom (video Sunday)

By the numbers in 2010?

Markos (of Daily Kos) points at Nate Silver's regression analysis and new polling numbers to say that repeal of Prop H8 in 2010 is doable.

If you voted in the 2008 election last November did you vote for or against Proposition 8 which banned same-sex marriage?

For 51
Against 45
Did not vote 4

As you may know the 2010 ballot may feature an initiative which if passed would allow for same-sex marriage in California. If you were voting today on such an initiative would you vote for or against allowing same-sex marriage in California?

For 47
Against 48
Not sure 5

In the first question, "For" is against gay marriage, in the second, it's for it. In short, support for gay marriage is up 2 points, while opposition is down from 51 percent to 48 percent. That's a five point drop. For a ballot initiative that passed by a scant 4.48 points, that turns this effort into a toss-up.

Well.....

Do we or don't we?

Race, Gender and Sexuality

The battle over PropH8 revealed severe failings in the ability to mobilize across minority communities (leading to the erroneous and "the blacks made us lose!" claim. ) The gay community is too often lumped together as a bunch of well-off childless white guys from WeHo and San Francisco; in reality, there are men and women of all colors and economic groups under the umbrella of GLBT and we need to work together in all communities to make equality happen.

Writing in Salon, Pam Spaulding discusses the new HRC report on race, gender and sexuality.

In her excellent, excellent article , Pam writes

The key findings of the report:

• Nearly all LGBT people of color say protections from violence and workplace discrimination are important; issues strong majorities of all Americans support in opinion polls. Violence and discrimination are also the most salient issues that connect three critical groups -- non-LGBT people, communities of color and white LGBT communities.


• Religious attitudes are a major source of sexual prejudice. For LGBT people of color, many of whom are regular churchgoers, the conflict is acute. ....


• LGBT people of color view the world first from the point of view of race and gender. Most feel there is as much racism and sexism among LGBT people as there is among non-LGBT people....


• LGBT people of color are serious media consumers, but they do not find enough information or see accurate media representations of themselves....

....The findings are no surprise to me and are not probably a surprise to others, but where there is little agreement is the matter of who is responsible for effecting change (does this fall solely on the shoulders of out LGBTs of color, something tossed out there quite frequently when I raise the issue) and what are the methods of bridge building that need to be implemented. Take the quandry of the conservative black church, for instance.

Already fearful of losing connections, friendship and emotional shelter provided by their faith community if they come out, black gays and lesbians in the church now know that the homophobes in the pews and choirs, along with the bigoted pastors spewing hate from the pulpit, feel empowered to destroy those ties because of their own fear and ignorance. It makes you want to weep.
.....
...the LGBT community rarely gets behind social justice issues of concern to minorities. Honestly, this card can be played legitimately - because it's true.

If we are to make this a civil rights issue, then we need to be concerned about everyone's civil rights.

Read the whole thing.

You might also checkout the essay about this topic, by actor Doug Spearman at the HRC Backstory

THe Prop8 Federal Suit

As we've discussed in numerous posts here, there is an aggressive new suit against Prop8, this time at the Federal Level. This was against all general strategies of the mainstream GLBT groups but now they want to join the suit. But the Olson/Boies group don't want the distraction. As reported in the LA TImes, there's a clash.

Sadly, this is working against us.

Proposition 8 supporters have been watching with glee.

"Advocates for gay marriage are in complete disarray, not only on the political fence but on the legal fence as well," said Andrew Pugno, a lawyer for Proposition 8. "Our job would be much harder if they were all unified in their efforts."

UNLESS AND UNTIL the GLBT community starts acting with the discipline and message o the opposition, rather than having dramatic internecine battles, we are never going to win. WTF are you people doing?

Meanwhile, Ted Olson, one of the lawyers in the Federal Prop8 case, was interviewed by the LA Times.

