California’s gay marriage ruling signals next step for both sides

The next campaign in the gay-marriage fight has already begun.

Less than 90 minutes after the California Supreme Court released its ruling on Proposition 8, both sides had already e-mailed supporters soliciting funds anticipating a new ballot measure on gay marriage that could reach voters in 2010.

 ”We don’t have time to mourn the failure of the state court to restore marriage equality to California,” wrote Rick Jacobs, chairman of the Courage Campaign, in a 10:15 a.m. e-mail. He added that it was “time to go on offense” and asked supporters to send money for pro-gay-marriage advertising that could begin airing on television later this week.

Ron Prentice, chairman of ProtectMarriage.com, waited until a little after 11 a.m. to hit up his supporters, writing: “We must turn our attention to protecting this victory . . . and must raise several million dollars to get our message out. . . . Please click here to make a contribution.”

In addition to buying advertising on TV, both sides are also hiring community organizers who will help supporters reach out to sway individual voters.

Among those prepared to keep fighting is Bill Welsh, senior pastor of Refuge Calvary Chapel in Huntington Beach. An ardent supporter of Proposition 8, Welsh spent hours on the street with a sign reading “Marriage is one man and one woman” and leading his congregation of 1,500 in gathering signatures to get the measure on the November ballot.

On Tuesday, he said he felt “pleased that they upheld the will of the people, especially in the increasingly lax moral climate that we’re in.” But he added that it would be “foolish to think this will be the end of the battle.

“I don’t have any desire to get in a violent war with anyone over this, but we won’t back down,” he said.

On the other side, gay rights activists, who had widely expected to lose, indicated after the ruling that next time they intend to be far more inclusive in their quest to sway Californians. During the last election, the No on 8 campaign was sharply criticized for not reaching out enough to black and Latino voters.

Accordingly, gay activists summoned the media to the Lucy Florence Cultural Center in Leimert Park in the heart of Los Angeles’ black community for a news conference chaired by Ron Buckmire, an African American mathematics professor who is also president of the Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition, a black gay rights group in Los Angeles.

Then they made sure that Southern California’s first post-decision protest rally was held in East Los Angeles, in the region’s historic center of Latino culture.

At that event, more than 100 people gathered outside the L.A. County office building on Cesar Chavez Avenue chanting slogans such as “Gay, Straight, Black, White, Marriage is a Civil Right.” Three gay couples then occupied the marriage license office, saying they would not leave without a license to wed. County officials refused to give licenses out — but also refused to take the demonstrators into custody. About 3:45, the demonstrators left.

In the evening, same-sex marriage supporters took over a swath of West Hollywood, spreading across Santa Monica and San Vicente boulevards. The general mood was disappointment, although many said they’d expected the court to rule as it did.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, police arrested more than 150 people after pro-gay-marriage demonstrators marched to Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street and sat down, blocking one of the city’s main arteries. They were cited and released.

“It’s about raising awareness and keeping the struggle going,” said Aubra Fletcher, 33, of Berkeley, as she sat, smiling and waiting to be arrested.

Other rallies were planned for more than 100 California cities, including Eureka, San Diego and Palm Springs.

Across the state, gay marriage supporters emphasized the same message.

“Tonight, we take to the streets. But tomorrow, we must continue the hard work,” said Lorri L. Jean, head of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center.

But even as they pushed forward, many gay activists said they felt unexpected grief over the reality of a decision they had been expecting for months.

“I’ve just been told that I have less equal rights than my colleagues,” said West Hollywood Councilman John Duran, who is gay.

Gay marriage issue returns – to a changed America

Dante Chinni

Posted: 04.06.2009 / 7:04 AM EDT

Without a doubt, a ruling Friday by Iowa’s Supreme Court opened another front in the battle over gay marriage – and follows on the heels of a hotly contested ballot initiative on the same issue in California’s November election.

But does that mean gay marriage is again becoming a big wedge issue in national politics, as it was in the 2004 presidential election and, before that, since Vermont enacted its civil unions law?

In all likelihood, it isn’t.

The explanation for why not lies in the answers to these two questions. How much has public opinion shifted on gay marriage? And how deep is America’s appetite for a debate on the issue right now?

