Attention LiTW readers: this post was actually written by the always stellarJamee Greer, but for some reason, there was a bug in the piece that prevented him from posting it. I found the error, and put it up for him...
There's plenty of discussion among LGBT circles right now about whether or not the Obama Administration is doing a good job of moving civil rights policy forward, or if they're willfully stalling or even dismissing the community. It appears that many in the LGBT blogosphere are joining in on a boycott organized by the founders of AmericaBlog in an attempt to push resolution on a list of about thirty grievances directed at the Administration.
Joe and I are launching today a donor boycott of the DNC. The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towle Road, Paul Sousa (Founder of Equal Rep in Boston), Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler (ED of the Equality Campaign, Inc.), Bil Browning for the Bilerico Project, and soon others.
It's really more of a "pause," than a boycott. Boycotts sounds so final, and angry. Whereas this campaign is temporary, and is only meant to help some friends - President Obama and the Democratic party - who have lost their way. We are hopeful that via this campaign, our friends will keep their promises.
This is ill-informed to the point of recklessness, and all equality advocates should be offended that John Aravosis would use his influence, such as it is, to attack the most pro-equality environment we've ever seen in this country.
Was the DNC right in failing to provide much-needed financial support for the No on 1 campaign in Maine? No. Should people sit down and find out what happened and why and publicly demand accountability? Yes. Is President Obama right in maintaining his campaign position opposing marriage equality? No. Should the LGBT community continue to push the president to fulfill his campaign promises that would advance LGBT equality? Of course.
Equality is black and white. We are either treated with the same respect and opportunity to uphold the same level of dignity as every other citizen, or we are not. The path to equality isn't as clear, but I don't accept that equal rights can be produced by the grey middle. I fight the middle, I resist it out of instinct because it can so often be two steps forward and another back.
In just the last month we saw fully inclusive federal hate crimes legislation signed by the president, the repeal of housing discrimination against gay and lesbians utilizing HUD services, the repeal of the HIV travel ban, the announcement that gays and lesbians will be counted in the 2010 Census, the first Senate hearing on a fully inclusive ENDA and the strong promise by DOJ officials that they'll make ENDA one of their top legislative priorities. There were extraordinary provisions included in the House health care reform bill that impacted the LGBT community and people living with HIV/AIDS. I'm forgetting some others, I'm sure of it.
I agree, mistakes have been made by the Administration, by the Democratic National Committee, and Organizing for America on LGBT issues. But that list of what's been done right, and the growing national momentum on equality, means so much to someone living in a state where a gay man can be denied the right to visit his partner if they are dying in the hospital, a trans community facing the daily threat of being fired for blurring the lines of gender, and a lesbian who spent years and thousands of dollars in the courts for something as simple as joint custody of a child she helped raise since birth. And I, for one, and possibly others, am extraordinarily grateful for what is happening in America today.
At this time I just can't see why I should support this boycott.
There's plenty of discussion among LGBT circles right now about whether or not the Obama Administration is doing a good job of moving civil rights policy forward, or if they're willfully stalling or even dismissing the community. It appears that many in the LGBT blogosphere are joining in on a boycott organized by the founders of AmericaBlog in an attempt to push resolution on a list of about thirty grievances directed at the Administration.
Joe and I are launching today a donor boycott of the DNC. The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towle Road, Paul Sousa (Founder of Equal Rep in Boston), Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler (ED of the Equality Campaign, Inc.), Bil Browning for the Bilerico Project, and soon others
There's plenty of discussion among LGBT circles right now about whether or not the Obama Administration is doing a good job of moving civil rights policy forward, or if they're willfully stalling or even dismissing the community. It appears that many in the LGBT blogosphere are joining in on a boycott organized by the founders of AmericaBlog in an attempt to push resolution on a list of about thirty grievances directed at the Administration.
