Pro gay marriage groups filed papers against domestic partnership challenge September 23, 2009

Tami Hughes FOX 6 Reporter

September 22, 2009

WITI-TV, MILWAUKEE – Several legal moves are made, in the battle over domestic partnerships in Wisconsin. Those partnerships went into effect last month, but opponents say the language is too similar to gay marriage. They want to go straight to the state supreme court.

Anne Hefter and Denise Cawley have been in a relationship for more than 13 years, they share a home, and a 2-year-old son. As of last month they share some of the same rights as their heterosexual Wisconsin neighbors, but Crawley stresses some. Crawley says, “It doesn’t recognize many of the 1,100 rights a married couple would receive federally as well as about 30 rights for states.”

Wisconsin’s Domestic Partnership Statute basically applies to three major areas hospital visitation, the right to family medical leave to care for their partner, and the ability to make end of life decisions.

Some say it’s too similar to gay marriage, which Wisconsin voters banned back in 2006. The attorney representing Wisconsin Family Action Michael Read says, “What we are challenging is the governor and legislature’s deliberate effort to create a legal statute which is virtually identical to marriage.”

Wisconsin Family Action is appealing the statute which requires couples to file together at their county clerks office, and show proof of birth certificate, social security card, and residence. Read says, “Very, very similar, virtually identical to the procedures for marriage.”

Nearly a thousand Wisconsin couples have applied for the registry since August. Hefter and Cawley say they are grateful for it, but in no way do they feel like a recognized marriage.

Wisconsin Family Action filed it’s motion at the State Supreme Court level. Several groups filed papers to have the appeal go to trial first. The Supreme Court has not announced a decision.

Survey delves into sports homophobia September 23, 2009

by Jim Buzinski.

A New England-based gay rights organization that helped win gay marriage rulings in Massachusetts and Connecticut is seeking to document cases of homophobia in sports as a precursor to possible action down the road.

Gay and Lesbian Advocate Defenders, based in Boston, is conducting a survey on attitudes towards gays and lesbians in sports. From the survey page:

To determine how we can best address homophobia and transphobia in sports, GLAD is researching the ways in which anti-gay and anti-transgender attitudes affect LGBT athletes and coaches. Our first step is collecting the stories of LGBT athletes, coaches and allies who can shed light on the challenges and barriers homophobia and transphobia present. We’re also interested in your success stories and positive experiences.

In addition to its legal wins for gay marriage in Massachusetts and Connecticut, GLAD earlier this year filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the fDefense of Marriage Act.

Its wins in these cases and 30-year track record show that GLAD gets results. However, I am not sure what their long-term goals are regarding homophobia in sports. The sports project at the National Center for Lesbian Rights has been fighting for LGBT athletes successfully for years. I hope this is not a case of a new group in this area needlessly duplicating what already is being done (and being done well by NCLR).

Nonetheless, the more documentation on the issue, the better, so filling out GLAD’s short survey can’t hurt. The questions are fairly basic and broad and you can fill out the survey anonymously.

ABOUT-FACE OVER GAY MARRIAGE September 23, 2009

“They always refer back to the Bible … then let atheists, pagans, Wiccans get married?” GLENN

Once upon a time, in a land not far from Independence Hall, two men decided to share their lives. Call them “Glenn” and “Rushio.”

I’ve known Glenn for decades; Rushio, a few days. At a time when most teens would snicker about nearby “Lollypop Lane” — a dark street near a miniature-golf course where discreet, random men rendezvoused with the same — Glenn felt alive when he went to alternative-lifestyle parties in downtown Philly. He stayed closeted for a while, but he knew.

Meanwhile, Rushio was moving here from Latin America, following the same dreams-of-a-better-life as your ancestors. They initially met online, then at a New Hope club. They’ve been together for five years since. Now, for the rub: Rushio’s here illegally. All that separates this gay non-citizen from conservative-enemy trifecta-hood is the public health-care option.

