Here's an Amendment One roundup for you.
First, a sponsor of the Amendment actually admits it is discriminatory. Ya think?
Second, polls suggest as voters learn how draconian this is, support is dropping-- but needs to fall further.
Third, Business owners and corporate interests strongly oppose it
The election is May 8.
The fight for marriage equality, from the perspective of a gay, married Californian
Pages on this site
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Homecoming (video Sunday)
From the UK campaign for Marriage Equality. Makes the point, don't you think?
Now some people think that the kiss at the end is Too Much. Well, the UK "gets it" more than we do. When I lived in England in the very early 90s, I was surprised to find that romantic movies on TV included those with gay themes, which included kisses like this, and romantic encounters headed towards the bedroom. It was no big deal. It amused me that in the UK, they would bleep gross scenes on Star Trek for violence, but not fairly explicit sex talk (straight or gay).
But in THIS country, we're only hung up on sex, and we don't blink about violence. I prefer the priorities of the Beeb (BBC), I must say. So probably most people HAVEN'T seen two men, or two women, kissing romantically. So that's why there was a bit of a kerfuffle here when a Marine came home and wrapped himself around his partner. (I thought it was adorable, myself.)
However, the situation in the British advertisement has now happened for real in San Diego, when Marine Avarice Guerrero returned home to his boyfriend Cory Huston, from deployment.
Now some people think that the kiss at the end is Too Much. Well, the UK "gets it" more than we do. When I lived in England in the very early 90s, I was surprised to find that romantic movies on TV included those with gay themes, which included kisses like this, and romantic encounters headed towards the bedroom. It was no big deal. It amused me that in the UK, they would bleep gross scenes on Star Trek for violence, but not fairly explicit sex talk (straight or gay).
But in THIS country, we're only hung up on sex, and we don't blink about violence. I prefer the priorities of the Beeb (BBC), I must say. So probably most people HAVEN'T seen two men, or two women, kissing romantically. So that's why there was a bit of a kerfuffle here when a Marine came home and wrapped himself around his partner. (I thought it was adorable, myself.)
However, the situation in the British advertisement has now happened for real in San Diego, when Marine Avarice Guerrero returned home to his boyfriend Cory Huston, from deployment.
Can we say it together? AWWWWWW!Upon seeing Huston, Guerrero dropped his bags; aimed a kiss toward Huston’s lips; and opened his arms to his boyfriends waiting embrace. The time and distance of 10 months’ separation evaporated in a public show of affection that less than a year ago would have been cause for court martial. After a few minutes of emotional holding and kissing, Huston went anxiously down on one knee; looked up at Guerrero, who was dressed from head to toe in military fatigues; and produced an engagement ring and the time-honored phrase, “Will you marry me?”
Huston’s mild tremble, a result of hours and days of anticipation about this day, was quickly quieted by the one word every hopeful fiancĂ© wants to hear: “Yes.”
Friday, April 27, 2012
Inter-racial marriage vs same sex marriage polls (by the numbers, revised)
People are noticing new poll results, in keeping with other recent polls indicating that a plurality, if not a majority of Americans now support the right of gay couples to marry.
I think it's interesting to compare this to approval of inter-racial marriage. A couple of years ago I compared the rate of approval of inter-racial marriage to that of approval of marriage between same sex couples, using data from different polls*.
I've revised the graph with the newest poll numbers and added some landmarks.
I want you to notice a couple of things, as I've noted before. First, at the time of Loving v. Virginia, in which the Supreme Court overturned anti-miscegenation laws and declared inter-racial marriage legal, only 20% of Americans approved of such marriages.
Compare this to the 27% percent who already approved of marriage equality when DOMA passed, which prevented the recognition of same sex marriages. 20% approved when we legalized inter-racial marriage, 27% approved when we essentially de-legalized same sex marriages.
At the time marriage equality for gay couples was approved in Massachusetts (2003) about 35% of Americans approved. It took 10 years after the Loving decision for the numbers to reach that point. That is, only 10 years AFTER inter-racial marriage was legal, did that many people agree with it.