Joe and I are launching today a donor boycott of the DNC. The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towle Road, Paul Sousa (Founder of Equal Rep in Boston), Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler (ED of the Equality Campaign, Inc.),
The best analysis of the outcome of yesterday's election comes from - of course - Nate Silver, who crunches the numbers on each of the results of the major issues and elections that politicos were following. Be sure to read the analysis, but in short, there's not much we can take away from these results.
In Maine, gay marriage lost out by a narrow margin; in Washington, gay rights look like they'll be affirmed in a strengthened domestic partnership law. Republicans won gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey - but lost a House race that was supposed to be a bellwether on the Obama presidency and Congressional Democrats.
Some folks are rushing to make sweeping conclusions from these races about national trends - Cillizza, for example, notes that independents flocked to the New Jersey and Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidates, but ignores the fact that most of them still approve of, and like, president Obama. Essentially, as Silver demonstrates, most of the results seem to be based on local politics - that's as true for NY-23 as it is NJ-GOV or the outcome for gay marriage in Maine.
But I do think there are some things to look at in these elections. For one, Democratic turnout was low - although not a factor - in Virginia, for one. Also, voters (especially independents) are no longer voting against Republicans - which you could argue they were doing in the Democratic sweeps of 2006 and 2008. Those elections were, in part, a forceful rejection of Republican policies. But now Democrats comprise the incumbent majority in federal government; any ills or unhappiness the electorate experiences will work against them. Still, there's no sign any of yesterday's results was an indication that voters are opting either for the Republican brand, or against the Democratic brand.
Whatever. Even if healthcare reform had gone swimmingly, and we had something bold and real in Congress, I don't think the results would be any different. Maybe there would have been more Democratic turnout, but it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference. But I do think abandoning Democratic principles will pose a real danger to Democratic electoral chances in 2010.
That said, I do think DC-based Democratic strategists are going to look at these races, see scattering independents, and urge their candidates to again tack rightward. This may not affect healthcare reform - though I wouldn't be surprised to see another push to drop the public option, such as it is - but it may be enough to down cap-and-trade, where many of the most conservative Democrats are from coal and oil states. (See Max Baucus' recent statements on cap-and-trade.) That's par for the course for elected politicos, who prefer to act cautiously and minimize risks than to act boldly and fight to win and re-win their seats.
In short Congressional Democrats - as usual? - will do the exact opposite of what they should do.
One way to mitigate this probable rightward shift is threaten primaries in key districts....
I haven't got much today; most of the nation's political class is focusing on key elections across the country, including public referenda on gay rights in Washington and Maine. In Maine, voters are being asked to uphold or deny a law passed in that state's legislature to legalize gay marriage; and in Washington, voters are asked to vote on a bill passed by that state's legislature that grant more legal protections to domestic partners.
As conservative religious groups across the country work to impose their brand of dogma on our legal system and deny basic rights to fellow citizens based on arbitrary, religious-based reasons, I'm reminded of this passage from Simon Schama's "The American Futre":
The implications of the First Amendment have inadvertently, or not, backed America into the great question on which the peace of the whole world, not just the United States, will turn....It's this unavoidable dialogue between faith and freedom, conviction and toleration, that has always been at the heart of American history and which is only crudely characterized as a "church-state separation debate." The unmistakable indifference of the American electorate to evangelical dogmatics in this election year, the clear sense...that evangelical politics has had its day, only comes as a surprise to those beyond America who imagined it would go on and on, eating away at democratic toleration. It's elsewhere in the world that dogma chokes on pluralism - the coexistence of conflicting versions of the best way to redemption - and uses state power to wipe it out. In the United States the Founding Fathers believed instead that religious truth would best be served by keeping the state out of the business of its propagation; that the power of religious engagement would not just survive freedom of conscience but be its noblest consequence. It was a daring bet: that faith and freedom were mutually nourishing. But it paid off and it has made America uniquely qualified to fight the only battle that matters, not General Boykin's quixotic reenactment of the true god against the false idol, but the war of toleration against conformity; the war of a faith that commands obedience against a faith that promises liberty. That, actually turns out to be the big American story.