They face the same basic challenges of both gay couples and non-citizens: the inevitable fear of deportation; the inability to make their love legal. What struck me as compelling, though, is that Glenn regularly travels to Rushio’s homeland to keep him in their lives. And that’s how they stole away my last sliver of gay marriage opposition.

I’ll never stop grudging that “Milk” body-slammed “The Wrestler,” but when it came to the “M” question, my stock response was, “You deserve every legal right, but I’m just uncomfortable calling it ‘marriage.’” Now I’m with most people in the Garden State, where 59 percent said to change it from civil union to marriage in a 2008 poll. Then, in Boston last week, Justice Department lawyers shrugged in support of the federal Defense of Marriage Act because they legally had to. Both are more evolved than Pennsylvanians, where state Sen. Daylin Leach’s bill to establish full-and-equal rights hasn’t gained much traction.

C’mon, legislators clinging to constituents’ prejudices about the bedroom activities of those more moral than the 50-percent divorce bracket, enough’s enough. I say so. Glenn says so.

“They always refer back to the Bible, that it’s a religious issue, then let atheists, pagans, Wiccans get married?” said Glenn, noting that Rushio could live in legal American-citizen peace if they were married. “They’ve spent years and money in court fighting about what to call it and have forgotten that it’s really about equality and human rights.”

— Brian Hickey is a freelance journalist living in East Falls.

Metro does not endorse the opinions of the author, or any opinions expressed on its pages. Opposing viewpoints are welcome. Please send 400-word submissions to letters@metro.us.

National Organization for Marriage President: We’ll Win in Maine September 23, 2009

By David Weigel 9/21/09 1:43 PM

I spent a few minutes talking with Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, after she gave a rip-roaring introduction for Carrie Prejean at the Values Voter Summit. First, however, she expressed some disappointment that TWI wasn’t a gay publication.

“I love the gay press,” said Gallagher. “I really am impressed with gay journalists, as a group. I like reading the marriage issue in the gay press because they cover it as if what happens matters, whereas if you read The New York Times, it’s always about how this is going to affect who gets elected president.”

Fair enough — my questions were about NOM’s chances of winning a November 2009 gay marriage vote in Maine, and about whether pro-gay marriage campaigners were making the right moves there.

“I’m pretty confident that, as in California, we’re going to win,” said Gallagher. “We’re in much better shape in Maine than we were in California at a similar point. We were ten points down on September 1, 2008 and we won. I saw a poll yesterday that had us up two points in Maine.”

Gallagher also dismissed by Equality Maine, a pro-gay marriage group that beat pro-traditional marriage forces to the airwaves.

“I think that ad is not very effective,” she said. “I think that’s a very soft-focus, nice, pleasant ad, but I don’t think it changed any minds one way or another. If I was them, I wouldn’t be spending money there.”

Census count: 23,000 of California’s gay couples consider themselves married September 23, 2009

By Denis C. Theriault

dtheriault@mercurynews.com

Posted: 09/22/2009 06:46:03 PM PDT

Updated: 09/22/2009 10:14:56 PM PDT

SACRAMENTO — As many as 23,000 same-sex couples in California identified themselves as married last year, according to the first census figures to deal with gay marriage — a number starkly higher than a previous estimate for the state had indicated. That amounts to more than a quarter of the 84,000 gay couples estimated in the state, a percentage that places California just ahead of the national average. The U.S. Census Bureau says nearly 150,000 same-sex couples across the nation consider themselves married, out of more than 560,000 same-sex couples overall. Previously, the most commonly cited tally of married gay couples in California was 18,000. Although the statistics are sure to stoke the state’s ongoing political debate about same-sex nuptials — especially in the wake of the court decision upholding Proposition 8 — demographers caution that the numbers remain imprecise. In California, for example, marriage certificates don’t track gender. So there’s no way to differentiate between couples who have actually received marriage certificates, they say, and couples who consider themselves married even though their partnerships lack official recognition. “It’s clear there are a lot of same-sex couples who define themselves as spouses even in the absence of any formal legal protection,” said Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California-Los Angeles. “That says something about the commitment levels of the couples and how they view their relationships, regardless of how the government might.”