We're now just below 50% on approval of same sex marriage (sometimes a few points up, sometimes a few points down). It took 25 years AFTER inter-racial marriage became legal, to reach that point. So at the same point of approval of inter-racial marriage that we're at now, it had already been legal for 25 years.
Why are we still fighting this battle?
*Method: For this analysis, I assigned a starting year to the absolute value "0" (1968 for inter-racial data). Each data point was then plotted based on how many years had elapsed since year "0". I then registered the same sex marriage data against the inter-racial marriage data based on the nearest value (that is, 1996 for same sex marriage was closest to 1972 for inter-racial marriage). The density of points for same sex marriage relative to the inter-racial marriage reflects the difference in frequency of polling the questions.
*Inter-racial marriage from two Gallup polls here and here
*Same sex marriage from two Pew polls here and here
More Pew data analysis here
I think it's interesting to compare this to approval of inter-racial marriage. A couple of years ago I compared the rate of approval of inter-racial marriage to that of approval of marriage between same sex couples, using data from different polls*.
I've revised the graph with the newest poll numbers and added some landmarks.
I want you to notice a couple of things, as I've noted before. First, at the time of Loving v. Virginia, in which the Supreme Court overturned anti-miscegenation laws and declared inter-racial marriage legal, only 20% of Americans approved of such marriages.
Compare this to the 27% percent who already approved of marriage equality when DOMA passed, which prevented the recognition of same sex marriages. 20% approved when we legalized inter-racial marriage, 27% approved when we essentially de-legalized same sex marriages.
At the time marriage equality for gay couples was approved in Massachusetts (2003) about 35% of Americans approved. It took 10 years after the Loving decision for the numbers to reach that point. That is, only 10 years AFTER inter-racial marriage was legal, did that many people agree with it.
We're now just below 50% on approval of same sex marriage (sometimes a few points up, sometimes a few points down). It took 25 years AFTER inter-racial marriage became legal, to reach that point. So at the same point of approval of inter-racial marriage that we're at now, it had already been legal for 25 years.
Why are we still fighting this battle?
*Method: For this analysis, I assigned a starting year to the absolute value "0" (1968 for inter-racial data). Each data point was then plotted based on how many years had elapsed since year "0". I then registered the same sex marriage data against the inter-racial marriage data based on the nearest value (that is, 1996 for same sex marriage was closest to 1972 for inter-racial marriage). The density of points for same sex marriage relative to the inter-racial marriage reflects the difference in frequency of polling the questions.
*Inter-racial marriage from two Gallup polls here and here
*Same sex marriage from two Pew polls here and here
More Pew data analysis here
Amendment One supporter flip flops
This is a great video. A lesbian in North Carolina challenges one of the sponsors of Amendment One and he backs down!
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Calling out the hypocrisy in the conservative Christian opposition to marriage equality
As we've discussed, lots of writers are dealing with issues facing Christianity in the current era. Andrew Sullivan wrote a provocative piece on Christianity in Crisis, that places much of the blame on rigid conservative views. Contrasting this, the conservative writer and Roman Catholic Ross Douthat has written a book called "Bad Religion" , that apparently calls for a return to more traditionalist discipline. (I haven't read it, I've only seen reviews.)
Douthat is engaged in a conversation with writer Will Saletan, at Slate. Their back-and-forth is worth reading, if only to watch Douthat's contortions to justify certain traditionalist views; as Saletan says, about DOuthat's view of gays,
Andrew Sullivan also takes on Douthat by pointing out the most glaring hypocrisy in Douthat's argument against gay people. And it's one that we need to point out frequently.
Douthat is engaged in a conversation with writer Will Saletan, at Slate. Their back-and-forth is worth reading, if only to watch Douthat's contortions to justify certain traditionalist views; as Saletan says, about DOuthat's view of gays,
"I’m watching an intelligent, compassionate writer torture his intellect and his values to fit a dogma that can no longer be justified by anything outside itself.
Your argument requires you to believe that God’s natural order inflicts on hundreds of millions of people a sexual orientation they can never consummate or solemnize in a way that would honor His purposes. ”
Andrew Sullivan also takes on Douthat by pointing out the most glaring hypocrisy in Douthat's argument against gay people. And it's one that we need to point out frequently.
