On words and the A/P

There is a bit of a fuss going on (particularly at AmericaBlog) about the reluctance of the Associated Press to use the terms husband or wife for married gay couples.

AP says,

Generally AP uses couples or partners to describe people in civil unions or same-sex marriages.

But like children' programming, "one of these things is not like the other".  First off, a civil union is not a marriage.  That's kinda the point of all the electioneering and fighting, and to conflate them is to miss that point. You'd expect better from a news organization.

Second, a same sex marriage is really a marriage.  It is not gay-marriage, or (scary quotes) "marriage".    It's a legal contract between two adults that we call, simply and accurately,  marriage.  And what do we call a married man?  He's a husband.  Not a "husband".  He's a spouse, nota partner.   (Aside--the scare quotes are a tactic used by equality opponents.  Is AP a front for NOM?).

An apologist writes,

Gay people, married and unmarried, argue over what to call each other in relationships, and pretty much everyone has an opinion. I am in a domestic partnership in a state that only recently approved gay marriage, but I still prefer “boyfriend.” Many others have different preferences. Do two gay men become “husband and husband” by default just because they can get “legally married,” whatever we take that to mean?

Oh, so annoying on so many grounds.  First, it is irrelevant what the writer calls his boyfriend or partner. They aren't married.  Second, if they can get legally married, they are married.  They are not "married" (scary quotes).  And if two gay men marry, then yes, we call them husbands.  Now, I know straight couples who don't like those terms either.  But those are the general terms, and the default should be to use them.  Gay couples aren't trying for special treatment (oooh, let's ask the queers what they want to be called!)  The whole point is to treat our marriages the same as any other.  Apparently this is hard to grasp.

The apologist also says,

the fact is that legal gay marriage remains an elusive thing, even in U.S. states that allow it, because the Defense of Marriage Act prevents full equality.

Umm, #fail. I have a legal marriage (not a "gay marriage", but a marriage).  It is not elusive and it is perfectly legal.  DOMA simply says it is not recognized in some other states or federally.  It does NOT mean my marriage does not exist, and frankly I am quite offended that this .... writer would imply that.

It is true that many LGBT couples are not interested in marrying.  No one is holding a gun to their head sending them to get a license.  But if the writer is not interested in participating in this social contract, i don't care.  My wife and I, however, are legally married, and we are participating fully.

So when people describe her as my partner, I correct them, gently, to use the word wife.  This may offend NOM, but it is a simple fact.

Is AP made of journalists, or "journalists"?  The facts on the ground is that many gay couples are married, and we have husbands and wives.  AP's policy is to attempt to render my marriage non-existent or put an asterisk by it.  It is rude, it is inaccurate, and it is disrespectful.

LA Times Editorial: Obama and marriage

Entitled, Enough agonizing, Mr President:

[I]t's irrational, once same-sex couples are given the practical advantages of marriage, to deny them married status. Civil unions, while a vast improvement over the absence of any recognition of same-sex relationships, are almost by definition second-class arrangements.

The temptation is to think that Obama knows this, and that his reluctance to endorse marriage equality is more political than personal. When he ran for the presidency in 2008, it was the conventional wisdom that supporting gay marriage would be politically fatal. With shifts in public attitudes, that probably will not be the case in 2012. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 42% of adults now favor same-sex marriage, compared to 37% in 2009. The trend seems clear.

We'd prefer to think that such considerations wouldn't be uppermost in Obama's mind. What should determine his position is logic and the fact that same-sex couples across America, not just those in his circle, yearn for recognition of their relationships. Enough agonizing, Mr. President. Support marriage equality.

The film, 8, The Mormon Proposition, opens today (video)

From the NY Times review:

The documentary is really two films roughly stitched together. The first two-thirds tells the history of Proposition 8; the final third is a wrenching exploration of the effects on gay Mormons of the church’s strict taboo on homosexuality. We meet gay teenagers who were exiled from their families and are told about a rash of suicides at Brigham Young University. The reason Utah’s suicide rate is the highest of any state, the movie suggests, is the Mormon church’s absolute rejection of homosexuality, which one church elder calls “contrary to God’s plan.” Chris Buttars, a proudly homophobic Utah state senator, compared male coupling to bestiality. The movie shows the depth of religion-based loathing of homosexuality, like that of abortion, to be primal.