Gates actually came up with the oft-quoted 18,000 figure, derived by comparing the uptick in weddings last summer and fall, when same-sex marriage was legal, to those during the same time period the year before.

In contrast, the census data relies on respondents’ answers to survey questions.

Other than California, which allowed gay weddings only from June to November 2008, Massachusetts, Iowa and Connecticut also permitted same-sex marriages last year.

Given the shifting legal landscape — changing far faster than the methodical pace preferred by number crunchers — Martin O’Connell, head of the census bureau’s fertility and family statistics branch, said that reliably tracking same-sex marriages has proved to be a difficult task.

Some gay couples may report themselves as wed because they received a church’s blessing, though not the government’s. Some may do so because they share a house or are raising children or doing both. Others have been together for so long, they can’t see themselves as anything but married.

O’Connell said the bureau for the 2008 count refined the way it collected data about gay couples, reducing the chance that couples who identified themselves merely as domestic partners and straight couples who made errors on their surveys wouldn’t be mistakenly counted.

In previous years, before those changes, both the overall number of gay couples and the number of couples listed as married was dramatically higher.

That work will be important as the bureau gears up for the 2010 census — the first that will include raw data examining same-sex couples — but O’Connell said a truly accurate count of married gay couples remains a long way off.

“I don’t think there will be any definitive answer for several years,” he said.

For some, that census officials are even attempting to produce a solid number amounts to a victory.

“We’re not going away and we’re not a threat,” said Art Adams, a plaintiff whose lawsuit last year opened California’s brief window for gay marriages. “It’s about time people actually notice how many of us there are and how active we are. We’re just like everyone else.”

Same-Sex Marriage: Exploring the Racial Divide September 21, 2009

By Robert McCartney
Sunday, September 20, 2009

As the D.C. government prepares to legalize same-sex marriage, some supporters fret that the issue could divide the city along racial lines. It probably won’t happen, because gay rights activists in the District have built a potent, biracial political bloc that seems set to drive the bill to passage easily in coming months. The real threat to same-sex marriage here will be conservatives in Congress trying to meddle in what should be a matter for the District to decide on its own.

Nevertheless, it’s an intriguing fact, acknowledged by both sides, that blacks in the District overall oppose same-sex marriage while whites support it. Why is that so? And should African Americans, who battled so long for civil rights for themselves, be natural allies of gay people seeking such rights today? The answers cast light on the intersection of racial , gender and class politics in the city.

The issue is sure to attract lots of attention in our region and beyond. The District is poised to become the first jurisdiction south of the Mason-Dixon line to allow same-sex marriage. Approval would accelerate efforts to legalize it in Maryland as well.

A poll conducted in May for same-sex marriage supporters found that whites in the District back same-sex marriage by more than 8 to 1, while blacks were against it 48 percent to 34 percent. Results of the survey, done by the Feldman Group, were provided by D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), who’s leading the campaign for same-sex marriage in the District.

The poll showed the city as a whole supported same-sex marriage by 54 percent to 34 percent. Even though the city is majority black, the huge margin of support from the white community made the difference.
ad_icon

Discussion of this issue often focuses on why blacks are against same-sex marriage. African Americans in the city are overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal on economic issues. But they’re pretty diverse when it comes to social and cultural attitudes. Washington’s black population has long included a sizable religious community with conservative social views, especially among older people.

The sharp differences between religious and secular blacks were evident in interviews Friday morning in front of the Neighborhood Market food store on Rhode Island Avenue in Northeast Washington.

Ulysses Marshall, 56, a deacon in a Baptist church in Northeast, said “it’s perpetrating a fraud” against God for a same-sex couple to marry. “They’re sinners. They should burn.”

Moments later, Darlene Carroll, 26, a secretary, said the opposite. “I have a girlfriend,” she said. “Why should we have to travel several states away to get a license?”

