Wipe out Homophobia on Facebook (video Sunday)

Wipe out homophobia on facebook: WHOF.net and on facebook here

Maryland Governor wants to be New York

A week ago, Maryland's Governor O'Malley announced a push for marriage equality in Maryland.  He wants to emulate Gov Cuomo of NY:

After a disappointing 2011 session for marriage equality advocates in Maryland, ending with the death of a Senate-passed marriage bill in the lower house, the governor came out in favor of a bill that he said would address “religious freedom and protect marital equality rights equally under the law.”

O’Malley’s press conference .... signals that he may take a more active role in leading on marriage equality legislation. He was criticized earlier this year for not taking a more visible role in support of the 2011 bill.

“I’m supportive of this bill in the upcoming session, and so supportive that I’ve decided to make it one of the handful of bills that will be an administrative priority.”

Make it lucky 7 in 2012?

What the culture war really is about

Do you remember the scorn from the Bush administration some years ago, claiming to make "their own reality"? It's a symptom of the "culture wars". From Forbes:

[T]he so called “culture wars” that 150 years later are now back in full swing with a couple of stories that hit the news this week. The counseling center Michele Bachmann co-owns with her husband was shown to practice discredited and potentially harmful therapies intended to use prayer, counseling, and coercion to convert same sex attractions to heterosexual attraction. Then Tim Pawlenty made demonstrably false claims about a “scientific dispute” that does not exist as to whether or not same sex attractions are a choice: they are not and there is no scientific dispute, there is a scientific consensus.

Now, if you are not a member of the LGBT community or a partisan on the religious right, you might think, like those who travelled to Bull Run, you are merely a spectator to a battle. You may have a favored side, like an entertaining reality show, but one that is actually reality. You may even be passionate about which side you want to win. But if you think you are simply watching something being fought by others, you would be wrong. You are a full participant, as are all Americans. What’s at stake is nothing less than how our country will think about and try to solve the problems we face. The culture wars we watch are really psychological wars in which we are fighting about how and with what we will think.

One of the issues about which you are a perhaps unwitting combatant is the question of whether both sides are fighting with the same weapons. They are not. One side fights with scientific curiosity, professional consensus, and professional doubt. The other uses pseudo-science and a rhetorical strategy designed to undermine the credibility of those who use data-driven arguments in conflict with cherished beliefs.

Consider the Bachmanns’ discredited counseling practices. The professional community is nearly unanimous in condemning their practice as a potentially dangerous one that does not work (and let me be clear, if they presented their work as a faith-based ministry rather than a mental health counseling center asking for and receiving Medicaid reimbursement I’d probably have nothing to say about what they are doing, it’s the counseling not the Christian part of what they are doing that is the problem)

... Whether you’re trying to decide between different economic solutions to our nation’s problems, to figure out how to generate more revenue or get more customers for your business, or crafting a treatment plan to help a struggling adolescent find his way through a hornet’s nest of painful conflict, you have to be able to tolerate the stress of making decisions in conditions of uncertainty without imposing the certainty of ideological order. You have to constantly monitor whether what you’re doing is working or not.

Wishing won’t make it so not matter how fervent, or ideologically pure the wish.

Important, but not the first

The first time actively serving gay military personnel marched in a Gay Pride  Parade:

1. San Diego, 2011
2. Chicago, 2002
3. New York, 1975

If you guessed San Diego, where over 250 marched last weekend-- you are wrong! THe answer is (3). As MIchael Bedwell reports, we're way too good at ignoring our past. Perhaps that is why we keep repeating it.

We have some phenomenal LGBT history, but even we don't know it.

Harvey Milk—first out gay elected official. Nope. That was Kathy Kozachenko, elected to the Ann Arbor, Michigan, City Council three years before Harvey was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. OK, then Harvey was the first out gay elected to a “major office.” Nope. That was Elaine Noble, elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, also in 1974.

OK, OK. Then Harvey was the first out gay man elected to office. Wrong again. That was Allan Spear, reelected to the Minnesota State Senate in 1976 after coming out.

ALRIGHT! Then Harvey was the second out gay man elected to office. Sorry, no. That was Jim Yeadon, elected to the Madison, Wisconsin, City Council months before Harvey’s November ’77 election.

The “Courage Campaign”trumpeted that California’s John Perez was the first out leader of a state legislature. Nope. That was Spear again, who was President of the Minnesota Senate for 10 years.

And bans on gay service in the military were declared unconstitutional 31 years ago.

Go, read, learn, and teach!