The irony, then, in the pursuit of barring gays from state-based institutions is that religious groups are working to undermine the very structure of liberty that allowed religion to flourish in the United States.
A bill to make violence against gays and lesbians a federal hate crime cleared the Senate on Thursday and headed to the White House.
The 68-29 vote was a victory for civil rights groups that have long sought to expand the federal statute beyond attacks motivated by religion, race, color or national origin.
The bill, which President Obama is expected to sign, includes penalties for assaults based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender, disability or gender identity.
It's a nice start. Again, while many of the gay civil rigts' issues are legislative matters and out of the president's hands - overturning DOMA, say, or the protection of gays from housing or employment discrimination - President Obama can do something about Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell.
Putting an end to DADT once and for all does require a legislative act. True. But suspending its enforcement would put pressure on Congress to do get off its butt and pass that legislation.
Ending DADT would save taxpayer money. It would make the military better. It's the right thing to do. And it's popular among Americans...
On Sunday, over a 100,000 supporters of civil rights for gays and lesbians marched in the National Equality rally in Washington, DC, demanding equal protection under the law and access to institutions from which they're excluded. A smaller rally was held in Missoula on the same day - although you wouldn't know it if you read the Missoulian.
Among other issues, civil rights' supporters demanded an to the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that disallows gays to serve openly in the US military; the overturning of the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from extending federal benefits to the same-sex spouses of federal employees; the inclusion of sexual orientation in the federal definition of hate crime; and an end to many states' - including Montana's -- legal discrimination against gays seeking housing or employment. In many instances, gay partners have no spousal rights over medical decisions, children, or financial matters.
As Pete Shea recently wrote, this institutionally accepted discrimination against gays and lesbians has real and dramatic consequences to human lives:
Even though approximately 10 percent of our population may identify themselves as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender), they are invisible in our society in many ways. Many remain "in the closet" for life in an effort to hide. In our military, we can't ask and we can't tell. Where this invisibility is most damaging is in our own homes, where our children are coming to terms with their own sexual identities - alone and terrified. All too often they can't tell their parents and family because the reality of rejection is still too common.
Schools are places of bullying and terrorism, not just for teens who identify publicly as LGBT, but also for those whom others perceive to be gay because of some physical or personality trait. Homosexuality is still a topic that we dare not discuss openly, so we hide the topic and we hide those who are "it." Is it surprising that the suicide rate for gay teens is three or four times greater than for teens who don't have to struggle with sexual identity issues?
It's simple, isn't it? Gays simply want the right to pursue life, to choose the way in which they form their bonds of love and friendship, and to do so without facing government-approved institutional discrimination from employers, teachers, landlords, and bureaucrats. And by standing by, those of us who are straight are essentially approving of the state's involvement, not just in the affairs of gays, but in our lives, because in where we allow our government to discriminate against one group lies the potential for discrimination against others, perhaps even ourselves, and for equally arbitrary reasons.
The Montana Supreme Court Tuesday upheld parental rights for a Missoula woman who'd been part of a same-sex couple that cared for two adopted children, saying she's entitled to joint custody of the kids.
Supporters of the 6-1 decision hailed it as a victory for all parents, regardless of their marital status or sexual orientation.
"This is a victory for families in all shapes, sizes and colors," said Betsy Griffing, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana.
Justice James Nelson also issued a special concurrence, in which he wrote a blistering denunciation of discrimination against homosexuals.
"Naming it for the evil it is, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is an expression of bigotry," he wrote. "Lesbian and gay Montanans must not be forced to fight to marry, to raise their children and to live with the same dignity that is accorded heterosexuals."
I've uploaded the decision (pdf) to LiTW for your reading pleasure.
Kudos to Justice Nelson, who confronted head-on the elephant in the room: bigotry. There's more of this kind of stuff from Nelson in another Dennison report:
"I remain absolutely convinced that homosexuals are entitled to enjoy precisely the same civil and natural rights as heterosexuals, as a matter of constitutional law," he wrote....