Q. Does your argument have more purchase with conservatives because you're the one making it?

A. I'm hoping that it does. I hope some people will open their eyes to the decency of getting to the point where we allow gay and lesbian individuals to be married and have a happy life.

Q. I expect some of your fan mail has flipped 180 degrees because of this?

A.I am getting comments from some segments of the society who feel that it's the wrong thing to do and I'm betraying the conservative cause and things that I've stood for in my life. Some of it is quite hostile. But that goes with the territory. On the other hand, I'm hearing from people, including plenty of Republicans, who are very, very grateful. It has been overwhelmingly gratifying to hear from very decent people who are touched by the fact that we're trying to help.

Make sure to read the op-ed by Olson's co-litigant David Boies in the WSJ.

EQCA and Courage Campaign, can you PLEASE GET IT TOGETHER for 2012?

EQCA made an announcement today that they are going to focus on repealing Prop8 in 2012. They have a report outlining their reasons, and while emotionally I want it repealed NOW, they make a good case for the reality on the ground. We want to win, and there isn't enough time or money to win in 2010.

Okay?

Well, NO, because the Courage Campaign is still going after 2010.

As the news report says,

California gay rights groups are at odds over when to ask voters to repeal the state's same-sex marriage ban, with one of the largest organizations saying Wednesday it would wait until 2012 and another announcing it would shoot for 2010...... Equality California, said Wednesday that holding off gives organizers more time to raise money and canvass voters. The group said turnout in a presidential election year will be higher than in next year's gubernatorial race and include more young people who tend to favor gay marriage.

"Emotionally, we all want to win marriage back as quickly as possible," said Marc Solomon, Equality California's marriage director. "We really think that we have a shot in the next three years. But we have one shot, we don't have two shots. We're not waiting at all. We're going hard. But we think the campaign is a three-year campaign."

Meanwhile, Los Angeles-based Courage Campaign announced in an e-mail to supporters Wednesday it would push to get a measure on the 2010 ballot.

Okay, I've HAD it with you guys. This free-lancing running around emotional stuff is crap. We lost the election the last time, in part because of complancy and emotion, and we are going to lose it again without a focused, disciplined, organized and well-funded campaign. This heart-on-the-sleeve grass roots stuff is not going to change the fact that APPROVAL FOR GAY MARRIAGE IS NOT MOVING. If we don't have EQCA and the big donors AND the faith groups and people of color convinced (when they are on our side already!) how the hell do you expect to convince anyone else? We didn't change any minds from November till now. And running around crazy isn't going to make it happen. Plus, on the ballot for a sure-loss in 2010 isn't going to help.

SO here is IT's route to success:
1). GET IT TOGETHER. Unify. ORGANIZE YOURSELVES, dammit! I want to see a disciplined, focused campaign, not a bunch of loose cannons rolling into each other.
2). identify the language. I think a "religious exemption" is going to be essential (I'll post on this later).
3). WORK in other states to keep marriage legal in Maine, and to support DP's in Washington. Learn from their experience. Use it.
4). Continue the necessary and hard work of coming out and talking and talking some more.

The enemy is already organized and ready. And they are licking their chops over attacking us again. We have to be ready this time and....sorry Rick Jacobs....we're NOT.

Great Gay (and Gay Friendly) Kiss-in, Aug 15th

We ... believe that there's not enough love and affection in the world, because most people are afraid to show it. We should never be afraid of brief, unimposing displays of affection. There is nothing wrong with a hug, a kiss on the mouth, a kiss on the cheek.

Our friends at Join the Impact are joining the New Civil Rights Movement and calling for a kiss-in, to protest the arrests of gay people who dare exchange a kiss in public. More background here.

Check out the Facebook Group for a city near you, find a friend, a spouse, or a partner, and pucker up!

Blog Technical Note: Ratings

You can now rate any posts using the little stars underneath the comments ilnk. Let me know what you like and don't like.

To repeal Prop8, we need EVERYONE.