Suit in New York to nullify marriages

Driven to desperation by the pictures of joyful couples, those opposed to equality seek any opportunity to hurt their fellow human beings. The NYTimes:

The group, New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, alleges that the Senate violated the state’s open meetings law in the run-up to the vote on the marriage bill and acted improperly in closing the Senate lobby to members of the public.....

The complaint (see also below), which is to be filed in State Supreme Court in Livingston County, where Mr. McGuire lives, states: “The plaintiffs in this case seek to preserve not only marriage as the union of one woman to one man, but also our constitutional liberties by acting as a check on an out-of-control political process that was willing to pass a bill regardless of how many laws and rules it violated.”

A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, Josh Vlasto, said the lawsuit had no merit.

Lies, Damn LIes, and the Religious Right

One of the memorable moments of the DOMA hearing was Sen. Al Franken calling out the mis-representation of the data by Tom Minnery, of Focus on the (right wing heterosexual) Family.

Blogger Alvin McEwen points out that the mis-representation of data by those opposed to equality is an ongoing issue. Over and over again, they pull this off.  It's way passed time to call them on it.  McEwen has a great post with documentation:

Minnery's misreading of study in order present a bad picture of same-sex households is commonplace in religious right data. Often times, religious right spokespeople will cite studies which have nothing to do with same-sex households in order to claim that these households are not the best place to raise children....

And we're not just talking about studies regarding households, either.When groups like Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, or the National Organization for Marriage aren't busy scaring people with how the gay community wants to "recruit children," they busy themselves distorting all sorts of legitimate data, creating conclusions that the researchers never intended or worked for.

We know this because at least 11 of these researchers complained....

These are the reasons why many of us are celebrating Franken's dressing down of Minnery. It revealed to so many what a lot of us in the gay community have known about the religious right for years - that all of their talk about "morals" and "values" and "personally held religious beliefs" are a dodge. They are a smokescreen which these organizations use to hide their deceptions.

When it comes to the gay community, the vast majority of religious right studies and data have been fallacious distortions designed to exploit fear, not educate.

You should bookmark McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters. He's a bulldog in exposing the lies.

Al Franken at the DOMA hearing (video Sunday)

Everyone loves how Al Franken called out the lies about families at the hearing.

Heartwarming stories from New York

The NY Times profiled three long-time couples, ready to marry this weekend:
Ralph , 79, and Richard , 87, Together 41 years

In the 41 years since they started dating, the two men, both railroad enthusiasts, have traveled more than 30,000 miles together by rail — as far north as Alaska, as far south as Mexico — and said their vows aboard the Queen Mary 2, out on the Atlantic Ocean. But for most of their time together, they never talked seriously about marriage.

“It was just an inconceivable thing,” Mr. Goneau said.

Mr. Goneau, who worked in retail and owned a hardware store in town for 10 years, and Mr. Wilhelm, who was part of a CBS camera crew, first met in a gay bar in Woodstock, where Mr. Wilhelm owned a weekend house. They are old enough to recall slurs hurled at gay men and to have confronted the legal issues that accompany aging with a partner who is not a spouse.

“I had an experience of not being able to visit him in a Westchester hospital because I was not a relative,” Mr. Goneau said.

and Gail, 56, and Audrey, 74, Together 12 years

The two women briefly considered filing for a civil union in New Jersey but decided against it.

“It just seemed so medicinal, like you put on rubber gloves and a guard and fill out papers,” Ms. Marquis said. “I wanted to be married in our home state. It’s a form of acceptance.”

They have plans for a 2011 wedding, probably in the fall, and are already fussing over details — how many of their more than 500 friends to invite, where to have it, what made-to-order couture dress Ms. Smaltz will wear.

“I’ll tell you one thing: I am not going to wear a tuxedo,” Ms. Marquis said. “We’ll probably have two of the most fabulous dresses around. Of course, Audrey’s will probably be more fabulous than mine, because that’s who she is.”

Joyful day!!!

Married but Unequal

From today's LA Time:, a slam-dunk op-ed:

California law recognizes four different classes of same-sex couples with official relationship status: First are those couples who married in California during the brief window after the state's Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal but before Proposition 8 was passed. They remain legally married in the state's eyes. Then there are the couples living in California who married outside the state before Proposition 8. They too are considered married in California. Then there are couples who have entered into domestic partnerships in California or in other places where they are legal. Finally, there are those who married in states where marriage is legal, but they did so after Proposition 8. They are considered de facto domestic partners in California. Of course, despite their differences, all of these couples share a striking commonality: They are considered single under federal law.

Things are even worse in some states. Imagine a married couple that moves to a state without even a domestic partnership law: The couple suddenly goes from being legally married to being legal strangers.....