In the meantime the struggle to repeal Proposition 8 is under way.

Are they bigots?

The Right Wing is up in arms over a (straight) Washington Post reporter who calls those opposed to marriage equality "bigots". His response:

Unlike with most activists, I don't really see the direct impact on their lives, or on the lives of the people who agree with them, of the cause they oppose. Antitax protesters are threatened by higher taxes. Anti-health-care-bill protesters fear their coverage will get worse. Anti-meat-eating protesters believe animals are being murdered and the environment is being made worse....

But who's threatened by legal same-sex marriage? Whose life is made worse? If there was science suggesting that children raised by same-sex parents are worse off than children raised by traditional families, that would be one thing, but I haven't seen it. We've watched legal same-sex marriage in several European countries and several states, and it hasn't ushered in some decline in the quality of life, or marriage, for those who don't participate in it.

That's what I don't understand. That's my bias, for now. I'll happily entertain arguments for the contrary.

Thinking of the Children

From the NY Times:

While opponents of same-sex marriage worry that schools will teach that gay and straight relationships are equal, many supporters focus on a different, but still child-centered, issue: What about the children now being raised in families headed by gay men and lesbians? How does the lack of marriage benefits for their parents affect them?

...

Many gay rights activists think that hearing articulate children of same-sex parents ask why their families should have fewer rights than their neighbors goes a long way toward turning the family values argument on its head. ....Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, a New York-based organization that advocates for legalized same-sex marriage, said: “There is no good reason to punish children raised by gay parents by denying parents marriage and its protections. It harms kids rather than helping them.”

Of course, then there's

“The real question is whether same-sex relationships benefit children to the same extent that living with a married mother and father does, and we believe they do not,” said Peter S. Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council, the conservative Christian organization. “Children do best when raised by their own biological mother and father who are committed to one another in a lifelong marriage.”

So you think our kids will suddenly revert to the Cleavers if we can't marry? That we won't have kids? Or that we'll all become straight and marry opposite sex partners? Honestly, the (il)logic of these people!

Update: Amongst the many powerful amicus briefs for the Prop8 trial is this one from the American Anthropological Assn, American Psychoanalytic Assn, National Assn. of Social Workers, American Academy of Pediatrics California Chapter

The positive benefits children accrue from being raised by civilly married parents are independent of those parents’ sexual orientation. It is the consensus view of the field of developmental psychology of children, the traits of an effective parent do not depend on the gender of that parent. This is because the factors that must affect child development … have nothing to do with parental gender or sexual orientation.”

They also added:

“Depriving same-sex couples of the ability to marry has adverse effects on their children.”

“The stigma created by the state’s differential treatment of gay men and women has severe psychological and social impacts.”
“Singling our gay men and women as ineligible for the institution of marriage invites the public to discriminate against them.”

Trying to get arrested

So they came to DC to get arrested last week. From the Washington Post:

Conservative Christian ministers from across the land, determined to test the bounds of a new law punishing anti-gay hate crimes, assembled outside the Justice Department ... to denounce the sin of homosexuality and see whether they would be charged with lawbreaking.
....

No arrest was made.....

The evangelical activists had been hoping to provoke arrest, because, as organizer Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission put it, "we'd have standing to challenge the law." But their prayers were not answered. Nobody was arrested, which wasn't surprising: To run afoul of the new law, you need to "plan or prepare for an act of physical violence" or "incite an imminent act of physical violence."

Instead of getting arrested, the ministers got something else: A couple of dozen gay activists, surrounding them with rainbow flags and signs announcing "Gaga for Gay Rights" and "I Am a Love Warrior." By the end, the gay rights activists had taken over the lectern and the sound system and were holding their own news conference denouncing the ministers.....

Seems the A/V guy was sympathetic to gay rights, so let the activists have their say. Heh.

But there was no evidence of persecution at the corner of 10th and Pennsylvania. In fact, the cops at one point intervened to help the ministers, by ordering the gay rights activists to move away.