The fact is that the range of attitudes about same-sex marriage among blacks in the District is fairly typical of African Americans nationwide. What’s really unusual about the District is the level of backing for same-sex marriage among whites.

The poll cited by Catania showed white support at 83 percent, compared with 10 percent opposed. Nationwide, approval among whites is 48 percent versus 46 percent against, a gap that is statistically insignificant, according to a Washington Post poll conducted in April.

Why the difference? The District’s white population is more secular, liberal and better-educated than the rest of the country. Some surveys have suggested that educational level is the most reliable predictor of attitudes on same-sex marriage, with more-educated people being more likely to support it.

Within the black and gay communities, there’s discussion of whether the gay rights campaign is similar to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Some black people view the comparison as maddening.

“You see privileged white [gay] males in many situations trying to tell an underprivileged black single mother: My pain compared to your pain. That doesn’t connect,” Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville and leader of the anti-gay marriage campaign in the District, said.

However, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s non-voting delegate in the U.S. House, said gay peoples’ experience of discrimination is compelling to African Americans in the same way that prejudice against other groups is.

“The reason we speak about Hispanics and women, their very different experience nevertheless resonates with us [black people]. The very different experience of the gay community resonates with me because I am an advocate and strong supporter of universal human rights,” Norton said.

In any case, the trend within the black community is toward tolerance. The May survey found that District blacks favored same-sex civil unions, with the legal rights of marriage, by 52 percent to 36 percent.

Catania, who is gay and white, has tried to defuse the racial issue by assembling a broad coalition to support same-sex marriage. Ten of the 13 members of the D.C. Council are co-authors of the same-sex marriage bill he’ll introduce soon, including four of the body’s seven black members. The city’s black mayor is on board, and supporters think the courts are likely to continue to reject efforts to force a citywide referendum on the issue.

That means the issue ultimately will be decided by Congress. Race will be only a sideshow there, and the city’s right to determine its own affairs will take center stage.

That Pesky Constitution

On a separate issue, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is unhappy with her colleagues at the other end of the Capitol building. “I don’t know what got into the framers that they created the Senate. They are the bane of our existence,” she said at a town hall meeting on health care Tuesday. She’s unhappy with the other chamber because she thinks it’s killed the public option and blocked D.C. voting rights, among other sins.

Poll: Gay marriage opponents lead in Maine September 19, 2009

Poll: Gay marriage opponents lead in Maine

Posted on Sep 18, 2009 | by Staff

AUGUSTA, Maine (BP)–A ballot initiative that would overturn Maine’s recently passed “gay marriage” law has a slight lead in a new poll, although it’s well within the margin of error.

According to the poll by Research 2000 commissioned by the liberal blog DailyKos.com, Question 1 leads by a margin of 48-46 percent. The poll interviewed 600 likely voters Sept. 14-16 and has a margin of error of +/- four percent.

If passed, Question 1 — also known as a people’s veto — would reverse a new “gay marriage” law passed by the Democratic legislature and signed by the Democratic governor. It has yet to take effect and won’t do so until voters have a say.

The poll seems to have good news for Question 1 supporters not only because they have a slight lead but also because: 1) the poll was conducted after opponents had been airing TV ads for approximately two weeks and just as supporters were beginning their ad campaign; and 2) the poll question seemed to have been worded in a negative way that favored opponents of Question 1. It read, in part: “A yes vote takes away the right of same-sex couples to marry. A no vote keeps the right of same-sex couples to marry. If the election were held today would you vote YES or NO on this question?”

