The rights splits on marriage equality

From David Frum:

Gay marriage is ruled a federal right for the first time and the response from the GOP is… tepid. Not one nationally prominent elected official thought the issue was important enough to get worked up over. The only cries of outrage were from politically active religious groups.....

The list of conservatives supporting gay equality is growing – from the many Republican appointed judges who have ruled in favor of various gay rights cases, to GOP Solicitor General Ted Olson, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and even the ultraconservative former Vice President Dick Cheney. Nowadays Margaret Hoover of Fox News sits on the board of GOProud alongside conservative Grover Norquist; and even Elisabeth Hasselbeck has come out in support of gay marriage rights....

What is happening to the GOP? First our elected officials tire of bashing gays and now our pundits? Perhaps Republicans are beginning to see the writing on the wall.....

The religious right may be having a conniption, but younger Republicans increasingly appear to believe that opposing gay equality is inconsistent with a belief in increased liberty and smaller government. Although the religious right will continue to be a strong presence in the GOP for years to come, changing demographics are not on the side of anti-gay forces and the GOP appears to be awakening to this reality.

Meanwhile, Glenn Beck comments that he doesn't care about whether gays marry. Ann Coulter plans to speak at a conservative gay convention. Ken Mehlman comes out. The old social warriors are foaming at the mouth.

Michael Keegan at the HuffPo writes,

[O]n the issue of gay rights, the Right Wing now finds itself up against both the Constitution and the will of a steadily increasing majority....

Opponents of marriage equality still boast outwardly of the merits their case will have before the Court. But it seems that they are beginning to see that this case is likely to be both a far-reaching victory of the principles of dignity and personal freedom, and a powerful sign that anti-gay arguments, though loud as ever, are increasingly being shouted from the legal and social fringe....

Americans of all political stripes believe that their gay friends and family members have the right to equal protection under the law, and there is now a solid legal and factual precedent to back it up, shaped in large part by a conservative lawyer, filed by a conservative judge, and echoed by the traditions of a nation devoted to fairness and respect.

Update from an un-named "Prominent Republican"

"I think there is a growing mass of people in Republican politics who are fundamentally sick and tired about being lectured to about morality and how to live your life by a bunch of people who have been married three or four times and are more likely to be seen outside a brothel on a Thursday night than being at home with their kids... There is a fundamental indecency to the vitriol and the hatred directed against decent people because of their sexuality. People have reached a critical mass with this."

Civil Unions don't work (video Sunday)

From Garden State Equality, regarding the civil union law in New Jersey.

Ken Mehlman: another Republican comes out (video)

It should be noted that Ken Mehlman, former chair of the Republican National Committee and former chair of Bush's re-election campaign, has come out as gay, and in support of marriage equality.

But Mehlman was intimately involved with the Bush campaign that cynically relied on anti-gay ballot measures to get out the vote. Although today he says,

I understand that folks are angry, I don't know that you can change the past. As I've said, one thing I regret a lot is the fact that I wasn't in the position I am today where I was comfortable with this part of my life, where I was able to be an advocate against that [strategy] and able to be someone who argued against it. I can't change that - it is something I wish I could and I can only try to be helpful in the future.

I think that comes down to, "I couldn't do anything about it". Although turns out, he was in the thick of it.

"I think the issue was injected when a liberal court in Massachusetts said they were going to redefine a 200 year old institution in this country by judicial fiat," said Mehlman, who also endorses a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage political catnip for the Christian Right.-- (2006)

It's great that he's on the correct side, now. But he did a lot of damage--a lot of it. And the damage he did is why the one class of people I favor outing, is closeted conservatives who actively promote anti-gay agendas.

I'm glad he's opening his wallet and his rolodex. But if he's really going to support the community and make up for what he participated in during the Bush years, he's going to have to step up, admit it, and use his insider knowledge to defeat the dirty tricks of Roveian politics.

Which is it, Mr Mehlman?