If this all seems absurdly confusing, it is. The messy situation puts into stark relief the complexities that arise when only some states offer full equality to lesbians and gay men, and it highlights the shakiness of a discriminatory system that will continue to yield countless stories of hardship.
....
The experiences of legally married couples moving to other states puts the issue in sharp relief. People are entering into marriage only to find themselves in legal limbo when a new job or family circumstances necessitate a move. Constitutional principles of due process and equal protection cannot tolerate such discriminatory treatment based solely on sexual orientation.

Following up on the hearing

At the DOMA hearing,the same, old, tired arguments were trotted out about how gays will destroy families (just how does my marriage stop straights from procreating?) and how kindergartners will be taught how to be gay (and this complete lie relates to marriage how?). Refreshingly, though, the adults in the room were able to speak about equality and why it matters.

From the Atlantic:

Except for the fact that some of the witnesses were talking about lawfully recognized same-sex spouses, no one said anything very different from what was being said 15 years ago, when DOMA was passed.

And yet the hearing was completely different from anything imaginable in 1996......

What a difference 15 years makes. According to testimony in today's hearings, approximately 80,000 same-sex couples have married under their states' laws -- and (I can say this from experience) neighbors, coworkers, and family members are asking the unmarried ones when to expect the wedding. ...

Just as important, by now almost all the other major antigay scaffolding extant in 1996 has been dismantled. In 2003's Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court slapped down its earlier Bowers v. Hardwick decision, declaring it "was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today." Last year, Congress passed a repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell," which the military is steadily inching toward enacting. ....

And so while those who testified in the Judiciary Committee theater said very much the same things that were being said in 1996, the frame -- and therefore the meaning -- was completely different....
Back in 1996, no senator was calling the antigay forces on their lies, damn lies, and statistics. No senator approvingly quoted his state's married same-sex couples or invited white-bread suburban lawnmowing gay men and lesbians to tell the heartbreaking disaster stories about being excluded from full marriage recognition. This time, perhaps no Republican senator was yet willing to urge DOMA's repeal, but only Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) showed up to speak in support of it.

The moral panic of the late 1980s and early 1990s left behind three major legacies: Bowers v. Hardwick, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and DOMA. The first two have fallen. And while states' laws and constitutional amendments have to be repealed as well, the federal DOMA is the most important brick in the wall. Today I could see that wall shaking.

From the LA Times:

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was invited to testify, compared it to his childhood during segregation in the South.

"My entire childhood, I followed signs that said, 'white restrooms, colored restrooms, white water fountains, colored water fountains,' " Lewis said. "We look back on that time now in disbelief, and one day we will look back on this period with that same sense of disbelief. … All across this nation, same-sex couples are denied the very rights that you and I enjoy."

From the Christian Science Monitor:

In emotional testimony, married gay and lesbian couples testified before a Senate committee as to the costs – financial and emotional – of the Defense of Marriage Act. The Senate is considering a repeal.

Should there be straight civil unions?

We've talked recently about the concern of some over the possibility that some companies in New York will required their LGBT employees to get married to keep medical insurance for their partners--basically, eliminating the Domestic Partner benefit.

We've also talked numerous times about the "marriage lite" aspect of civil unions, and how in France, where gays can only get civil unions but straights can choose unions (PACS) or marriage, more straights are choosing the civil union.

This illustrates two problems.

First, tying health insurance to employment is nuts. This creates a pressure to have some sort of legal relationship solely for insurance coverage (and we know there are lots of couples who have married just for the insurance.)

But second, and significantly, there's this, from Patrick Appel:

Creating straight civil unions would change marriage far more than incorporating gays into the institution and it would likely impact existing civil unions. For many gays and lesbians civil unions are the only legal option currently. If straights use civil unions as a less serious institution than marriage, what happens to the status of gay and lesbian civil unions? In other words, would straights using civil unions as a dumping ground for less permanent relationships degrade gay unions?

Of course it would! That's the point. Civil unions are not viewed as "serious". They are not viewed as the same as marriages. They are viewed as lesser, that's why those opposed to equality want to keep gays in them (although most would prefer we had nothing).

Should there be open "domestic partnerships" that allow individuals to "connect" regardless of their relationship, for certain benefits? There may be some argument for that-- a child with an elderly parent, roommates, those who "aren't ready" for marriage. But that kind of thing would make true marriage equality even more imperative.

As Appel says:

If the main benefit of straight civil unions is that they are easier to undo then marriage, if they replace promises of "for ever" with promises of "for now," then they may threaten one of the most important aspects of marriage. To vow the rest of your life to someone is, in some cases, an unrealistic act. But the weight of that promise stretches our virtues and shrinks our vices.