“The poll results will likely galvanize our opponents to continue to call us fear-mongoring liars, even as legal scholars and other experts in the field — including some in our opponent’s own camp — independently raise the serious negative effects and conflicts inherent in legalizing homosexual marriage,” Marc Mutty, chairman of Stand For Marriage Maine, said in a statement. “As our opponents continue to duck the real issues of the campaign in favor of name-calling, and independent experts substantiate our claims about the negative consequences of LD 1020 becoming law, we have every confidence that we will win the hearts and minds of Mainers on November 3rd.”
–30–
Michael Foust is an assistant editor of Baptist Press. For information on how to help pass Question 1, visit StandForMarriageMaine.com. To read how “gay marriage” impacts parental rights and religious freedom click here.

© Copyright 2009 Baptist Press. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use.

US to sign UN gay rights declaration March 18, 2009

 

US to sign UN gay rights declaration

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration will endorse a U.N. declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality that then-President George W. Bush had refused to sign, The Associated Press has learned.

U.S. officials said Tuesday they had notified the declaration’s French sponsors that the administration wants to be added as a supporter. The Bush administration was criticized in December when it was the only western government that refused to sign on.

The move was made after an interagency review of the Bush administration’s position on the nonbinding document, which was signed by all 27 European Union members as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries, the officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Congress was still being notified of the decision. They said the administration had decided to sign the declaration to demonstrate that the United States supports human rights for all.

“The United States is an outspoken defender of human rights and critic of human rights abuses around the world,” said one official.

“As such, we join with the other supporters of this statement and we will continue to remind countries of the importance of respecting the human rights of all people in all appropriate international fora,” the official said.

The official added that the United States was concerned about “violence and human rights abuses against gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual individuals” and was also “troubled by the criminalization of sexual orientation in many countries.”

“In the words of the United States Supreme Court, the right to be free from criminalization on the basis of sexual orientation ‘has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom’,” the official said.

Gay rights and other groups had criticized the Bush administration when it refused to sign the declaration when it was presented at the United Nations on Dec. 19. U.S. officials said then that the U.S. opposed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation but that parts of the declaration raised legal questions that needed further review.

According to negotiators, the Bush team had concerns that those parts could commit the federal government on matters that fall under state jurisdiction. In some states, landlords and private employers are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; on the federal level, gays are not allowed to serve openly in the military.

It was not immediately clear on Tuesday how the Obama administration had come to a different conclusion.

When it was voted on in December, 66 of the U.N.’s 192 member countries signed the declaration — which backers called a historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with anti-gay discrimination.

But 70 U.N. members outlaw homosexuality — and in several, homosexual acts can be punished by execution. More than 50 nations, including members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, opposed the declaration.

Some Islamic countries said at the time that protecting sexual orientation could lead to “the social normalization and possibly the legalization of deplorable acts” such as pedophilia and incest. The declaration was also opposed by the Vatican.

Is Rev. Rick Warren the right choice? December 21, 2008

Do you think Obama made the right choice to elect Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration? Do you think this will provoke the anger of abortion and same-sex marriage supporters?

Do you believe the defending statement published on “The New York Times”:

The Rev. Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College, said that he and Mr. Warren were friends, but they disagree on issues like gay marriage and abortion. And yet, he said, “I think it is a terrible mistake for anyone to view Rick Warren as being in the same category as James Dobson or Chuck Colson,” who are among the most prominent leaders of the religious right.

“He’s a new breed,” said Father Balmer, a longtime scholar of American evangelicals, who recently became rector of an Episcopal church.

He said that unlike many other evangelical pastors, Mr. Warren had not devoted as much time or effort in support of Proposition 8, a measure on the California ballot in November that amended the State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

In a recent interview with the Web site Beliefnet, Mr. Warren said that allowing same-sex couples to marry was no different from allowing a brother and sister to marry.

But he also said that same-sex marriage was less of a threat to the American family than divorce. Mr. Warren said that he supported partnership rights for gay people, including insurance coverage and hospital visitation rights, a position that is not widely accepted among evangelical conservatives.

A Commentary on the Document “Six Consequences if Proposition 8 Fails” October 22, 2008

This document contains very convincing points to attack the same-sex marriage opposition party.

http://www.noonprop8.com/downloads/Thurston-Memo.pdf