Jon Stewart:

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Keith Olbermann:

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Attacking gay couples in Wisconsin: cause for a brain drain?

The Marriage Equality battle is not and never has been limited to the M-word. Those opposed to marriage equality are often opposed to any legal recognition of GLBT rights. We saw this in Washington state, where the forces of evil tried to overturn a domestic partnership law. And now, yet again, in Wisconsin which outlaws both marriage and civil unions, but has a paltry little registry to give people a few rights, like hospital visits. But even that is too much for the forces of Hate:

A social conservative group filed a lawsuit ... challenging Wisconsin's domestic partner registry, arguing it is a violation of the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
...
"A reasonable person observing this registry would easily conclude that it is intended to mirror marriage,'' said Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, . ....

The registry's benefits do not come close to the rights that come with marriage, said Katie Belanger, executive director Fair Wisconsin, the state's largest gay rights group that lobbied lawmakers to approve the registry.

She said the registry extends 43 benefits compared with 200 for married couples under state law. "These are the most basic, critical things that couples need to have to take care of one another,'' Belanger said.....

And here I always thought Wisconsin was liberal.

A few years ago, Wisconsin passed a constitutional amendment banning both same sex marriage and civil unions. A suit was brought against this amendment, arguing that by law it could only do one thing at a time. However, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin upheld the amendment as legal. The debate, much like California's Prop8 case that was tried in STATE court, was not really about the SUBSTANCE of the amendment, but the PROCESS, and the result is that both marriages and civil unions remain illegal.

Previous efforts to preserve domestic partner benefits at the University of Wisconsin also failed . Like Michigan and Virginia, the Republicans in State Government relish denying any recognition to gay couples.

As I've commented before, academe is a pretty brutal marketplace. U Wisconsin-Madison, the flagship campus, has certainly lost faculty over this. There's a good article about GLBT faculty in Nature from 2008:

For many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender academics around the world, issues such as job security and peer support are top concerns. But a growing number are moving long distances, or out of academia altogether, on the basis of benefits often beyond an employer's power to grant.

The shift has created new tensions between public universities and their funding sources and has prompted fears, especially in the United States, of a brain drain to more accommodating places. .... liberal university towns in the Midwest are bidding farewell to top talent after recent state amendments blocked even straight domestic partnerships. Job-seekers have weeded out prospective employers for the same reason. Scientists from European and other countries are incorporating gay-friendly immigration laws into their decisions about where to work abroad.

Even straight faculty and students are put off by the bias expressed by the absence of partner benefits. And we're not just talking about a faculty member writing a few books and reflected prestige. In the experimental sciences, a professor with a vigorous research program can bring millions of dollars into the university in overhead, quite apart from the money that goes to the lab or pays salaries. Those overhead dollars are something no Dean wants to lose.

The "creative economy" that drives modern growth is gay-friendly. People don't want to be part of an anti-gay environment. Marriage equality correlates with economic growth. It's a good time for other universities to cherry-pick Wisconsin faculty, and potential faculty and students would do well to consider what sort of values they want around them.

Judgement entered on DOMA cases: will DoJ appeal?

Remember those two cases from Massachusetts about DOMA? To summarize, a Federal District Judge found that it was illegal for the US government to discriminate against same sex married couples by denying them benefits given to married couples, and he overturned the section of DOMA that forbids federal recognition of married gay couples on grounds of equal protection and state sovereignty.

As pointed out by Chris Geidner and Lisa Keen, that judgment has now been formally entered. Which means the clock starts ticking: Obama's DoJ has 60 days to file an appeal.

I will rely on my legal friends to correct, but my understanding is that if the DoJ do NOT appeal, that section of DOMA no longer applies to Massachusetts couples. It does not affect anyone else. If they DO appeal, it could bring down section 3 of DOMA in the whole 1st circuit. And of course, if SCOTUS got to it, it could potentially have national implications.