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, concerned that the gay activists would look like the victims rather than the religious conservatives, went to the microphone to assure the activists that "we did not ask law enforcement to have you moved off of there. They did that on their own. We believe in free speech."

As he spoke, two men, standing behind Mahoney with the ministers, were kissing each other.

Consulting for hate

Political consultants operate under a code of ethics that supposedly prevents them from attacking people on the basis of race or religion. Not, apparently, sexual orientation. This Huffpo article from a few months ago explains how a political consultant for the "Yes on H8" campaign picked up a slew of awards from his professional association. Hate sells:

Political consultants will do almost anything to win. So it was a little surprising to see that their professional association - the American Association of Political Consultants - has a significant and no doubt well-intentioned code of ethics.

Imagine if their members actually adhered to it. Better yet, imagine for a moment what political campaigns might have been like if that code of ethics included no bashing based on sexual orientation and gender identity....

These questions about ethics surfaced after AAPC held their annual "Pollie Awards" on March 29. They're considered that industry's Academy Awards, given in the categories of Campaigns, Public Affairs and Issues and Referenda.

....The Yes on Proposition 8 campaign won a slew of awards, including the "gold" for TV Radio Campaign (produced by Schubert/Flint Public Affairs), the "silver" for Best Fundraising, and "bronze" for the robocall using Barack Obama's voice ....

Yes on 8 Campaign Manager and AAPC board member Frank Schubert accepted the gold award but was apparently not well-received. ....."He detected the chilly reception and acknowledged that many people disagreed with him. But then he said, 'However, I represent those who read the Bible and believe in God.' Some people found that incredibly offensive. At one point, some people were hissing."

Hissing, no doubt, because people of faith supported the No on Prop 8 campaign as well,....

What is ethical about knowingly disseminating false and inaccurate information in order to win a campaign?
....
Imagine how political campaigns might change if the professional association to which most of them belonged decided to ban gay-bashing as a matter of ethics?

Who's making a mockery of marriage?

From the Chicago Tribune blogger Eric Zorn , who is considering a stunt-marriage that is apparently all the news in the Windy City.

Short version of the story: She's from Norway. He's from Chicago. They met face-to-face last Friday for the first time after getting acquainted on Steinberg's Facebook wall and were legally married Thursday in a ceremony in the observation ledge atop the Willis Tower.

To me, the entire event -- it really borders on a stunt -- utterly trivializes the concept of marriage, all the way down to the phony-baloney baptism the woman went through in order to generate the proper paperwork for a nearly instant marriage license.

I agree with Zorn. Marriage to my ideal should be something that develops from a relationship, not that initiates it. That's why so many churches have a couple go through a counseling period in advance. Zorn continues,

But you know what? Our laws allow for hasty stunt-like weddings of men and women with huge crushes on each other; marriages that arguably make a mockery of more traditional marriages. And I'm fine with that. In part because you never know.

And because in a free society, the state should not presume to tell us what we can and cannot do without a compelling interest. Inotherwords, the state can't stop stupid.

But Zorn is not fine with this:

while the law allows virtually any heterosexual couple to get hitched for virtually any fool reason they want, it still forbids loving, committed gay couples from getting married on the grounds that legalizing such unions would threaten the definition and sanctity of traditional marriage.

Indeed. Let's really think of who is damaging marriage. Is it the long standing gay couple, who has stuck together through thick and thin despite every brickbat and insult the conservatives can throw at them? Or the couple who met on Facebook and married on a ledge on a lark?

This kind of thing really exposes the hypocrisy, don't you think?

Rachel talks about Massachusetts (video Sunday)

Rachel Maddow points out that Massachusetts, where same sex marriage has been legal for 5 years, has the lowest divorce rate in the country. What's really defending marriage? The Gays!

In Maine,things heat up.

The Catholic church in Maine is in tough financial straits....closing parishes, cutting programs. But they can still donate against gay marriage, to the dismay of many Maine Catholics. Indeed, it's an irony that as the Bishops spend more and more to fight marriage equality around the country, they are completely out of touch with the average Catholics in the pew who have different priorities (like health care, and caring for the least amongst us.)

In fact, remarkably nearly all the money donated against gay marriage in Maine has come from institutions, and only a few hundred dollars from individuals.