With the exception of the vote in California on Proposition 8 – in which voters agreed to define marriage as between opposite-sex individuals – gay marriage has not been a big part of the political debate since 2004. In that presidential race, “defense of marriage” proposals in key states, such as Ohio, were thought to have brought out conservative voters who helped reelect George W. Bush.

An Annenberg Election Study poll from 2004, analyzed by community type, reveals little support for gay marriage in all 11 Patchwork Nation groups. The highest number “in favor” – 45 percent – came from people in big cities (our “Industrial Metropolis” locales). The next highest level of support – 40 percent – came from the tony suburbs (our “Monied ’Burbs”). No other community type reached 40 percent.

But the world in 2009 is a very different place.

New numbers?

First off, there is reason to believe those numbers may have moved since 2004. Polls from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed that national public attitudes on the question had changed in just two years.

Pew’s surveys showed a spike in opposition to gay marriage in 2004 to 61 percent, but by March 2006 the “oppose” number had fallen to 51 percent.

In other words, this is an issue over which the American public is in flux, and opposition may have abated even more in recent years. Why? Concern about the economy is trumping almost everything else.

From talking with our community correspondents and reading the numbers, it’s clear that the financial news is so troubling that there is little room in the political discourse right now for much else. Though different factors are shaping the fortunes of our 11 community types – it may be unemployment in some places and foreclosures in others –the economy rules, for now. Last week’s high-court ruling in Iowa – that a law limiting marriage to a man and a woman violates the state constitution – seems unlikely to change that.

A few weeks ago we asked the Patchwork communities if the media had been covering the economy too heavily and, while some took issue with the way the media were covering the story, most said the issue was dominating their local conversations.

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No equal rights for North Dakotans

Many state citizens are disappointed after ND House fails bill aimed at equality.

DS Report

Issue date: 4/7/09 Section: News

Friday, the North Dakota House of Representatives voted down Senate Bill 2278 54-34, thus stopping the addition of sexual orientation and transgendered persons to the groups protected by the state’s Human Rights Act from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations.

House members argued the bill down, stating that its supposed consequences were not in the best interest of the state and that there are more pressing laws North Dakota needs to worry about.

This bill was previously passed by the Senate but with the negative vote, North Dakota will become one of 30 states that still do not have laws barring discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Nearby Iowa, however, is defying the Midwestern odds by legalizing gay marriage for partners.

Iowa joins Massachusetts and Connecticut as the only states that permit gay marriage after the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously upheld a lower-court ruling that rejected a state law restricting marriage to a union between a man and a woman.

There is still some controversy surrounding the decision and opponents may try to enact residency requirements for marriage so that homosexuals across the country could not travel to Iowa and wed. However, the county attorney who defended the law said they were not going to seek a rehearing; the only course of action that could be taken would be a state constitutional amendment, which wouldn’t get on the ballot until 2012.

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On the Iowa Court Ruling – Marriage in the heartland

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Friday was a banner day for marriage equality. In a unanimous decision, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriages. The decision makes Iowa the first state in the American Midwest to grant marriage rights to

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Meanwhile, in Vermont, the state House of Representatives approved a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. The bill, which has already passed the state Senate, awaits a promised veto from Republican governor James Douglas.

The Vermont legislature may not have enough votes to overturn a veto, but the vote is still evidence of a palpable and crucial shift in legal and public opinion. Gay marriage opponents are finding fewer and fewer legal grounds on which they can oppose the civil rights of other people. And slowly but surely, the public is realizing that there aren’t many benefits to their opposition either.

That doesn’t mean the fight’s over – not in Iowa, not in Vermont and not here. The process of amending the state constitution is long and arduous in Iowa – experts say the soonest gay marriage could be repealed there is 2012 – but plenty of same-sex marriage opponents and state legislators are eager to begin the march. And Iowa’s victory won’t necessarily affect the California Supreme Court’s decision on Proposition 8. The California court’s decision still hinges on whether or not the voters’ amendment to our state constitution was valid, not on what happened in another state.

Still, it’s obvious that Friday’s decisions represent a leap forward, not just a step. Vermont’s bill recognizes that only marriage represents true equality. And Iowa isn’t Connecticut or Massachusetts or even California – it’s the heart of the heartland, the country’s classic swing state.