The same ticking clock applies to the Prop8 case, of course; I do not think that judgment has been entered. But there's an election this year in CA, and if the judgment is NOT entered soon, then a new governor or attorney general could decide to appeal. So the two sides of the Prop8 debate better pay attention to the candidates and get involved in the messy business of CA state politics, because it matters.

Go Away till 2012: a cynical liberal leader.

Kerry Eldveld of the Advocate alooks at the Obama Administration's recent pushback against the left. (Emphasis mine)

....marriage equality — a subject the administration would clearly harpoon if it could.

I get the distinct feeling that the White House hopes it can simply duck the marriage question straight through 2012, and I’d also bet dollars to doughnuts it won’t be able to. What became clear to me while interviewing attendees of the August 6 meeting was that while the friendly audience may have cut the administration some slack on legislative items like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Defense of Marriage Act, the one place advocates unapologetically stood their ground was on marriage equality.....

Make no mistake, this is an issue that the president’s chief advisers have misjudged from day one. They underestimated how angry people were that candidate Barack Obama wasn’t more vocal in his opposition to Proposition 8; they dismissed the devastation felt by millions of queers who poured their hearts into electing Obama only to watch Prop. 8 proponent Rick Warren give the invocation at the inauguration; they remained silent in 2009 as gay Mainers fought to preserve their right to love, marry, and build a life with their partner; and then David Axelrod reassured the nation two weeks ago that the president still opposes granting the freedom to marry to all Americans.....

Read the whole thing.

Then, in a New Republic Op/Ed on the CBS news site, Richard Just draws an unflattering comparison:

In the fall of 1912, as his campaign for president entered its final stage, Woodrow Wilson was speaking in Brooklyn when he was asked for his opinion on women’s suffrage. ... he responded by insisting that it was "not a question that is dealt with by the national government at all." The woman who had asked the question was apparently displeased by this blatant dodge. "I am speaking to you as an American, Mr. Wilson," she retorted......

An evasive stance on a controversial civil rights issue from a liberal president; an insistence that the issue is primarily local, rather than national, in character; a complete failure of sincerity, nerve, and will: If these things sound familiar in 2010, it is because Barack Obama is taking exactly the same approach on gay marriage.

Obama has said that he wants to restore American moral leadership in the world. But how can he claim the mantle of moral leadership when we are being outpaced by so many countries and so many foreign leaders on one of the central civil rights issues of our time?

....Obama's stance seems to be a way of conveying to the country that he knows a lot of people still aren’t completely comfortable admitting gays and lesbians as full participants in American life, and that this is OK because he isn’t either. It is about the most cynical gesture you can imagine from an allegedly liberal leader-and we deserve better. I am speaking to you as an American, Mr. Obama.

Be sure to read that one too.

Religious freedom in CA: SB 906 restates the obvious

The Rev. Susan Russell, an equality activist, points out this insanity from the conservative CNSnews:

Religious leaders warn that if an Aug. 6 ruling by a federal judge on same-sex marriage is upheld, it could wind up putting a gag on Christians speaking out about homosexuality – a gag that a top Southern Baptist leader says his denomination will not accept.

Go over to Susan's site and see her righteous takedown of this craziness.

The first amendment protects religious speech. And any clergy person may legally refuse to marry any couple, for any reason. These are simple facts.

Despite this, however, the Prop8 campaign and the liars of the anti-equality movement have inflamed fears that they will be forced to marry gays, or that they will have to stop preaching against gays. This has allowed them to frame the argument as an issue of religious freedom: as though denying OTHERS' religious freedom somehow benefits theirs. And many people during the campaigns have bought this talking point.

In a recent poll released by the Public Religion Research Institute, specifically about Prop 8, the pollsters found that support for marriage equality in the Golden State is around 51%. If, however, civil unions are an option, 42% support marriage, with another 31% for unions.