The Group Californians Against Hate suspects this is money laundering.

Letters and emails from NOM Executive Director Brian Brown were included where he stated:

“And unlike in California, every dollar you give to NOM’s Northeast Action Plan today is private, with no risk of harassment from gay marriage protestors.”

“Donations to NOM are not tax-deductible and they are NOT public information, either.”

“Your gift is confidential: no public disclosure! "

Californians Against Hate suggest that this is an effort to get around the Maine disclosure laws, and the Maine Ethics commission will investigate.

There's a reason haters want their names secret. It's the same reason, frankly,that the Klan wore hoods.




Cartoon from The Southern Voice.

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.

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.

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.

Obama watch

Steve Hildebrand was Obama's deputy campaign director. He was recently interviewed by gay journalist Rex Wockner. A few choice quotes:

[Obama] reassured me that he will not disappoint the gay community during his time as president, that the promises he made during the campaign are promises he will fulfill, and he was very forthright about his commitment to equality. And, people will accuse me -- probably rightfully so -- that I'm a Kool-Aid drinker, that I believe in this guy, but I've been around a lot of very important politicians in my lifetime and I think this guy is different and I do trust him to do what is right. I also believe that he knows how to get things done, and that he will make a significant difference in a positive way in the lives of gay and lesbian Americans.

On how to make a difference:

I don't think our voices are as powerful as they should be. I think too many people in the gay community do not push their elected officials as hard as they should. If you had 20 gay people together in a room and asked how many of them actually have reached out and either called, e-mailed or sent a letter to their member of Congress over the last two months, I would say the vast, vast majority of them will have done nothing. My suggestion is that people need to become strong activists, that we need to multiply by hundreds the number of activists we have in the gay community. We need more voices, we need louder voices, and we need to tell politicians at every level we're not willing to take their excuses anymore......if people want things done, they should demand action from Congress, they should demand action from the president, they should demand action from their school boards, from their city council members, their mayors, their legislators, their governors, everybody. They should demand action within their churches.

Read the whole thing!

Meanwhile, President Obama sat down with the Catholic Press over the fourth of July. Let's listen in to what he said (from US News):

For the gay and lesbian community in this country, I think it's clear that they feel victimized in fairly powerful ways and they're often hurt by not just certain teachings of the Catholic Church, but the Christian faith generally. And as a Christian, I'm constantly wrestling with my faith and my solicitude and regard and concern for gays and lesbians.

The US News reporter thinks this will "effortlessly" appeal to social liberals because he's "struggling" to reconcile faith and equality. I don't think so. Uh, Mr President? Lots of Christians support gay rights from a place of faith. We've talked about that here, here, here and here. There are even (Gasp!) gay Christians. So you don't have to place your faith in opposition to our rights. They go hand in hand.

Gay rights in the states: more statistics

Expanding from the marriage issue, FiveThirtyEight highlights a study examining a variety of GLBT issues in the states including marriage, civil unions, adoption, and non-discrimination. Discussion of the statistics and links in the thread here and on the original author's site here. Click on the image to open a bigger version of the graph in your browser or you can get aPDF version.

As noted in this and other posts at FiveThirtyEight, in the few states where support for marriage equality exceeds 50%, there is good correlation with it being legal (filled red circle). Curiously, however, although support for civil unions/domestic partnerships exceeds 50% in about half of states, many of those states do not allow it (compare the filled blue to open blue circles). And it's even more striking for other issues. Interestingly, well over 50% of people in nearly all of the states support non-discrimination policies for housing and jobs, hate crimes legislation, and access to health care benefits, although large numbers of states have no legal policies supporting those.

We have a long way to go before this country treats its gay citizens as, well, citizens.

Update: the study can now be found here. 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

Colbert on "Stonewalling"

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Frank Rich on Stonewall and gay rights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is anyone listening?

Make sure the read the whole thing!

Quotes from the news

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FromRoll Call, evidence that Congress is noticing:

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

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

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

Nation's mayors support equality.

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

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

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

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

The Main Stream Media finally notices the DOMA brief

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Op/Ed.

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

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

Update: The LA Times joins in

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

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