The next few years will give both Iowans and the rest of the country the opportunity to witness how same-sex marriage can bring greater fairness for everyone.

As we have long maintained, time is on the side of what has become the civil rights movement of this era.

This article appeared on page A – 13 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Vermont becomes 4th U.S. state to allow gay marriage

Tue Apr 7, 2009 6:10pm EDT

 

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BOSTON (Reuters) – Vermont legalized gay marriage on Tuesday after lawmakers overrode a veto from the governor by a wafer-thin margin, making the New England state the fourth in the United States where gays can wed.

The vote, nine years after Vermont was first in the United States to adopt a same-sex civil-union law, also makes the tiny state of 624,000 people the first in the nation to introduce gay marriage through legislative action instead of the courts.

“We’ve shown that truth and fairness and justice and love are more powerful than one man’s veto pen,” same-sex marriage advocate Beth Robinson said to cheers from supporters in the state capital of Montpelier after Vermont’s House of Representatives passed the bill by a 100-49 vote.

Known for picturesque foliage, quaint dairy farms and a counter-culture spirit, Vermont joins New England neighbors Connecticut and Massachusetts in allowing gay marriage. Iowa legalized gay marriage last week.

Lawmakers in next-door New Hampshire and Maine are also considering bills to allow gay marriage, putting New England at the heart of a divisive national debate over the issue.

Washington D.C. extended new rights to gay couples on Tuesday, too, with a unanimous City Council vote to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside the district. Some city lawmakers lauded the move as a prelude to legal same-sex marriage in the U.S. capital.

OVERRIDES GOVERNOR’S VETO

Vermont’s bill, which becomes law on September 1, looked in peril after a 95-52 vote on Thursday in the Democratic-controlled House that was five votes short of the support needed to clear a veto from Republican Governor Jim Douglas.

Douglas vetoed the bill on Monday, urging lawmakers to focus on the economy instead. Supporters needed two-thirds of the votes in each chamber to override his veto. They got that easily in the state Senate, which passed the bill 23-5 earlier on Tuesday.

The vote came just four days after Iowa’s Supreme Court struck down a decade-old law that barred gays from marrying. The surprise ruling, which made Iowa the first in the heartland to allow same-sex marriages, may have influenced some Vermont lawmakers to change their vote, gay marriage advocates said.

California briefly recognized gay marriage until voters banned it in a referendum last year.

The group Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which helped to legalize gay marriage in Massachusetts and Connecticut, has set a goal of expanding such marriages to all New England states by 2012. Maine and New Hampshire already offer same-sex couples some form of legal recognition.

Forty-three U.S. states have laws explicitly prohibiting gay marriage, including 29 with constitutional amendments restricting marriage to one man and one woman.

(Editing by Chris Wilson)

 

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By Jason Szep

Donors pumped $83M to Calif. gay marriage campaign

By LISA LEFF – 20 hours ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — More than $83 million was donated to support or oppose the ballot initiative that abolished same-sex marriage in California, according to campaign filings released Monday.

The new filings cover the weeks immediately before and after the Nov. 4 election. They show that elected officials, businesses, churches and individuals poured more than $28 million into the campaigns during the contest’s closing days.

The final tallies show that opponents of Proposition 8 raised $43.3 million in 2008 and had a little more than $730,000 left on hand at year’s end. The measure’s sponsors raised $39.9 million and had $983,000 left over.

Even before the late contributions were added, the race was the most expensive ballot measure on a social issue in the nation’s history. Proposition 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote. Gay marriage backers have asked the California Supreme Court to overturn it.

The new disclosure forms reveal that the state Democratic party and Democratic politicians gave heavily in the campaign’s closing days to defeat the gay marriage ban, which overturned the state Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in June.

The Democratic State Central Committee donated $150,000 and spent another $202,647 on mailers and other in-kind contributions. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom funneled $20,000 from the committee he has established to explore running for governor next year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave the same amount from her re-election account to the No on 8 campaign.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has been criticized for strongly encouraging its members to support Proposition 8, for the first time assigned a dollar value of nearly $190,000 to its role in getting the initiative passed.