However, support for marriage increases with specific reassurances:

A significant number of Californians who initially say they support civil unions but not same- sex marriage are willing to support marriage equality if the law addresses either of two basic concerns about religious marriages. When presented with an assurance that the law would guarantee that “no church or congregation would be required to perform marriages for gay couples,” nearly one-third of Californians who initially only supported civil unions are willing to support marriage equality. With this religious liberty reassurance, support for same-sex marriage increases 12 points, from initial support of 42% to a solid majority at 54%. Similarly, when Californians are presented with an assurance that the law “only provided for civil marriages like you get at city hall,” more than half of Californians who initially supported only civil unions are willing to support marriage equality. This civil marriage reassurance results in a 19-point increase in support for same-sex marriage, from 42% to more than 6-in-10.

To make this freedom explicit, CA State Sen Mark Leno introduced Senate Bill 906, which has now passed the Assembly. THis bill

reaffirms the separation of church and state and clarifies under state law that no member of clergy will be required to perform a civil marriage that is contrary to his or her faith. The Assembly approved Senate Bill 906 with a 46-25 vote. The bill will return to the Senate for a routine concurrence vote before going to the governor’s desk.

“This bill simply affirms that California is a diverse state, and that we can all co-exist and make space for each others’ beliefs without compromising the tenets of any religious group or individual,” said Senator Leno. “With the recent federal court ruling, we know that marriage for same-sex couples in California is on the horizon. Under the Civil Marriage Religious Freedom Act, churches and clergy members who fear their religious views are threatened by marriage equality will have clear and solid protections under state law. In addition, churches that welcome same-sex couples will continue to fully recognize those families within their faith.”

Of course, the right wing opposes this bill, with lunatic arguments like this one from a Roman Catholic opponent of SSM:

"SB 906 seeks to cause confusion by creating a new 'civil' class of marriage, implying it is different from religious marriage.

Of course, there has always been a separate civil marriage, given that couples can be married by the county clerk with no religious expression at all.

" It also creates the illusion of new protections for 'religious' marriage by essentially saying that religions can't be forced to change their doctrine on marriage (which is already prohibited by the 1st Amendment).

Yup, it does simply restate the 1st Amendment. It does this because the opponents to SSM apparently don't understand what religious freedom really means.

"It is clear this bill will be used to fool the voters into thinking that same-sex 'marriage' will have no impact on churches and people of faith."

Umm, is that because it WON'T have any impact--except on those churches who WANT to marry same sex couples.

They are panicked out of their mind to lose this favored talking point and spinning their wheels violently. Because if protections are explicitly stated, support for equality goes up.

Church v. State : the Roman Catholics take on the courts in Mexico and the US

In Mexico, same sex marriages are now legal.

The court hewed to Mexico's strict separation of church and state and said the constitution did not indicate that marriage had to be defined as the union of a man and woman. To deny gay couples the right to adopt, the court said, would amount to discrimination.

"There is nothing that indicates that homosexual couples are less apt parents than heterosexual ones," Justice Arturo Zaldivar said in televised proceedings this week.

In sputtering fury, Cardinal Sandoval Iniguez of Guadalajara accused the Mexican Supreme Court judges and Mayor Ebrard of Mexico City of being bribed.

The LA Times further reports,

Sandoval made the allegations on Sunday during an event in Aguascalientes state. He also used a slur against gays while decrying the recent high court decisions that were called victories for the gay-rights community......

In the secular institutional corner, the Supreme Court censured Sandoval's statements unanimously, and Ebrard issued a stark warning to the highest-ranking prelate of Mexico's second-largest city: "We live in a secular state, and here, whether we like it or not, the law rules the land," Ebrard said....

"The cardinal must submit to the law of the land, like all other citizens of this country."

The US Roman Catholic Bishops are also pushing back against the courts, this time over the Prop8 decision.

Cardinal Francis George, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), rejected [Judge Vaughn] Walker's claims, stating that "no court of civil law has the authority to reach into areas of human experience that nature itself has defined."....

Fr. Francis de Rosa, parochial administrator of two parishes in Virginia, responded to the judge’s ruling in an e-mail to CNSNews.com. “We are not opposed to the human rights of someone with same-sex attraction,” he wrote. “Rather, we assert that there is no such thing as a special category of ‘gay’ rights. Why? Because homosexuality is a pyscho-sexual disorder that harms the person and society.”
 