Exactly.

LGBT people deserve the right to make that vow.

I can't begin to explain to you, how wonderful it is to wake up every morning knowing that I am married to my beloved wife, and knowing that we have made, and will keep that vow.

Respect for Marriage Act: hearing July 20

The Respect for Marriage Act would repeal DOMA. As the Prop8 Trial Tracker tells us,

Sens. Bingaman and Udall have signed on as co-sponsors of the Respect for Marriage Act, sponsored by Sen. Feinstein, which would repeal DOMA. ...This brings the total number of co-sponsors to 28 and the total number of Senators in support to 29....

It is also good timing as this morning, the Chairman Leahy announced a hearing titled “S.598, The Respect for Marriage Act: Assessing the Impact of DOMA on American Families”, scheduled for Wednesday, July 20th at 10 AM EST in Washington ..

Some of the witnesses are listed here.  If you want your blood pressure to rise, you can read the usual anti-gay screed (Parents!  Procreation!  Religion!) from the testimony submitted by the witnesses against equality.

President Obama has come out in support of this bill.

There is no chance it will pass.

Update:  Follow a live blog at the Prop8 Trial Tracker
Or follow a twitter feed at #RepealDOMA

Splendid reflection on Marriage

Andrew Sullivan knocks it out of the park.

You can debate theology, and the divide between church and state, the issue of procreation, the red herring of polygamy, and on and on. But what it all really comes down to is the primary institution of love. The small percentage of people who are gay or lesbian were born, as all humans are, with the capacity to love and the need to be loved. These things, above everything, are what make life worth living. And unlike every other minority, almost all of us grew up among and part of the majority, in families where the highest form of that love was between our parents in marriage. To feel you will never know that, never feel that, is to experience a deep psychic wound that takes years to recover from. It is to become psychologically homeless. Which is why, I think, the concept of “coming out” is not quite right. It should really be called “coming home.”....

If you’re a heterosexual reading this, have you ever considered for a millisecond that your right to pursue happiness did not include your right to marry the person you love? And that is why, over the centuries, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the right to marry for everyone, citizen or even traveler, as a core, inalienable right, bestowed by the Declaration of Independence itself. The court has ruled that the right to marry precedes the Bill of Rights; it has decided that prisoners on death row have a right to marry, even if they can never consummate it. It has ruled that no limitations may be put on it for anyone—deadbeat dads, multiple divorcées, felons, noncitizens. Hannah Arendt wrote in 1959 that “the right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right … Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs.” And, of course, after a long struggle, interracial marriage was finally declared a constitutional right, in perhaps the most sweeping ruling ever, with the court declaring that civil marriage was one of the “basic civil rights of man, fundamental to our very existence and survival.” ...

And that is why it has been such a tragedy that conservatives decided this was a battle they were determined to fight against, an advance they were dedicated to reversing. It made no sense to me. Here was a minority asking for responsibility and commitment and integration. And conservatives were determined to keep them in isolation, stigmatized and kept on an embarrassing, unmentionable margin, where gays could be used to buttress the primacy of heterosexuality. We were for them merely a drop shadow for heterosexuality. What they could not see was that the conservative tradition of reform and inclusion, of social change through existing institutions, of the family and personal responsibility, all led inexorably toward civil marriage for gays.
....
And in the years of struggle, as more and more heterosexuals joined us, we all began finally to see that this was not really about being gay. It was about being human.

How will the death of DADT affect DOMA?

One of the real remaining issues with allowing open service in the military is, surprisingly, marriage.  The military traditionally takes care of the families of service people.  But the bigotry expressed by DOMA, the so called "defense of marriage act", prevents that.

Great article in the NY Times this weekend lays it out

[W]ith the final repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the coming months — and with the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in New York and the possibility of other states’ following suit — many advocates expect the number of gay and lesbian married couples in the military to rise significantly.

As those numbers grow, unequal treatment of same-sex married couples will become a source of resentment and poor morale, advocates for gay troops assert.

...Eileen Lainez, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon, said the department was studying whether smaller benefits, like free legal services, could be extended to same-sex spouses. But she said there would be “no change” in eligibility for major benefits like housing and health care when “don’t ask, don’t tell” goes away.

“The Defense of Marriage Act and the existing definition of ‘dependent’ in some laws prohibit extension of many military benefits to same-sex couples,” she said.

...One currently serving Army officer who married her same-sex partner in Massachusetts said the end of the ban would provide a huge emotional release, allowing her for the first time to talk to her fellow soldiers about her wife and two children.