From Pam's HOuse Blend:

One of the key issues that I continue to see is the total unwillingness to listen to each other.  This next campaign is supposed to be about changing hearts and minds among the electorate.  Yet in meeting after meeting we do not listen well to each other and from that springs growing animosity towards other LGBT people.  So without these skills how in the hell are we supposed to listen to the California electorate who does not agree with us right now?  

Does anyone truly think that by just showing up on people’s doorsteps they will welcome us in and want to hear our stories?  These conversations require the ability to listen to other people’s beliefs and not just maintain a superior attitude that we know best how people should vote.  Do we magically take the place of their clerics or their religious community?  
.....
  A lot of paens I have read about going in 2010 have not dealt at all with the issue of people of color in California.  Just in case you missed the demographics on the Golden State, we are a majority minority state.  The majority of people in California are minorities, primarily Latino.  So to have these opinions completely skip over the statement made by people of color organizations, the Prepare to Prevail, does not take into full account the true demography here.  

Along the same lines, Karen Ocamb’s post at the Bilerico Project:

The real problem, from my perspective, is that right now - and for the past seven months - the acrimony among institutional leaders and grassroots activists is only deepening. It's as if all the 8hate has been turned inward - we are the enemy, anyone who is not immediately, completely, absolutely with us now and forever more......

It seems to me that the first step to winning back marriage equality is finding a mediator who can help this community find common ground and learn to keep our eye on the prize so we can move forward together. There are now so many LGBT folk who want to be leaders - let this be their first real test of leadership: find a way to bring us together.

And that means everyone: people of color, well off "high gays" from LA and SF, average couples, our families, friends, and co-workers, people of faith and supporters of justice. EVERYONE. No more circular firing squads, dammit!

Over at Unite the Fight, the San Bernardino summit is viewed as an utter failure and calls all of us to task.

Our community has splintered into factions lead by no one, going in all different directions with various agendas, some with good intentions, but many motivated by egos in attempt to out maneuver the other, causing us to fight each other instead of those who have taken away our rights. And why? Because our leadership once failed us in a disastrous campaign which ended not with rights being denied us, but rights we enjoyed being stripped away from us, leaving us naked and exposed. And now we're so anti-leadership, we have spiraled into a quagmire of anarchy with no visible way out. ("The Tyranny of Structurelessness.")
.....
First, we're not done grieving our loss brought upon us by Prop 8. The full scope of its damage has yet to be seen by us because we're still too close to it. ....

Second, we have become what we've hated. Right after the election, we were right to be angry at our leadership. We were right to demand accountability, something that was missing during the campaign. We were right to demand an apology for such a historical mishap, which has failed to occur. But we have taken it too far and for too long.....

But also in this short amount of time, we have failed to see the new leadership for what it is. Accountable to us. Open. Willing to listen. Vocal. And all this almost to a fault. ....

Rick Jacobs of Courage Campaign, whom I admire and for whom I hold deep respect, needs to stop dissing EQCA in the press. Rick needs to sit down with Marc Solomon, EQCA Marriage Director, and work it out..... Marc has, since his arrival, done great work for the community, including marriage efforts, and for me, has restored EQCA's respect, but he has also done his share of pulling the rug out from Courage Campaign in an effort to stay relevant.

I call out Love Honor Cherish for steamrolling their position and strong-arming many in the community to follow them or take the highway. I call out the Prepare to Prevail Coalition for its tendency in the past to be isolationists and not truly engaging in discussion (at one point, yes, they were stonewalled out, but that is not the case anymore and they need to engage, especially if invited to discuss their views). I call out the grassroots activists and community organizers - YOU ARE NOT EXPERTS. Stop throwing the baby out with the bathwater and LISTEN.
.....
Trust the leadership again. Trust that they'll make the best decisions they can with the community in mind. Then shut up, get in line and get to work. We have our rights to win back.