“Condoning such behavior and encouraging people to engage in it by the passage of permissive and protective laws does the real harm, not the position that warns people of the destructive consequences and nature of homosexual acts,” wrote Fr. De Rosa.

Did you get that? NEver mind the view of actual medical and scientific bodies that being gay is not a pathology. No, to the RC's, it's a birth defect, a variant to be cured.

We need to remember that the Roman Catholic church, in particular its current Pope, have referred to gays as "objectively disordered", simply by being gay, and our lives and loves as an "intrinsic moral evil". The vicious lies are apparent in the quotes above. The gross moral evil is the mediaeval views of the Roman Catholic church, that attacks GLBT people, that considers women second class, and rates an attempt to ordain women as no better than child abuse.

NOM's assault on the family (video Sunday)

Rob Tisinai's latest:

Support for same sex marriage, state by state

Writing in today's NY Times, Andrew Gelman, Jeffrey Lax, and Justin Phillips look at data state by state supporting marriage equality.

I've highlighted some of their data previously, here and here, where they did exhaustive studies of the views on a variety of GLBT equality issues, by state and by age. The trend is clear.

And support for same-sex marriage has increased in all states, even in relatively conservative places like Wyoming and Kentucky. Only Utah is still below where national support stood in 1996....

This trend will continue. Nationally, a majority of people under age 30 support same-sex marriage. And this is not because of overwhelming majorities found in more liberal states that skew the national picture: our research shows that a majority of young people in almost every state support it. As new voters come of age, and as their older counterparts exit the voting pool, it’s likely that support will increase, pushing more states over the halfway mark.

Today's column updates their paper from last year, 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, which provided these graphs. Click for a closer view.

Target flash mob: are corporations people? (Video)

Are you boycotting Target? (In case you haven't heard, the company gave $150K to a conservative, anti-gay candidate for Minnesota governor, despite being generally gay-friendly otherwise. Because advocating for justice is bad for the bottom line.)

Creative counter protests

From the HuffPo, via Aravosis, creative responses to anti-gay protests:

Why it matters: medical malpractice

There's been a malpractice case in Connecticut, and the victim of malpractice won a settlement which under ordinary circumstances would go to her spouse. However, that may be moot, because the state didn't recognize the spouse at the time of the malpractice.

Mueller, 62, died last January and although she was legally married to her lesbian partner, Charlotte Stacey, at the time of her death, the case must still wind through probate court to determine whether Stacey can collect any of the verdict.

Mueller's lawyer, Joshua Koskoff, of Bridgeport, said a judge had previously ruled Stacey could not be a plaintiff in the case, even though she claimed she suffered emotionally from her partner's medical plight, because the state didn't make their relationship legal until after the alleged malpractice.

The state's civil union law was passed in 2005, and in 2008 the state Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to wed in the state.

Stacey called the earlier ruling excluding her from the case unfair. "I don't think it's right; we were together the entire time. We were a complete couple in every sense of the word."

You know, over and over and over again, all they do is legitimize bigotry and bias and disadvantage. And they smile sweetly and wave their Bibles. What does it cost them? Why do they hate us so much, those sanctimonious bigots?

Cooper's revenge?

Time magazine has excellent coverage of the appeal from the pro-Prop8 side.

The proponents' lead attorney, former Reagan-era Justice Department lawyer Charles Cooper, has tipped his hand about where he'll strike with his appeal, now due Sept. 17. It's a remarkable — and, with the court's permission, longer than normally permitted — brief, which in 75 pages lays out a vigorous defense of Prop 8 that stands in stark contrast to the generally anemic defense his side presented at trial....