But she also considers it unfair that her wife will be unable to receive health or dental care on her base, buy life insurance subsidized by the military or shop at the base commissary, grocery store and gas station, where goods are typically cheaper.

Their family, however, will be eligible for base housing because they have dependent children. But same-sex married couples without children will probably not get such housing, experts say.

“I want to be like everyone else,” the officer said. “I don’t think my family should be entitled to anything less than the people I’ve served with here and overseas.”

Imaging what it will mean to be told, as an out gay servicemember, that you can't give your spouse health insurance?

What will it mean in public perception, when the carefully folded flag from the coffin is given to a same-sex spouse?

The racial integration of the military helped drive integration nation-wide. Service members who complete their service go home, after all. (It may have been helped somewhat by the draft, which made sure that serving was widely and democratically experienced. Our professional military is quite distant from most of us now, a separate class.)

 DOMA is and remains a purely cruel and vicious law.  The families of gay servicemembers deserve the same treatment as the families of straight servicemembers. 

Update:more on the inequities here.

Same-sex partners can be listed as the person to be notified in case a service member is killed, injured, or missing, but current regulations prevent anyone other than immediate family — not same-sex spouses — from learning the details of the death. Same-sex spouses also will not be eligible for travel allowances to attend repatriation ceremonies if their military spouses are killed in action.

Can you imagine anything more insulting than not being told how your spouse died?

END DOMA NOW.

Drinking fountains (video Sunday)

NOM will protest NY marriages

When NY gay couples start to tie the knot, our friends at NOM will be there protesting. Always a class act, NOM. Right out of the the Phelps family guidebook.

From The Advocate:

When gay couples in New York start legally getting hitched July 24, the National Organization for Marriage plans to crash their weddings with a series of protests.

The group, which lobbied against passage of the marriage equality bill signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, announced the rallies Friday on its website. Protests are so far being planned in Albany, Rochester, Buffalo and New York City.

They are also going to try a Prop8 run at amending the NY state constitution to overturn equality.

California FAIR Act, Prop8, and Harvey Milk.

CA governor Jerry Brown this week signed SB48, The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act , which mandates inclusion of gay people in instructional materials. The fundies' heads are exploding.

You see, one of the big scare tactics they used for Prop8 was that if gay people got married, then children would learn about gays! But if gay people didn't get married, they wouldn't!

On Twitter, I saw a post that said,

This is exactly WHY I voted YES on Prop8. Cuz I don't want my children influenced to be gay in any kind of way!!

So, this parent thinks that by learning that gays exist, their kids will be gay. Clearly one of those who thinks we all choose to be gay. (Aside: why would anyone choose to be gay? My personal opinion is that the fundies think that gays have better sex, and thus more people knew about gay sex they'd become gay. This suggests the fundies have lousy sex lives. But I digress.)

The first thing is that this exposes the Prop8 backers as liars. You see, denying marriage equality never did have anything to do with the schools. My favorite tweet is from The Rev Susan Russell:

Since we're going to teach about gays in school anyway, can we have marriage equality back now in CA, please?

You have to wonder if the supporters of Prop8 will realize that their backers lied to them.

The second thing is what the FAIR act, and the kerfuffle it's causing, reveals about the antis. And what it reveals is their desire to make us invisible. If they have to admit we exist, then they might get to know us. They might have to justify their abusive treatment of loving gay families.

Still, you might ask, isn't this a bit much? Mandating teaching about gay people>?

Well, In 2009, a school in Southern California told a sixth grader that she could not present a school report about Harvey Milk unless her classmates had parental permission to attend.

Natalie Jones, a sixth grader at Mt. Woodson Elementary School in Ramona, California, was given an assignment in an independent study project class to write a report on any subject she found interesting. She chose Harvey Milk. Milk, the United States’s first openly gay elected official, was one of Time Magazine’s “Time 100 Heroes and Icons of the 20th Century” in 1999, has been the subject of several books, an opera, a documentary film that won the 1984 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, and a feature film released in 2008 that won two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor.

After Natalie got a near-perfect score on her report, her class was told to make PowerPoint presentations about their reports, which they would show to other students in the class. The day before Natalie was to give her 12-page presentation she was called into the principal’s office and told she couldn’t do so.

The school said that because Harvey Milk was gay, a report about him fell into the category of sex education and the students would have to get permission slips to hear her presentation. Simply by mentioning his sexuality, it was "sex education". You see, the very fact that gay people exist is a threat, because of course it's all about SEX.

Really, that's their obsession with sex again.