We'll know this week whether there is enough OOMPH in the movement to make it happen in 2010. The Courage Campaign put up a challenge grant to see if people would donate $$$$. My bet? No, there isn't the heart for it. People are trying to save their money for the community needs, in a time of extreme hardship. It needn't have been this way. I'm extremely disappointed in the failure of the anti-H8 people to coalesce in the sharp, disciplined organization that is essential for victory. As they all run around competing for credit, there is no sign of coordination, or focus. At the local Pride, there were at least 3 if not 4 different groups advocating repeal of H8, with no consistent graphic or message.

Hard as it is to take, WE lost the election, and frankly I don't see us anything like grown-up enough to win the next one. And that makes me sad and angry and incredibly frustrated.

Update: From Queerty, saying it'll be 2012:

You see, there are two warring camps in this strategy decision: The old guard, made up of wealthy donors and political strategists who don't want to have to pay for two repeal efforts if 2010 fails, and the new breed of younger grassroots-y activists, who are all like, "Why wait for our rights?," which is a pretty basic question, but the folks asking have terrible FICO scores and will only be contributing $10 to the cause, not $100,000.

Mob Rule

During the Prop8 aftermath, peacefully protesting gay people were accused of being terrorists, and peaceful protests were referred to as "mobs". 25,000 people marching without incident were called intimidating. The Christianists made numerous unsubstantiated claims that they had been attacked, and when the donors (pro or con) were made public, as required by law, they bleated that they would be targets for violence.

Guess what?

NOTHING HAPPENED.

Conveniently overlooked was the fact that the Pro-H8 side had themselves threatened people and business and committed vandalism. Indeed, despite THEIR accusations of religious persecution, Pro-H8 demonstrators interrupted a Eucharist at the Episcopal Cathedral of San Diego because that church dared to disagree with them.

By contrast anti-Prop8 protests were legitimate, peaceful, and no one was harmed. (The largest demonstration, in San Diego in November, had one arrest: a PropH8 supporter who opposed GLBT rights).

Of course, right wing protests are a little different and the recent goal of the mobs have been to shut down any discourse with violence. The hypocrisy seems pretty clear.

Now, in Maine, the anti-equality forces are terrified that they will be targeted for violence, so they are hiding their address and making dark pronouncements. However, the pro-equality forces (who have not hidden their address) have issued a call for ethics and civility. Based on precedent, which side do you think is more likely to be violent?

Equality, meet Government (video Sunday)

A great video from Australia.

The genie is out: gay couples exist.

You absolutely, positively, have to go read the whole thing.

Last October, Bill ...left his home in Columbus, Ohio, for a business trip...he thought he felt an old cold coming back. Then he developed a nasty cough.

He remembers nothing of that day, but Mike ... recalls sharply how doctors in Philadelphia called him in Columbus to say they suspected pneumonia. Mike...is Bill's partner of 30 years.....At 3 a.m. the next day, the phone woke him up. It was a doctor in Philadelphia. Mike needed to come to Philadelphia immediately. Bill had gone into septic shock and might not survive more than a few hours.

"Here's the key principle," Peter Sprigg, a gay-marriage opponent with the Family Research Council, said in an April radio interview on Southern California's KCRW. "Society gives benefits to marriage because marriage gives benefits to society. And therefore the burden of proof has to be on the advocates of same-sex marriage to demonstrate that homosexual relationships benefit society. Not just benefit the individuals who participate but benefit society in the same way and to the same degree that heterosexual marriage does. And that's a burden that I don't think they can meet."

Can't they?

Having just been told, at 3 a.m., that his partner of three decades might die within hours, Mike .. was told something else: Before rushing to Bill's side, he needed to collect and bring with him documents proving his medical power of attorney. This indignity, unheard-of in the world of heterosexual marriage, is a commonplace of American gay life.....