More than half, or $97,000, went to the time staff of the Utah-based Mormon Church devoted to the Yes on 8 campaign, according to the church’s report. Another $21,000 was for the use of church buildings and equipment during the campaign. Most of the rest went to airline tickets, hotels and meals for church officials.

The church said it did not make any cash donations supporting the measure.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission has been investigating the Mormon Church for allegedly underreporting its spending on behalf of Proposition 8.

Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said Monday that the church has complied with all campaign finance laws and that the updated figures come in response to the state’s disclosure deadlines, not the FPPC investigation.

“The value of the Church’s in-kind contribution is less than one-half of one percent of the total funds raised for the Yes on 8 campaign,” Farah said.

Focus on the Family, the evangelical Christian media empire based in Colorado, reported giving $657,000 in cash and services to promote Proposition 8.

The new round of reports also list about 530 small and late donors whose contributions in support of the same-sex marriage ban had not been publicly available until Monday. Proposition 8′s sponsors had sought permission to keep the identities of those contributors secret, arguing that the identifying information in previous campaign reports had led to donors being harassed.

A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the donors had to be disclosed for now, but said ProtectMarriage.com and the National Organization for Marriage could proceed with a lawsuit seeking to have the information removed from the secretary of state’s Web site.

Associated Press writer Jennifer Dobner in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

Landmark Jamaica Plain gay couple calls it quits

By Laurel J. Sweet
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 -
The Jamaica Plain lesbians whose passionate love led to the groundbreaking legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts have called it quits and filed for divorce, the Herald has learned.

But one-time international gay icons Hillary and Julie Goodridge, who share custody of their 12-year-old daughter, Annie, are less eager to be poster partners for gay divorce. Their case, filed Thursday in Suffolk Probate and Family Court, is impounded.

“I wish I could talk them into staying together, but I don’t see how. They had a great thing going. I love Julie, and I always will,” said Hillary’s mom, Ann Kiernan Smith, 82, of Florida, who believed the couple would outlast their critics.

“I guess because Julie and Hillary made headlines, people will pick on it,” Smith lamented of the breakup. “I don’t think sex has anything to do with it. If (marriage) is what Hillary wanted, I was proud of her.”

The Goodridges’ landmark lawsuit famously persuaded the state Supreme Judicial Court in 2003 to make Massachusetts the first state to recognize same-sex marriage. Last week, they became one of 168 couples to file for divorce in Suffolk County in January.

Neither Hillary Goodridge, 52, director of the Unitarian Universalist Funding Program, nor Julie Goodridge, 51, an investment adviser, responded to requests for comment yesterday. The couple wed in May 2004 after nearly two decades together.

A source close to both women said Hillary enjoyed the limelight of being a pioneering gay activist and was always interested in trying new things, while Julie was more reserved.

Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, a conservative public policy group that fought to repeal gay marriage, pounced on news of the Goodridges’ split.

“Divorce is a very painful issue, but I also can’t help but reflect on the pain this couple has caused on the commonwealth and the nation to redefine marriage. And now they’re getting divorced? It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Mineau said.

“Obviously, they don’t hold the institution in very high esteem.”

High-profile Boston divorce attorney Gerald Nissenbaum – who does not represent either woman – said just as when a sick child might keep a heterosexual union intact for a time, it’s possible that when the Goodridges’ shared goal to legalize same-sex marriage was accomplished, the steam went out of the relationship.

“Every day, every meal, it had to have consumed their lives,” said Nissenbaum, who is also a Herald columnist. “Any perceived dissatisfaction with each other was swept aside because they were a symbol.

“Whenever there’s a cause that keeps people together, once the cause is over, in my experience, there’s a high rate of dissolution of the relationship,” he said. “It’s sad, but it’s real. And what a surprise: Gay people are like everyone else.”

Next State to Usher in Gay Marriage May be Iowa

by Kilian Melloy
EDGE Contributor
Monday Nov 24, 2008

Only weeks after a ballot initiative put marriage rights for gay and lesbian families in California to a vote–with families in that state losing the right to marry being the outcome–families in the state of Iowa may see the way cleared for marriage parity.

A Nov. 21 story in the Iowa newspaper the Press-Citizen detailed how a ruling from that state’s Supreme Court is poised to determine whether or not marriage equality will be permitted there.