Harvey Milk was an immensely influential progressive politician. He was gay. He was assassinated. This is an important period in California history and students should learn about it. Now they will.

Religious freedom on the job: NY Town Clerk resigns

From the News:

A town clerk in western New York has resigned to avoid being forced to sign marriage licenses for gay and lesbian couples, citing religious objections to same-sex marriage....

Much of the debate in New York focused on the scope of protections for those opposed to same-sex marriage. The new law exempts religious groups from performing same-sex marriages but does not extend those protections to individuals, including government employees...

Cuomo, who had made the legalization of same-sex marriage a top priority this year, told reporters on Tuesday that he agreed with Fotusky's decision to resign because government workers have a responsibility to enforce the law.

"When you enforce the laws of the state, you don't get to pick and choose the laws," Cuomo said.

...
Robin Fretwell Wilson, a professor at Washington and Lee Law School in Virginia, has lobbied lawmakers in New York and other states to exempt individuals, including government employees, from providing services to same-sex couples. In a 2010 paper, she argued that the religious beliefs of marriage officers should be accommodated as long as they pose no hardship to same-sex couples.

"Forcing a public employee with a religious objection to facilitate a same-sex marriage would be intolerant in the extreme when little is to be gained by such rigid demands," wrote Wilson, who was not available for comment on Tuesday.

So, by that logic, if I am a town clerk and I have a religious objection to Jews marrying non-Jews, I can refuse to sign the license. Or if I am a follower of a white supremacist religion, I can refuse to sign the license of a mixed race couple? Right? Or is it just religious objections to gay folks that should be protected?

Republican insiders wish marriage would go away

A poll from the National Journal reveals a change in perception amongst political operatives. Democrats are pro-marriage equality, while Republican operatives would like to ignore it as an issue.

What's striking is the comparison of views in 2009, when Democrats wanted the issue to go away, and now, when they are substantially in support; conversely, Republicans thought the party should oppose equality in 2009, and now 56% think they should ignore it as an issue.  (Concomitant with that, you can see Republican opposition decline modestly.)

One presumes that this desire to avoid the issue on the part of the Republicans is a recognition  that the red-meat anti-gay language that plays to the base in the primary is now toxic to the middle in the general election.

National Organization for ALL Marriages

Tired of NOM?  So is The REv Susan Russell, outspoken Episcopal priest, lesbian activist, and equality advocate.  Her newest project:  The National Organization for All Marriages (Facebook here).

Susan writes on her own blog,

There are lots of great organizations working toward LGBT Equality but I figure there's room for JUST one more.

I'm calling it NOAM ... the National Organization for ALL Marriages ... and hope we can get a little buzz going as we just raise up our hands together in support of the proposition that ALL marriages are created equal.

I hope we can pool our prayers, our advocacy and our energy toward supporting the Respect for Marriage Act (wending its way through Congress).

I hope we can also keep our eye on Maggie Gallagher and her National Organization for Marriage Discrimination (AKA "NOM") which is currently fundraising

to remove pro-equality Republicans from office in New York. (Because we certainly don't want values like EQUALITY to catch on for heaven's sake. What kind of country do they think this is, anyway? One conceived in liberty or something?)

So, go lend Susan a hand, join the facebook page, and make marriage equal!

Changes in benefits in NY?

Companies that currently offer DP benefits may now expect their employees to marry. If the state has an interest in promoting marriage (gay or straight), then I have no problem with expecting the same thing from gay and straight couples. Equality means no secret trap door to a second-class gay-only status. Whether you are DP'd or married, you are still disadvantaged financially as a same sex couple, so most of that should not be any worse. So.... what would justify keeping a DP category? There are a few reasons.

From the NY Times:

On the surface, this appears to put the couples on an even footing with heterosexual married couples. After all, this is precisely what they have been fighting for: being treated as a spouse. But some gay and lesbian advocates are arguing that the change may have come too soon: some couples may face complications, since their unions are not recognized by the federal government.

Even with the complications, many people will want to get married for the reasons people want to get married,” said Ross D. Levi, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda. “But from our perspective, to hinge something as important as insurance for your family to what is still a complicated legal matter for same-sex couples doesn’t seem to be a fair thing to do.”

He said that there were a variety of reasons — legal, financial and personal — that companies should keep the domestic partnership option at least until gay marriage was recognized at the federal level. Legally speaking, getting married could create immigration issues or it could potentially muddy the process of adopting a child. In some instances, he added, an employee may work in a gay marriage state but live in a neighboring state that does not recognize the marriage. The couple may want to wait to marry until they can be legally wed in their home state.