National Review has a cover story this month by Maggie Gallagher, a prominent anti-gay-marriage activist, subtitled: "Why Gay Marriage Isn't Inevitable." She is right, in a sense. Most states explicitly ban same-sex marriage, often by constitutional amendment, and the country remains deeply divided. The national argument over marriage's meaning will go on for years to come.

In another sense, however, she is wrong. Never again will America not have gay marriage, and never again will less than a majority favor some kind of legal and social recognition for same-sex couples. The genie that gay-marriage opponents still hope to stuff back into the bottle is out and out for good.

Oddly, Gallagher, Sprigg, and other gay-marriage opponents don't understand why this has happened. It comes down not to demographics (young people are more likely than their elders to favor gay marriage, but the demographics are changing quite slowly), nor to liberal elites' cultural influence (Gallagher's explanation). It comes down to Mike and Bill.
.....

Peter Sprigg and Maggie Gallagher ...have in common what they offer to couples like Mike and Bill: silence. The same is true of nearly all other prominent opponents of same-sex marriage. ....

If gay couples can't be allowed to marry, what should they be able to do? ...Effectively, conservatives are saying that what Mike and Bill do for each other has no significance outside their own bedroom.

If cultural conservatism continues to treat same-sex couples as outside the social covenant, the currents of history will flow right around it.

But what happened in that hospital in Philadelphia for those six weeks was not just Mike and Bill's business, a fact that is self-evident to any reasonable human being who hears the story. "Mike was making a medical decision at least once a day that would have serious consequences," Bill told me. Who but a life partner would or could have done that? Who but a life partner will drop everything to provide constant care? Bill's mother told me that if not for Mike, her son would have died. Faced with this reality, what kind of person, morally, simply turns away and offers silence?

Not the sort of person who populates the United States of America. If Republicans wonder why they find themselves culturally marginalized, particularly by younger Americans, they might consider the fact that when the party looks at couples like Mike and Bill it sees, in effect, nothing....

Conservatives have a decision to make. They can continue pretending that the bond between Mike and Bill does not exist, is of no social value, or has no place on conservatives' agenda. ...Or they can acknowledge what to most of the country is already obvious: Whether the nation finally settles on marriage or on something else for gay couples, Bill and Mike are now in the mainstream and the Republican Party is not. If cultural conservatism continues to treat same-sex couples as outside the social covenant, the currents of history will flow right around it, and future generations of conservatives will wonder how their predecessors could ever have made such a callous and politically costly mistake.

DPBO moves out of committee.

What is DPBO you ask?

Its the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act (H.R. 2517) we talked about here sponsored by Rep. Tammy Baldwin. Lawdork reports

The bill would provide for health care, family and medical leave and other benefits to federal employees with same-sex domestic partners. ..... Baldwin said in a news release that she was “delighted” with the subcommittee’s action......

The bill now goes to the full committee, which is the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Edolphus Towns of New York. The bill also has been referred to the House committees on House Administration and the Judiciary.

Lawdork has some thoughtful consideration of how this bill will make sense of the disparate ways GLBT people can be legally connected in their home states. He has some suggestions here. More commentary from Pam's House Blend.

Also, you can read testimony (PDF) from the WIlliams Institute at UCLA which studies policy around sexual orientation.

Protecting OUR children

There's a commonly expressed view from the Other Side that we GLBT don't have children. Of course, that's false: we do have children.

Some of them are adopted. Some of them are conceived from in vitro fertilization with our gametes. And some are children from our previous, straight relationships.

A new ABCnews article discusses the two mommies/two daddies families. Interesting fact the first:

Of the 270,000 children living with same-sex parents, about 65,000 are adopted. Most, like other Americans, are in two-child families.

Fact the second:

Twenty percent of gay couples have children under 18.

Fact the third:

about 4% of all adoptive parents are gay couples

Fact the fourth: the kids are doing just fine.

Data collected as part of the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study have shown few differences in psychosexual development, psychological adjustment and overall well-being.