Nelson said the case shows that until the courts recognize homosexuals as "equal participants with heterosexuals in our society with exactly the same civil and natural rights, lesbian and gay citizens will continue to suffer homophobic discrimination."
"Regrettably, this sort of discrimination is both socially acceptable and politically popular," he wrote. "Sadly, this case represents yet another instance in which fellow Montanans, who happen to be lesbian or gay, are forced to battle for their fundamental rights to love who they want, to form intimate associations, to form family relationships, and to have and raise children - all elemental, natural rights that are accorded, presumptively and without thought or hesitation, to heterosexuals."
Personally, I think it's time to address the stain on Montana's constitution - Article XIII, section 7 - enacted in a fit of momentary delusion stoked by social conservatives, that singles out one particular group and, with malice, denies them access to a public institution that the rest of us enjoy.
Marriage also bestows enormous private and social advantages on those who choose to marry. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. "It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects." Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965). Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life's momentous acts of self-definition.
And we know how legalizing gay marriage in Massachusetts wreaked havoc with that state's institution! That divorce rates shrunk to pre-WWII levels in Massachusetts means that divorce lawyers there are suffering profound economic losses...
Fighting for gay marriage has nothing to do with "gay rights" - but everything to do with human rights. Fighting for gay marriage does not threaten "traditional" marriage - but reaffirms it. Fighting for gay marriage is not part of some mysterious "homosexual agenda," it isn't about "special" rights for a small group, it's about protecting everybody's rights, straight or gay, married or single, by reaffirming that the state has no business regulating the intensely personal and private compact made by any two consenting adults, by reaffirming that the formation of relationships and families should be left unmolested by law, and that, at its core, marriage is about love.
To nobody's surprise, the California Supreme Court both upheld that state's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, and preserves the gay marriages that occurred before the ban was passed this November. The LA Times has a copy of the court's ruling (pdf). From that ruling:
...the principal issue before us concerns the scope of the right of the people, under the provisions of the California Constitution, to change or alter the state Constitution itself through the initiative process so as to incorporate such a limitation as an explicit section of the state Constitution.
The issue at hand wasn't the validity of a simple majority writing into the state's constitution its willingness to subvert the rights and freedoms of a minority to form families, but, instead, whether Proposition 8 "amended" the California state constitution or "revised" it. Doing so by ballot initiative is acceptable for the former under California law, but not for the latter.
Meanwhile, the court recognized the rights of same-sex couples to form long-term relationships and families, and acknowledged that Proposition 8 affected only a narrow spectrum of rights. Gays still enjoy protection from discrimination, for example, under California law.
In short, while this ruling is disappointing while still not unexpected, there's still a lot of room for hope. Dan Savage:
In 2000 California voters approved a law banning same-sex marriage. It was a ballot initiative, like Prop 8, but just a law, not a constitutional amendment. And it was that law, Prop 22, that the CA Supremes struck down in 2008, in their historic ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. And voters in 2000 approved Prop 22 in by a nearly 22-point margin. And eight years later the same voters would approved Prop 8 by four points. That's an 18-point shift in favor of marriage equality in just eight years. That's extraordinary progress. A loss is still a loss, and a loss sucks, but the trend is so strongly in our favor that we cannot lose hope. The anti-gay bigots know that they're losing this debate, and it's why they're so hot to amend state constitutions now, while they still can, while they can still count on the votes of the old, the bigoted, and the easily manipulated. But they are losing and they know it.
We're going to go back to the ballot box in California in 2010 or 2012 and voters are going to repeal Prop 8. Fundamental civil rights should not be subject to a popular vote, of course, and the CA Supremes had an opportunity to reaffirm that ideal. They chose not to, they buckled, and so we, unlike other minority groups, face the challenge of securing our rights at the ballot box. That seems daunting prospect until you recall 2000's Prop 22 and compare its margin of victory to that of 2008's Prop 8. Again, we witnessed an eighteen point shift in favor of gay marriage in California in just eight years. We can move another four points. We just have to stay in the fight and remind ourselves and each other that we are winning.