Let me use an obvious analogy which really gets to the heart of the unfairness at the center of this.If the "religious freedom" of the Roman Catholic bishops requires that secular employers who are Roman Catholic can interfere in the most personal decision of a woman's health care, and deny benefits to gay couples, then they should also expect those employers to deny coverage of divorced-and-remarried spouses as well. Or is it just the women and the gays who are to be victims of "religious freedom"?
Modern America is full of divorced couples. Unlike homosexuality, Jesus spoke unequivocally about divorce. Does Ross insist that our civil laws return to banning divorce on all grounds? No. Does he back a constitutional amendment to ban civil divorce? No. His reason would be to say that it simply cannot be done democratically. But that precisely reveals the church's discriminatory position on gay people. Unlike divorcees, the gays' position is not a choice. But unlike divorcees, they alone are the target of a massive campaign by Christianists to deny them any right to marry at all - not just twice but ever! This is where the current hierarchy is.
Notice too how they are not threatening to shut down services for the poor and homeless because one of their civil employees might be re-married or divorced (and thereby violating church doctrine). And yet they apply that standard to gay people - who have not chosen any lifestyle, but are guilty purely of being as God made them. They do it because we are few in number and they can deploy the power of religion to demonize us.
This deliberate tolerance of heterosexuals and deliberate intolerance of homosexuals on the same issue is on its face discriminatory…..What else can this be rooted in but animus? And total panic.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Catholic priest declines to support anti-marriage petition drive in WA
From the Advocate:
At least one pastor isrefusing to go along with a plan to use Washington's Catholic churches as signature-gathering centers in an effort to repeal the state's marriage equality law.
St. James Cathedral won't be taking part in the campaign to add a repeal of the marriage equality law to the ballot in November, its lead pastor announced in a letter to parishioners. Father Michael Ryan said it would be "hurtful and seriously divisive" to go ahead with the plan from Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain.Rank this one right by the one in Minnesota who called out the Cardinal there for promulgating divisiveness and hate. The priests get it. Unlike the bishops!
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Prop8 judge thinks case may not make it to the Supreme Court
From the Bay Area Reporter:
"There is some question if the Prop 8 case will go to the United States Supreme Court," said Walker, who oversaw the Prop 8 trial and issued his ruling striking down the antigay ballot measure in 2010. "Because of the narrow grounds the 9th Circuit ruled on, they could turn down that case."
...
No matter when a DOMA case reaches it, the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage is inevitable, said Walker.
"There seems to be no way in the world it can avoid the federal DOMA," he said. "It will be decided one way or another. It does seem to me the notion of people deciding to get married without regard to gender is an idea whose time has come and is ever more accepted."
...
Walker said he knew that at "some point" in his judicial career he "would have to deal with" his sexual orientation "in some fashion." Nonetheless, he was surprised to see Prop 8's lawyers reverse course and argue before the 9th Circuit that he should have recused himself from hearing the case since he is gay and has a long-term partner.
The appellate panel unanimously rejected such arguments, and Walker called the questioning of any judge's "innate characteristics," whether it be their race, gender or sexual orientation, "a very dangerous road to go down."
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Study author renounces "ex-gay" findings
Back in 2001, Dr Robert Spitzer (who had advocated for the "de-pathologizing" of homosexuality) argued that SOME gay people CAN change.
Now, in 2012, he admits he was wrong.
Now, in 2012, he admits he was wrong.
In 1973, Columbia professor and prominent psychiatrist Robert Spitzer had led the effort to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness. Four years after Stonewall, it was a landmark event for the gay-rights movement. But 28 years later, Spitzer released a study that asserted change in one’s sexual orientation was possible. Based on 200 interviews with ex-gay patients—the largest sample amassed—the study did not make any claims about the success rate of ex-gay therapy. But Spitzer concluded that, at least for a highly select group of motivated individuals, it worked. What translated into the larger culture was: The father of the 1973 revolution in the classification and treatment of homosexuality, who could not be seen as just another biased ex-gay crusader with an agenda, had validated ex-gay therapy.This study has been a foundation of "ex-gay" therapies, right up there with George "lift my luggage" Rekers. Will they acknowledge that its author no longer believes it?