"Boys seem to do as well as girls," said Dr. Nanette Gartrell, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco and principal investigator in the 23-year study.

"Most offspring of same-sex parents are heterosexual as adults," she told ABCNews.com. "By the time our study kids were 10 years old, they demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of diversity and tolerance, and an appreciation of the destructive effects of discrimination."

There's a group for kids with gay parents: COLAGE (Children Of Lesbians And Gays Everywhere)

Obama: does he or doesn't he?

From the Washington Post, in an article entitled Don't Trust Obama on Gay Marriage:

Obama's history on the issue does have a complicating twist. On a 1996 Illinois Senate race questionnaire, Obama (or more likely a staffer) wrote, "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages." Liberals take from this revelation the assumption that Obama's apparent flip was insincere.

But there is nothing in his record since he became a national political figure that should give them any reason to think he will revert to his supposedly pro-gay-marriage position. And if Obama actually does believe in same-sex marriage, that makes his public opposition to it worse than it would be if he were genuinely opposed. How is it in any way reassuring to liberals to suppose that a politician agrees with them while selling them down the river? Even if Obama's apparent flip isn't genuine, he nonetheless acts as if it were, rendering his supposedly silent support worthless in tangible political terms. Whatever he "really" thinks, Obama's stance on gay marriage is virtually indistinguishable from that of John McCain.

For some time, liberal politicians have taken a largely wink-and-nod approach to gay issues. They've done so with the excuse that the culture must catch up before any progress can be made (an excuse that conveniently doesn't apply to other liberal interest groups, such as unions and trial lawyers, that do very well when Democrats are in power). Obama paid tribute to this timeworn tactic recently when he told gay activists at the White House: "I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, but by the promises my administration keeps. By the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."

Talking about "feelings" is a cuddly liberal pastime, and Obama's promise conjures up the phrase that Clinton famously entered into our political lexicon when he told an angry AIDS activist, "I feel your pain." Maybe now, when it comes to same-sex marriage, he finally does. But it would be nice to have a sitting president whose feelings translate into action.

Update: there's an excellent article in the Advocate about Obama. And it makes the very very good point that he's not going to do anything for us if we're not prepared to do it ourselves, meaning the hard work of activism.

If the wingnuts' voices are the only ones They hear, if the wingnuts are the only ones protesting and vocal, then don't be surprised if we don't get anything. We must be tireless in writing and promoting the cause TO THE POLITICIANS. And our families and allies too.

Australia: yes or no?

Australia's Labor party supports recognition of same sex couples but stops short of marriage equality (AFP)

Australia's centre-left ruling party on Saturday voted for national recognition of same-sex unions but stopped short of lifting a ban on gay marriage.

The national Labor conference voted to develop a system for the registration and recognition of same-sex relationships, after gay rights advocates failed to gather enough numbers for a resolution to legalise gay marriage......

A recent poll suggested up to 60 percent of Australians supported gay marriage and the statistics bureau in May announced it would count same-sex couples who declared themselves married in the national census.

WIth 60 percent support what's the problem? Probably the usual suspects, those who insist their religious views trump others'.

The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes it clear that he doesn't support marriage equality, leading to protests across Australia last weekend. The NY Times:

"The prime minister has made it clear that a Labour government will not support any form of recognition of relationships that undermine marriage," Attorney-General Robert McClelland told delegates to the Labour Party conference.

Rudd, a church-going Christian, has long opposed formal recognition of gay marriage and promised before he won power in 2007 that he would ensure national marriage laws would continue to define marriage as between a man and woman.

Gay marriage remains illegal in Australia, but the states of Tasmania and Victoria, and the Australian Capital Territory, all allow a form of civil union, which gives gay couples similar rights to married couples......Rudd's government is also committed to ending all other discrimination on the grounds of sexuality.