Still, in the fullness of time, post-DOMA, I expect equality. And that means gay couples will have exactly the same choices, with the same rights AND responsibilities, as straights.

Soldier's parents work for equality (video Sunday)

More on the story here.

Sums it up

This has been going around for a couple of weeks...

Equality update/FAQ

In the wake of New York's landmark decision, and based on conversations around the blogs, I thought I would give you an update on marriage equality battles.

Will married gay couples from NY be recognized elsewhere?

• No state will be required to recognize marriages performed in New York. Like my marriage in CA, or same sex marriages from MA, the marriages in NY will be legally invisible in over 30 states. This is thanks to section 2 of DOMA (the defense of marriage act) which states explicitly that no state has to recognize a gay couple.

But I thought that DOMA was overturned by the Department of Justice

• No. The DoJ is not defending DOMA in court, but it remains the law of the land and is still enforced. There are at least 6 DOMA cases pending in different circuits of the federal courts. These have all challenged section 3, which forbids the federal government from recognizing legally married gay couples, like me. DOMA was already found unconstitutional in the 1st circuit, but that's being appealed. Unless and until it gets to the Supreme Court (SCOTUS), however, individual decisions will only affect the states within that federal court circuit. 

• There is a bill that would repeal DOMA being put forward in Congress ("Respect for Marriage Act"), which led to a moving hearing on July 20. Despite that, it is unlikely to go very far because of Republican opposition.

How does this relate to the Prop8 case?

• The Prop8 case addresses the right to marry, NOT whether it will be recognized (as in the DOMA cases). Briefly: In California in 2008, the State Supreme Court found for marriage equality (and overturned Prop22, which had made a law forbidding it). However, 8 months later, Prop8 was approved by the voters, this time amending the state Constitution to forbid equal marriage. The State Court agreed that the voters had that right under the state Constitution, but determined that aside from the name "marriage," gay couples should have all the rights of marriage. It also determined that the 18,000 couples married in the "summer of love" were still legally married.

• A case was then brought in federal court arguing that Prop8 violated the US Constitution. Judge Vaughn Walker agreed. That case was appealed to the 9th circuit, where there are two issues to determine. The first issue is whether or not the appellants (the supporters of Prop8) have standing to appeal. Confusingly, this turns on an issue of state law regarding propositions, so the 9th circuit has asked the State Supreme Court to advise them. (The state court will hear the argument in the fall). The second issue, assuming they have standing, is whether the decision was sound. Ultimately, either or both of these issues will be appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS).

• Meanwhile, in a side-show typical of the whole case, the Prop8 supporters filed a different argument against Republican-appointed Judge Vaughn Walker, who in a delicious bit of irony, is gay. Their claim that this rendered him unable to judge impartially was dismissed by the court. Naturally, they are going to  appeal.

Is New York the first legislature to support marriage equality?

• No. New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Maine, and California legislatures all passed equality. In Maine, it was overturned by voter referendum, and in California, then-Gov Schwarzeneggar declined to sign it.

What about the voters?

• If you had asked the electorate in Alabama in 1960 whether they supported civil rights, probably the schools would have remained segregated. Sadly, in no case where equality has been left to the voters, have they passed it. Upcoming  elections in 2012 will include Minnesota and North Carolina, and possibly Maine where they will try to repeal the referendum that overturned equality. Right now it looks unlikely that we will go to the ballot in CA next year.

Big news on DOMA

I've been behind in posting here due to work and travel commitments. There is big news in the DOMA front. Recall up to this point that the Dept of Justice is not defending DOMA in court, although it is still enforcing it.

And recall the Golinski case, in which a married California woman (ironically an employee of the 9th circuit federal court) is suing for health benefits for her wife. The government's defense is from attorney Paul Clement, hired by the Republicans in Congress since the DoJ won't defend.

Not only won't the DoJ defend, however, they are actively supporting Golinski AND challenging DOMA, in a newly filed brief. From Chris Geidner:

DOJ lawyers today made an expansive case in a 31-page filing that DOMA is unconstitutional. ... In describing why heightened scrutiny applies to classifications based on sexual orientation, for example, the DOJ's lawyers -- in describing how "gays and lesbians have been subject to a history of discrimination" -- write, "The federal government has played a significant and regrettable role in the history of discrimination against gay and lesbian individuals."...

Today's filing does more than acknowledge the federal government's role in discrimination, going on to detail specific instances of anti-gay and anti-lesbian discrimination, including the 1950 Senate resolution seeking an "investigation" into "homosexuals and other sexual perverts" in government employement and President Dwight Eisenhower's executive order adding "sexual perversion" as a ground for "possible dismissal from government service," in the brief's words. It also details the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Postal Service in investigations seeking information about government employees suspected of such "perversion."