An Associated Press story called it “explosive.” In the words of one of Spitzer’s gay colleagues, it was like “throwing a grenade into the gay community.” For the ex-gay movement, it was a godsend. Whereas previous accounts of success had appeared in non-peer-reviewed, vanity, pay-to-publish journals like Psychological Reports, Spitzer’s study was published in the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Spitzer’s study is still cited by ex-gay organizations as evidence that ex-gay therapy works. The study infuriated gay-rights supporters and many psychiatrists, who condemned its methodology and design. Participants had been referred to Spitzer by ex-gay groups like NARTH and Exodus, which had an interest in recommending clients who would validate their work. The claims of change were self-reports, and Spitzer had not compared them with a control group that would help him judge their credibility.
.... I asked about the criticisms leveled at him. “In retrospect, I have to admit I think the critiques are largely correct,” he said. “The findings can be considered evidence for what those who have undergone ex-gay therapy say about it, but nothing more.” He said he spoke with the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior about writing a retraction, but the editor declined. (Repeated attempts to contact the journal went unanswered.) .... Would I print a retraction of his 2001 study, “so I don’t have to worry about it anymore”?
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Will you answer the call? (video Sunday)
Mainers for marriage. They are going back to the ballot to defeat their version of Prop 8.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Conservative Iowa Republican converts to marriage supporter
The Advocate reports on a conservative Christian Republican woman in Iowa who has become pro-equality.
All that changed three years ago when her son met and married a young woman whose mother was in a long-term lesbian relationship. Potts met her future in-laws shortly before the wedding and left the meeting embarrassed about the stereotypes she had carried to the encounter.
“I was just freaking out: ‘This just can’t happen,’” she recalls thinking before their first conversation. “And then it dawned on me, this wasn’t worth losing my son over. And then once I started hanging around with them, I’m like, ‘This is insane.’”
A Charismatic Christian who now attends church sporadically, Potts attributes much of her former bias to her faith experience. Her conversations with other Christians focused almost exclusively on sexual activity and dehumanized gay people.
“I just thought it was all about sex,” she said. “That’s what everything was based on: sex, sex, sex, sex. You were expecting that they were constantly going to be hanging on each other and making out. I’d never thought of anyone as people. It was just all based on sex.”
....
Potts wrote about her evolution last month in an op-ed for the Iowa Gazette. The piece, “Stand Together,” offered a stinging assessment of the Iowa caucuses that took place in January.
“I heard a lot of rhetoric about gay and lesbian Americans that didn’t fit with what I know to be true and what many Republicans believe,” she wrote. “As an evangelical Christian Republican, I know many people who hold conservative values like equality and freedom, but those voices were lost this year. However, I believe in my heart that things are changing. If it weren’t for the loud voices of a few in our party, I do believe more Republicans would stand up in support of marriage equality.”
In an interview with The Advocate, Potts said that many Republicans in Iowa support marriage equality but fear they could be “ostracized” if they speak up. She said that one husband of a party insider told her that he was glad she wrote the op-ed because it reflected his own feelings.
“The party here is being led by strong right-wing people right now,” she said. “A lot of them would like for it just to be church. They’ve very antigay, and with the abortion issue, too, they’re extremely loud spoken about it.”Will we ever change the fringe? I don't think so. But this story tells us we can reach those who can hear, and it's why we need to keep coming out, and be who we are!
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Prop 8 supporter opposes NC Amendment One
This is big news. David Blankenhorn was one of the two witnesses to testify in favor of Prop8 in the 9th district federal case. Even he finds the amendment in North Carolina to be over the top, as he comes out against it in this new Op/Ed.
In North Carolina, people will have the option to vote "NO" on hatred and divisiveness. Same sex marriage is already illegal in NC. There is no need for this amendment, except for a bare desire to hurt an unpopular group.
For one thing, it means that North Carolina could not, now or ever, take any step or devise any policy to extend legal recognition and protection to same-sex couples. No domestic partnership laws. No civil unions. Nothing.Indeed, it's just bad politics. My emphasis....