Knowing gay people, and the Catholic effect

A few months ago, Gallup released a poll showing that favorability towards gay rights is strikingly affected by knowing someone gay. Not surprisingly, conservatives are much less likely than liberals to report that they know anyone gay. Of course, we know they do....they just don't know it yet.

As Harvey Milk used to tell us, we have to come out, and come out, and come out again to effect the change we need.


Meanwhile, we have discussed several times a recent study which has come out on how view on gay rights vary from state to state (here and here). This shows a lot of difference across the states in support for gay rights. The paper, Upcoming in Gay Rights in the States: Public Opinion and Policy Responsiveness Jeffrey R. Lax and Justin H. Phillips Columbia Univ. American Political Science Review, Vol. 103 (3), 2009 is now getting press.

The statistic getting the most attention? As reported in USA today,

Want to predict which state might move next to legalize same-sex marriage? You might count Catholics. The higher their percentage of the population, the more likely the state is to... support gay rights. ....

"Six of the eight states where 50 percent or more of the public supports gay marriage are the states with the highest proportion of Catholics, ranging from Rhode Island at 46 percent to New York and California at 37 percent."

Could it be yet another example where the Bishops are out of step with the people of the church? Gee, what do you think?

Perhap the most important point in the study is this:

“The most important predictor of whether a state has a particular policy protecting the rights of gays and lesbians is public opinion,” said Phillips. “Public support for a policy matters far more than how liberal the voters or government officials are in general. For same-sex marriage, majority support seems sufficient for it to be adopted.”

And building majority support comes from, you guessed it, knowing gay people. Which is why it tracks with age: younger people are more likely to have friends who are gay.

But here's the scary quote:

Interest groups and voters opposed to marriage equality and other non-discrimination policies have influence far beyond their relative share of a state’s population. They can block equality measures even when there is a significant majority favoring them.

So the Pro-H8 people can actually be a tyranny of the minority, and strip rights away that a majority approves, with their lies and their hate.

Contemplate that for a while.

The Conservative Agenda (video Sunday)

Iit's not about marriage. It's about attacking us in every way possible.

Marriage updates: around the US and around the world

Albania considers marriage equality:

Albania would join European Union members The Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain in giving gay couples the same rights as heterosexual couples and would be the first country in the Balkans to do so.

"This is not only a step to be taken for European integration, but primarily for the emancipation of the Albanian society," the Alliance against Discrimination of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) said Friday.....

An Albanian lesbian speaking on behalf of the alliance said the proposal for same-sex marriages took their group by surprise as they had lobbied only for a law against discrimination in society and the workplace.

In the UK, Quakers agree to perform same sex marriage, and urge the government to replace its current civil unions for gay people with actual civil marriage.

The Quakers sanctioned gay marriages yesterday and called on the Government to give same-sex couples who marry in their ceremonies the same standing as heterosexual people.

Other Christian churches and religious denominations have approved blessings for same-sex civil partnerships but the Quakers are Britain’s first mainstream religious group to approve marriages for homosexuals.

Progress is balanced by setbacks. In Portugal, the court upholds a marriage ban

The court said the question before it was not whether the constitution allows same-sex marriages, but whether the constitution compels them to be accepted, which it does not......
Five years ago, Portugal extended some legal benefits — such as joint tax returns — to people who live together, including gays. However, the concessions fell far short of the entitlements gained by marriage.

And, sadly, in Maine, a petition was submitted that will put marriage equality on the Ballot. (This is assuming they got enough valid signatures.) Proposition 1 will ask whether marriage rights should be rescinded for same sex couples.

"We know this is going to be a really hard-fought election. There are passionate supporters on both sides of thisissue. But we feel very confident that our campaign (has) over 60,000 supporters so far," said Jesse Connolly of the No on 1 campaign. "I think our advocates knew when they went into this ... that they'd have to win both in the Legislature and also at the ballot box."

Mainers: Vote NO in November to preserve marriage equality. More info at Maine Freedom to Marry.