The brief goes on to describe anti-gay and anti-lesbian state and local discrimination, as well as private discrimination, before discussing other considerations made by courts when deciding what level of scrutiny should be applied to laws classifying groups -- including immutability; political powerlessness; and whether the classification bears any relation to, as the brief puts it, "legitimate policy objectives or ability to perform or contribute to society."

DOJ's lawyers conclude that heightened scrutiny applies and argue how, under that heightened scrutiny, Section 3 of DOMA should be found to be unconstitutional. ...

the brief concludes, "[T]he official legislative record makes plain that DOMA Section 3 was motivated in substantial part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships, and Congress identified no other interest that is materially advanced by Section 3. Section 3 of DOMA is therefore unconstitutional."

The brief is here.

The hand of the grave: constitutional amendments

From Slate:

[M]ost states can't do what New York did. Their legislatures can't legalize gay marriage, because their voters have passed ballot measures that prohibit it under their state constitutions. The ballot measures were enacted years ago, when gay marriage was unpopular. Now many of the old voters who opposed same-sex marriage are being replaced by young voters who support it. But the old electorate, through its constitutional amendments, has handcuffed the new electorate. The living are being ruled by the dead....

[I]n California, Virginia, or the other 27 states where constitutional amendments forbid gay marriage... legislators are bound not by today's constituents but by yesterday's voters. Many of those voters aren't even around anymore. The strongest support for banning gay marriage, nationally and in nearly every state that has faced a referendum, has come from old people. In Arizona, California, Oregon, and Wisconsin, voters below the age of 30 opposed ballot measures to ban gay marriage but were outvoted by their elders. In Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia, young voters split almost evenly. Today, you can see the same pattern in Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, and other state and national polls. Gay marriage is becoming a majority position in part because people are changing their minds, and in part because a generation that's OK with homosexuality is replacing a generation that wasn't.

The question now is whether the new majority will get its way. To undo the constitutional amendments of the past decade, supporters of gay marriage will have to pass ballot measures in those states. In Nevada, they'll have to do it twice. Passing ballot measures is hard. People tend to vote against them out of suspicion and fear, particularly when you're messing with the constitution.

From a conservative standpoint, that's how the system should work. The point of amending state constitutions while the polls were still against gay marriage was to protect the culture of the traditional family from the onslaught of normalized homosexuality.

But if the culture of the traditional family as enshrined in these constitutions is wrong—if marriage is moral and healthy regardless of sexual orientation—then the walls erected by those ballot measures are a prison inflicted by the old on the young. And that legacy, unlike marriage, is a bond that death alone can't break.

Independence Day: not all of us are equal

In the patriotic fervor of independence day, let's remember that DADT is still the law (and thus LGBT people STILL cannot serve openly in the military).

Let's remember that it's still legal to fire someone for being gay, as there is no Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

Let us remember that in many states, even the minimal recognition of hospital visitation rights are opposed by politicians (e.g., Gov. Walker of WI) and religious groups (e.g., Rhode Island Catholic Bishops).

And let's remember that in only 6 jurisdictions are gay people given the freedom to marry, and their marriages are ignored in most other states and forbidden federal recognition.

Land of the Free, and Home of the Brave, apparently only applies if you are straight.  Some of us are still waiting for the promise to be fulfilled.

The Straight and the Gay (video Sunday)

"Mr Catolick" is a satirist who pokes fun at the Church of England, which unlike the American Episcopal church, has its cassock in a knot over the idea of gay bishops.

So he points out in this amusing video that "Jesus is the savior of the straight and the gay".

Back to the ballot in Maine?

Last year, in a heartbreaker, a referendum on Marriage Equality (Question 1) in Maine overturned the legislature's bill that provided for marriage equality, and enshrined discrimination, using the same vicious lies that worked in CA. But now, emboldened by New York, Equality Maine is thinking of going back to the ballot.

Today, EqualityMaine will launch a campaign to gather signatures to place marriage equality on the ballot in November 2012.

They will face much work and a long campaign to legalize same-sex marriage here....

As a new campaign begins, we can expect to see a well-funded and committed opposition, determined to repeat their success of the past.

And we can expect to hear the same sort of lies and distortions about same-sex marriage that were peddled before.

But I am hopeful that this time, Mainers will make a different choice and that they will hear the stories of their neighbors and realize that discrimination is wrong no matter how it is rationalized.

A classic image of liberty and justice

This image comes from the Village Voice in 2004, by the artist Mirko Ilic. Seems appropriate to replay it here.