For anti-gay groups who have begun to characterize marriage parity as “anti-family,” a pro-marriage equality ruling may signal the start of a bruising campaign to amend the state’s bedrock law by pushing for a constitutional amendment similar to the one approved by California voters earlier this month.

For Iowa’s gay and lesbian families, however, such a ruling would constitute the start of a new day.

Said the director of communications for GLBT equality group One Iowa, Justin Uebelhor, “It could be a big step forward for Iowa and something Iowa could be proud of.”

Added Uebelhor, “It is important for Iowa to take the lead on this.”

The suit scheduled to be heard by the Iowa Supreme Court has been brought by six couples seeking legal recognition of their families, the article noted.

For opponents of marriage parity, however, there’s no such thing as a family headed by two people of the same gender.

The anti-gay group Iowa Family Policy Center’s Chuck Hurley referred to the rights being sought by the six couples as “anti-family.”

A Nov. 19 article in the Des Moines Register quoted Hurley as saying, “The people of Iowa have not consented to a radical change in the definition of marriage being imposed on them by the courts and anti-family groups.”

In 1998, the Register article recalled, Iowa state legislators adopted a state law, called the Defense of Marriage Act, that restricts marriage rights to couples consisting of one man and one woman.

Since that time, Vermont has provided for civil unions for same-gender couples in 2000, Massachusetts has granted full marriage equality in 2004, gay and lesbian families in California have won and then lost the right to marry, all during the course of 2008, and marriage parity has become part of state law in Connecticut as of last month.

The Press-Citizen article referred to the recent loss of marriage rights in California, citing Uebelhor as saying that although voters approved the rollback of rights for families in that state by a slim margin, it has had the result of energizing the conversation on marriage parity nationally.

A media relations director for GLBT equality group Lambda Legal, Lisa Hardaway, was quoted in the Press-Citizen article as saying, “I think time is on our side. I think progress is in our direction.

“The broader view is we have to take it in steps.”

Lawyer Dennis Johnson, who represents the couples along with Lambda Legal, said of the lower court decision that sent the case to the Supreme Court, “[T]his is not a close constitutional question.”

Based on the current version of the Iowa state constitution, Johnson assessed the case as having a good chance for success.

In Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut, the courts found that denying gay and lesbian families the right to marry was a violation of guarantees of equal protections set out in the state constitutions.

In thirty states, ballot initiatives to incorporate anti-gay language targeting the family rights of same-gender couples into state constitutions have been approved by voters.

Only one state, Arizona, saw voters reject such a ballot initiative, in 2006, because of fears that the broadly-worded amendment would impact the finances of mixed-gender couples cohabiting without being married.

A revised version of the amendment more specifically targeting gays and lesbians only was approved earlier this month by Arizona voters.

Voters in Florida also approved an anti-gay amendment to lock gays and lesbians out of marriage rights, and adoption rights were constitutionally denied to Arkansas couples of the same gender, as well as unmarried mixed-gender couples.

The Iowa Supreme Court will hear the case starting Dec. 9, the Register article said.

Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.

California to investigate Mormon aid to Prop 8

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California officials will investigate whether the Mormon church accurately described its role in a campaign to ban gay marriage in the state.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission said Monday that a complaint by a gay rights group merits further inquiry.

Executive director Roman Porter says the decision does not mean any wrongdoing has been determined.

Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate, accuses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of failing to report the value of work it did to support Proposition 8.

A representative from the Salt Lake City-based church could not be reached for comment

Gay-rights activists call for LDS help

By Aaron Falk

Deseret News

Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008

Gay-rights activists again called on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to support a body of proposed legislation aimed at securing rights for gay couples Monday.

So far, however, the church has not responded, Equality Utah’s executive director said.

“It is a little disappointing,” Mike Thompson said during a morning press conference in Salt Lake City. “But we understand … it will take some time. We continue to be optimistic and hopeful.”

“The church is not planning on commenting on civil unions for the time being,” spokeswoman Kim Farah said in a statement e-mailed to the Deseret News on Monday. 

Members of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays said Monday the activist group would be lending its support to the series of five proposed bills called the “Common Ground Initiative” and asked the LDS Church to do the same.

In supporting California’s ban on gay marriage, the LDS Church said in a written statement it “does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional right of churches.”