Cooper's brief reveals a strategy that looks like nothing if not a plan to proceed as if the trial didn't happen. All but ignoring Walker's conclusions to the contrary, Cooper argues that the right to marriage does not include the right to same-sex marriage, which he said would be a new right — and one not subject to the same strong protections enjoyed by fundamental rights like marriage. He argues, too, that gays and lesbians as a class are different than racial minorities, or even gender classes, because sexual orientation is harder to define, and gays lack the political powerlessness that racial minorities were enduring when they were given constitutional protections.

As a result, he argues, the government interest in laws like Prop 8 needs be subjected only to the lowest level of constitutional scrutiny, an equal-protection standard known as rational-basis review. Ten previous courts have held that laws discriminating against gays need only survive scrutiny under the more permissive rational-basis review, he argues. "The unanimity of these decisions is no accident, for the question whether gays and lesbians satisfy the requirements for suspect-class status is not a close one. As an initial matter, homosexuality is a complex and amorphous phenomenon that defies consistent and uniform definition. As well-respected researchers have concluded, 'there is currently no scientific or popular consensus on the exact constellation of experiences that definitively 'qualify' an individual as lesbian, gay or bisexual.' "

Read the whole thing.

The stay will continue

No immediate prospect of legal marriages for gays and lesbians in California. The LA Times reports that the 9th circuit has continued the stay, and allowed for an expedited appeal by December.

"I think there are strategic reasons why even the most ardent supporter of gay marriage could opt for a stay," said [Loyola Law School professor Richard] Hasen, an expert on federal court stays. "The concern is that rushing things to the Supreme Court could lead to an adverse result [for supporters of gay marriage.] If this case takes another year to get to the U.S. Supreme Court, there could be more states that adopt same-sex marriage and more judicial opinions that reach that conclusion."

Update Although I thought this meant They have been given standing, I'm corrected by our friendly lawyer Paul (A), who quotes the order thusly:

"In addition to any issues appellants wish to raise on appeal, appellants are directed to include in their opening brief a discussion of why this appeal should not be dismissed for lack of Article III standing. See Arizonans For Official English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 66 (1997)."

So standing is NOT a given at this time. make your case, lads!

For those tuning in late, "standing" here is whether a party is entitled to participate. Generally, the court has been fairly restrictive about it, so you can't appeal or enter into a case just because you are interested in it, but have to have a real "dog in the fight". In this kind of case, the "standing" belongs to the State of California, but the Governor and AG have decided not to appeal. So the question is, whether the Defendant-interveners who defended Prop8 have the right to appeal, since Prop8 in no way affects or injures them personally (I'm sure PaulA will correct me again if needed!)

Update 2: From Paul (A) in the comments:

Federal courts are limited by the Constitution to deciding "cases and controversies". Precedent has interpreted this to mean that actual parties who have a real stake in the outcome of the case must be represented on both sides. The Arizonans for Official English case held unanimously that proponents of a successful state initiative were not proper parties before the Supreme Court. The Proposition 8 proponents appear to be in the same boat. They will have to convince the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that this is somehow a different situation.

John Culhane blogs,

Standing might not be the most viscerally satisfying way of expressing judicial rejection of this ugly impulse, but in its way it affirms an important truth: Those who support initiatives aren’t the ones directly affected by them. Their ability to get enough signatures for the ballot, and then to play to primal fears (nativist, Christianist, and so on) to get their measures passed, can’t and won’t deter courts from discharging their constitutional duty.

The Gay Agenda, summed up

From Andrew Sullivan

I take the "forever" seriously myself. And I think that core vow - never to abandon one's spouse, to make living together work even when exit might seem easier - is central to marriage's power. It is unreasonable - which is why we promise it. The vow establishes the arc of our ambition, and a sense of marital love's eternity. This is why it remains sacred to me - because committing to another human being for ever - is always sacred. And when we commit to something this profound, we need to find some, well, awe to understand it.

Whoa, scary stuff, isn't it?

For better for worse....

David Boies: We put fear on trial (video Sunday)

"In a court of law you've got to come in and you've got to support those opinions, you've got to stand up under oath and cross-examination," Boies said. "And what we saw at trial is that it's very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens of the right to vote [sic] to make all sorts of statements and campaign literature, or in debates where they can't be cross-examined.