And that's not even considering that belief in same-sex rights is strongly correlative to age, and that any future vote will therefore be closer. And that's also not mentioning that this election's Proposition 8 was one of the biggest surprises of the election, and got a lot of attention because of it. And as same-sex marriage proponents are gearing up for their own initiative, which would abrogate Proposition 8, it'll get a lot of focus, and its campaign will be smarter.
And then there's this, in the wake of Massachusetts' five-year anniversary of legalizing gay marriage:
Lake Research Partners, who conducted the survey, asked 600 Massachusetts residents whether they would vote for or against a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Fully 62% of respondents said they would oppose such an amendment, up from 52% in a similar 2005 survey. Interestingly, the poll found that many residents supported marriage equality because it promoted traditional values like commitment and responsibility. This finding will surely come as a suprise to anti-gay marriage advocates who argue that it undermines the foundations of the family.
A lot of folks who are "protecting" marriage by opposing same-sex marriage apparently don't realize their efforts are actually undermining real families, many with children. That's the unspoken truth about the anti-gay movement in this country. You see it in anti-abortion rhetoric, too. It's not really about families and children. It's about using the state to enforce a particular and prejudiced moral code on all Americans.
On the issue of homosexual marriage the distinction is even greater. Some 39.3% of respondents in the 2008 GSS said that they "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that homosexuals should have the right to marry. That number soared to 53.4% among those 18-34, with one out of four in that age group strongly agreeing. As one looks at each age group, as age increases so too does opposition to marriage for homosexuals.
To be sure, not all Democrats are supportive of gay marriage or homosexuality. Some 48% of those who identified as "strong Democrats" said that homosexual sex was "always wrong" as did 50.7% of Democrats overall. Furthermore, while support for gay marriage is more common among Democrats, 38.1% of Democrats do not believe that homosexuals should have the right to get married.
Yet regardless of how narrow or wide the chasm is between the two parties is on the issue, the differences between the beliefs of young voters and the beliefs of the older segments of the electorate - particularly the modern day Republican electorate - are significant.
Apparently, gay marriage is the only social issue that sharply divides young voters from their more curmudgeonly elders. Is gay marriage the new wedge issue? Are we going to ride a progressive wave into the future because of gay rights?
That's probably not much consolation to gay couples who want to get married, now.
Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don't think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the "wrong kind of person" for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people's religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people's civil rights.
I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard's and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That's what Loving, and loving, are all about.
Mildred Loving was "one half of the interracial couple" whose marriage and challenge to a Virginia ban on miscegenation helped strike down laws that prevented couples of different races to marry. (Hat tip JEFF.)
(How do you think this case would have gone in front of today's SCOTUS and Scalia's "originalism"? Given the court's stance on legal discrimination in the Indiana voter ID case...)
Marriage also bestows enormous private and social advantages on those who choose to marry. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. "It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects." Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965). Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life's momentous acts of self-definition.
Justice Marshall wrote the majority opinion for the case that allowed gay marriages in Massachusetts.
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a 2004 ban against gay marriage also blocks governments and state universities from offering health insurance to the partners of gay workers.
The 5-2 decision affirms a state Court of Appeals ruling.
Up to 20 public universities, community colleges, school districts and local governments in Michigan have benefits policies covering at least 375 gay couples.
"Are there wonderful Americans who happen to be homosexual serving in the military? Yes," he told the Senate Appropriations Committee during a hearing focused on the Pentagon's 2008 war spending request.
"We need to be very precise then, about what I said wearing my stars and being very conscious of it," he added. "And that is, very simply, that we should respect those who want to serve the nation but not through the law of the land, condone activity that, in my upbringing, is counter to God's law."
[snip]
"I would be very willing and able and supportive" to changes to the policy "to continue to allow the homosexual community to contribute to the nation without condoning what I believe to be activity - whether it to be heterosexual or homosexual - that in my upbringing is not right," Pace said.
Pace also said that "sex, other than between man and a woman inside the bonds of marriage, is a sin."