That’s mighty cold. If you disdain gay and lesbian persons, and don’t care whether they and their families remain permanently outside of the protection of our laws, such a policy might be your cup of tea. But it’s not our view, and we doubt that it’s the view of most North Carolinians.
If you want to create a backlash against mother-father marriage – if you want to convince people that the real agenda of marriage advocates is not protecting marriage, but ignoring and ostracizing gay people – then this amendment might be to your liking. But we believe that the cause of marriage is hurt, not helped, by gratuitously linking it to the cause of never under any circumstances helping gay and lesbian couples.A voice of reason? or purely pragmatic?
If you wonder why the push for gay marriage is so rapidly gaining ground across our nation, especially among young people, we don’t think you need to look much further than this tragic social dynamic, in which support for mother-father marriage appears to many to have merged with either overt antagonism or cold indifference regarding the actual lives and needs of gay and lesbian couples and their children.Meanwhile, NOM and their supporters continue to prove the opposite, calling faithful lesbian and gay couples pedophiles, and worse, as they cynically try to fan racial conflicts and provoke violence. The reason so many of these groups are called hate groups is NOT because they disagree about marriage equality. It's because they distort the facts and tell blatant, demonizing lies about LGBT people.
From now on, when we stand up for marriage, let’s make sure that it’s marriage that we’re standing up for. In 2012, perhaps we marriage advocates can begin to prove – perhaps you in North Carolina can be national leaders in proving – that supporting marriage need not carry with it the requirement of bigotry against gay and lesbian persons.
In North Carolina, people will have the option to vote "NO" on hatred and divisiveness. Same sex marriage is already illegal in NC. There is no need for this amendment, except for a bare desire to hurt an unpopular group.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
NC Speaker thinks anti-gay amendment will only last 20 years
Okay, this is odd. This guy got the anti-marriage, anti-civil unions amendment 1 on the ballot in NC, and even HE thinks it won't last.
Moreover, this amendment does more than ban same sex couples from marrying. It prohibits civil unions, too, and bans any recognition of relationships between unmarried couples whether gay or straight. Even people who disapprove of marriage for gay people generally support civil unions, so they don't like it either.
Polls are starting to turn in a good direction, but the battle needs to be fully waged to win this one. More here from Prop8 Trial Tracker.
You can help. DONATE HERE!
According to Tillis, researchers have predicted Amendment One will pass with approximately 54 percent, but Tillis, who voted to pass the amendment, believes it won’t remain long. “If it passes, I think it will be repealed within 20 years,” Tillis said.So people are supposed to vote for a Constitutional amendment the appeal which is only ephermeral? And an amendment SUPPORTER says this?
Moreover, this amendment does more than ban same sex couples from marrying. It prohibits civil unions, too, and bans any recognition of relationships between unmarried couples whether gay or straight. Even people who disapprove of marriage for gay people generally support civil unions, so they don't like it either.
Polls are starting to turn in a good direction, but the battle needs to be fully waged to win this one. More here from Prop8 Trial Tracker.
You can help. DONATE HERE!
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Indoctrinating youth? Youth pushes back.
The Roman Catholic Church in Minnesota is vigorously fighting to pass an anti-marriage equality amendment. Fortunately, Catholics in MN are starting to push back. Here's what happened when the Archdiocese sent representatives to a Catholic High School to meet with seniors (who will be eligible to vote in the fall), to "teach them about marriage". Student Matt Bliss begins the story.
"When it started going downhill when they started talking about single parents and adopted kids. They didn't directly say it, but they implied that kids who are adopted or live with single parents are less than kids with two parents of the opposite sex. They implied that a 'normal' family is the best family."
"When they finally got to gay marriage, [students] were really upset," said Bliss. "You could look around the room and feel the anger. My friend who is a lesbian started crying, and people were crying in the bathroom."
Bliss was one of several students who stood up to argue with the representatives from the archdiocese. One girl held up a sign that said, "I love my moms."Student Lydia Hannah continues the tale.
