August 12, 2009 – 10:09 am
There is a debate occurring within the marital equality rights community of whether an effort to overturn Proposition 8 should be executed in the November of 2010 or the November of 2012.
A summary of the battle at the San Francisco Chronicle:
Several California ACLU chapters have suggested waiting. So has the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club in San Francisco, the oldest Democratic LGBT organization in the country, which said, “If we set the vote for 2010, we essentially need to net 1,000 voters per day, a theoretically achievable but extraordinarily ambitious goal.”
Marriage Equality USA found “no consensus” when it posed the question at 40 community gatherings across the state this summer. But what was clear, the organization’s report said, “is that many people are still trying to heal from the deep anger and sadness of having their civil rights stripped away” by last year’s vote.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Whorange.
August 11, 2009 – 10:05 am
An interesting piece of anlysis over at Citizen Crain:
There is probably nothing one can say or do that would change the minds of the core people who find either gay marriage or health care reform repugnant. But there is something that can be done to immunize against those lies and help put a firewall in place between the liars and the public.
In Vermont one huge lie causing fear among the population was that if gay marriage passed, all churches would be required to perform them even if their core beliefs were against recognizing gay marriages. The solution to this problem was the inclusion in the bill of specific language saying that churches that did not recognize same sex marriages would not be required to perform them or recognize them. Although most of us who read this blog know that the First Amendment already protects churches on this, it was very helpful to be able to point to this specific provision to counter the arguments of the those lying to try to prevent gay marriage in Vermont. There is nothing wrong with putting in writing something that is already true.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Meaghan Courtney.
August 6, 2009 – 12:55 pm
An interesting battle is shaping up between renowned bigot Robert George of Princeton University and Andrew Sullivan, blogger from The Atlantic over a vicious and misleading editorial George published in The Wall Street Journal. The battle is being summarized at USA Today.
The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan is on a tear in The Daily Dish today. He says “be straight or go away” is the blunt and — by his lights unacceptable — underlying message of a leading Catholic traditionalist who opposes gay marriage.
What set Sullivan off is a Wall Street Journal essay by Robert George, professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and founder of the American Principles Project.
George’s essay is (mostly) focused on the idea that if the U.S. Supreme Court were to legalize same-sex marriage as a federal right that would be a dreadful mistake, comparable to the legal havoc that has come in the wake of Roe v. Wade when abortion laws moved out of the hands of states.
Photo courtesy of Flick user Stuck in Customs.
Brad Pitt spoke to Parade Magazine and during the discussion, pointed out how he feels about marriage equality.
“I have love in my life, a soul mate–absolutely. When someone asked me why Angie and I don’t get married, I replied, ‘Maybe we’ll get married when it’s legal for everyone else.’ I stand by that, although I took a lot of flak for saying it–hate mail from religious groups. I believe everyone should have the same rights. They say gay marriage ruins families and hurts kids. Well, I’ve had the privilege of seeing my gay friends being parents and watching their kids grow up in a loving environment.”
Photo courtesy of Flickr user SpreePIX - Berlin.
August 5, 2009 – 11:04 am
Innovation will be the tool by which marriage equality is achieved in this country.
Students affiliated with Future Majority have created a site called Textbooks 4 Change. Through this site, students can purchase their textbooks at Amazon.com and approximately 7% of their purchase will be directed to the Courage Campaign, an organization dedicated to overturning Proposition 8 in California.
With the average student spending an average of $900 a year on college textbooks, 7% from each student can add nearly $70 to the effort to spread equality. That’s a whole lot of dollars for marital progress!
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Textbookace.
If you read blogs, there’s a good chance that you’re a nerd. If you’re a nerd, there is an even greater chance that you know of or have taken the controls of Samus Aran, a video game character from the Metroid series.
Aran fights aliens, shoots guns, and is one of the gaming industry’s most prolific characters, and one of its few female icons.
At the end of the first Metroid game, released in the US back in 1987, it was revealed that Aran was a female, a shocking and important event in video game history (the game had you playing with the character in full armor, hiding any gender traits, until the very end when she removes her helmet).
Now that I’ve fully indulged my nerdom, take a look at this post from Timothy McSweeney’s blog that capitalizes on Aran’s status by envisioning her as a lesbian with something to say about marriage equality.
It’s a great effort to bring an industry into the debate that has been left off to the side, despite its influence and prominence among today’s youth.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Letorz.
August 4, 2009 – 12:16 pm
From the South County Independent:
The comments of the governors of New Hampshire and Maine upon signing their laws reflect a laudatory open-minded and sensitive understanding of the role of government in people’s civil lives. (In Vermont the legislature overrode the governor’s veto.) Initially New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch and Maine Gov. John Baldacci opposed gay marriage while supporting civil unions. Yet during the legislative debates each came to the conclusion that civil unions create a separate system that is not equal to civil marriage and does not provide equal protection under the law. Governor Lynch said, “We are standing up for the liberties of same-sex couples by making clear that they receive the same rights, responsibilities - and respect- under New Hampshire law.” Governor Baldacci said the law reaffirms the separation of church and state and “guarantees that Maine citizens will be treated equally under Maine’s civil marriage laws, and that is the responsibility of government.”
It is long past time for all branches of Rhode Island state government to show the same courage and honest civic responsibility with respect to same-sex marriage and finally approve a gay marriage bill of our own.
From the Washington Post:
The Census Bureau will for the first time publicly release the number of gay marriages reported in a decennial census, as it plans to release raw data about same-sex relationships in the 2010 headcount, according to new guidelines released today.
The decision reverses a Bush-era policy that prohibited the release of the data. In a legal opinion published last week, Commerce Department lawyers concluded that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act does not prohibit the Census Bureau from publicly releasing the data, contrary to the conclusions reached by Bush administration lawyers.
Continuing current policy, the new guidelines state that software used by Census enumerators will recode answers given by same sex-partners who mark their relationship status as “husband or wife,” to “unmarried partner.” But then, in late 2011, Census officials will for the first time release the raw state-by-state data on same-sex couples that marked their relationship status as “husband or wife.”
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Adria.richards.
August 3, 2009 – 10:17 am
Australia has had a notably convoluted relationship between its gay rights activists and its politicians. A post over at Eideard put it all into layman’s terms:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd won the 2007 election on a platform that supported the former conservative government’s legal definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Rudd, who considers himself a moderate Christian, said earlier this week that he “fully respected” the integrity of same-sex relationships but would not change Labor’s ban on gay marriage.
His government has moved a raft of legislation to remove same-sex discrimination from almost 100 national laws, in areas such as pensions, tax and employment.
Thousands of people held rallies and demonstrations across the nation as the vote was held, calling on Labor to legalise gay marriage…
A recent poll suggested up to 60 percent of Australians supported gay marriage and the statistics bureau in May announced it would count same-sex couples who declared themselves married in the national census.
Photo illustration by Lucas Pattan.