"But when they come into court and they have to support those opinions and they have to defend those opinions under oath and cross-examination, those opinions just melt away. And that's what happened here. There simply wasn't any evidence, there weren't any of those studies. There weren't any empirical studies. That's just made up. That's junk science. It's easy to say that on television. But a witness stand is a lonely place to lie. And when you come into court you can't do that.

"That's what we proved: We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost," Boies said.

Transcript: CBS news

We took apart the "kids do better...." argument here. There are NO studies suggesting that kids with GLBT parents do worse. Perkins can argue all he likes, but the facts do not back him up.

Facts, someone said once, are stubborn things. ;-)

The cognitive dissonance of the "Fierce Advocate"

Kerry Eldveld continues to be one of the best reporters on GLBT issues.

“The president does oppose same-sex marriage but he supports equality for gay and lesbian couples in benefits and other issues,” David Axelrod assured Savannah Guthrie and Chuck Todd on MSNBC the morning after Proposition 8 was overturned. “He supports civil unions and that's been his position throughout, so nothing has changed.”
....

And for the Obama administration, the inconsistencies abound and only stand to grow with time. Let’s remember that Axelrod said the president “opposes” marriage equality, which is actually one step further than just reminding people that he supports civil unions.

Here’s a sampling of their dilemma: Explain how the President denounces Proposition 8 but doesn’t favor the marriages that would be allowed if it were overturned; why he believes DOMA should be repealed and supports full federal benefits for same-sex couples but he doesn't support the marriages that will afford that type of federal recognition.

And then there’s the idea that the president continues to “promote equality for LGBT Americans” even as he opposes same-sex marriage and supports a separate-but-unequal alternative.

Will the Right Yield California to keep other marriage amendments intact?

From Right Wing Watch, an interview with the Other Side.

So there's an effort underway to say "California, please don't appeal this. I mean, if you appeal this, its bad for you guys but live with it, but don't cause the rest of us to have to go down your path."....knowing what Kennedy has already done in two similar cases to this and knowing that he's the deciding vote, the odds are 999 out of 1000 that they'll uphold the California decision.

If they do, there's not a marriage amendment in the country that can stand. And so the problem is that instead of California losing its amendment, now 31 states lose their amendment. And that won't happen if California doesn't appeal this decision. It's just California that loses its amendment.

Montana and Alaska couples sue for equal rights

From the ACLU:

Seven committed same-sex couples have sued the state of Montana for failing to offer legal protections to same-sex couples and their families in violation of the Montana Constitution’s rights of privacy, dignity and the pursuit of life’s basic necessities and its guarantees of equal protection and due process. The goal of this lawsuit is to see that same-sex couples are able to protect their families with the same kind of legal protections that the State offers to different-sex couples through marriage.

Because there is a constitutional amendment in Montana barring marriage for same-sex couples, this lawsuit is not seeking marriage. The couples in the suit are seeking the protection of state-recognized domestic partnerships.

Read here about the couples themselves. And, more information about the case here.

This lawsuit, which is being brought in state court and is making state constitutional claims, only directly addresses protections under state law. It is these protections, however, that grant married couples some of their most important safeguards during times of greatest need. Under Montana law, it is possible for same-sex couples to be barred from visiting their partners in the hospital and left out of conversations about emergency medical care. Montana inheritance laws refuse to recognize same-sex couples, leaving surviving partners with nothing if their partners die without valid wills. Similarly, it is possible for surviving partners to be barred from making funeral arrangements. Denying same-sex couples legal protections can also have devastating effects on their children because they are denied the security of knowing that their parents have a legally recognized relationship with one another, setting them apart from many of their friends.

Another case is moving forward in Alaska, again with committed gay couples suing for equal rights.

Step by step, make them try to justify treating their citizens as second class.

Update Here's info on a case in Wyoming.