Hannah said students were anxious when they heard about the program and were suspicious because only seniors were required to go. "We put two and two together," said Hannah. "All of us will be able to vote next fall [on the constitutional amendment that limits marriage to same-sex couples]."
Hannah said the presenters briefly brought up the amendment but backed off when students got angry.
A priest and a volunteer couple presented the information. When someone asked a question about two men being able to have a quality, committed relationship, the couple compared their love to bestiality, Bliss said.
"Most people got really upset," said Bliss. "And comments about adopted kids, I found those to be really offensive. There were at least four kids there who are adopted."
Hannah, who is adopted, said one of the presenters said that adopted kids were "sociologically unstable." She called the comments "hurtful" and comparisons between gay love and bestiality upsetting.
"My friend said, 'You didn't just compare people to animals, did you?'" said Hannah.....
Asked if he thought the comments of the presenters were appropriate, [the Vice Principal] referred me to the archdiocese.
Am I the only one who finds this breathtakingly horrible? Adopted kids "sociologically unstable"? Gay relationships "bestiality"? Gay children rejected and sobbing? Way to go, Roman Catholic hierarchy. You've been reading too many NOMtweets. Here's how to support equality in MN:
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
DOMA on trial
Today, there is an appeal in the 1st circuit federal court about DOMA. This follows up on the Gill.... case where legally married lesbians and gays in MA claim it is unconstitutional to deny them benefits that are given to their fellow MA citizens.
The original district court agreed. Now, it's up at the 1st circuit, where the DoJ is arguing against DOMA and your tax dollars via Speaker John Boehner are paying to support DOMA.
Incidentally, here's a nice little irony: Paul Clement, the lawyer arguing that DOMA is a perfectly legitimate intrusion of the federal government into a state's right to determine who is or isn't legally married, is the same attorney who argued that the Affordable Care Act is an unreasonable intrusion of the federal government into states' rights.
Complete background from the estimable Poliglot here.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
NY Times: NOM "scuttles away from the light".
In a scathing editorial, the NY Times looks at the race-baiting politics of NOM, the National Organization for Marriage (inequality).
When a light is shined into the dark corners of American politics, it’s never pleasant to see what scurries away. ....
[NOM] uses its designation as a social welfare organization to avoid federal disclosure, but the memos dispel any notion that the claim has any legitimacy. National Organization for Marriage is a political group, through and through.....
[T]he most appalling portions [of the documents] deal with the group’s racially and ethnically divisive strategies.....
Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have publicly aligned themselves with the group and signed its pledge to work aggressively from the White House against same-sex marriage.
Now that the group’s poisonous political approach is out in the open, Mr. Romney and the others should be racing to make clear their disapproval.
We detect no stampede.
I want to see folks challenge the Romney on this at every campaign stop. Romney donated $10,000 to NOM and Prop8. It's his group. Let's see what he does with it.
Monday, April 2, 2012
More evidence that Republicans are retreating.
Even though the Republican presidential nominees have mostly signed onto NOM's hate-pledge, and trumpet their anti-equality credentials to the social conservatives of the tea party, other Republicans are wishing the issue would just go away. From Politico:
What was once a front-and-center issue for rank-and-file Republicans -- the subject of many hotly worded House and Senate floor speeches -- is virtually a dead issue, as Republicans in Congress don't care to have gay marriage litigated in the Capitol.
Even more than that, Republican leadership has evolved, too. It has quietly worked behind the scenes to kill amendments that reaffirm opposition to same-sex unions, several sources told POLITICO.
It's not like the GOP has become a bastion of progressiveness on gay rights, but there has been an evolution in the political approach -- and an acknowledgment of a cultural shift in the country. Same-sex relationships are more prominent and accepted. There are more gay public figures -- including politicians -- and it's likely that many Washington Republicans have gay friends and coworkers. Just as important -- there's also a libertarian streak of acceptance on people's sexuality coursing through the House Republican Conference.....
"Republicans see an issue that was a good wedge issue no longer is and will be a losing issue in the future," Nadler told POLITICO. "They can't just walk away from it; their base will get mad at them. They're slowly walking away from it because it's an increasingly losing issue."
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)